EL 1 (NuTech) Review

Reviewed by astroknight  on  6/13/2005

The Little Details

Running Time: 27 min.

Production Date: 2000

Director: None given

Cast: Animated with voices by Shelbee Myne and Lola

The Short Story

Initial Expectations: I’ve had very mixed results with NuTech’s anime features. For some reason I have hopes for this one.

Initial Reaction: What the hell was that?

Who Should Watch It : Anybody wanting a little sex and a lot of confusion

Who Should Avoid It: Anybody wanting people who look like they enjoy sex or a well done across the boards adult cartoon.

The Technical Stuff

Audio /Video Quality: The audio and video both appear very good for what the source is like. The animation isn’t that developed, think Pokemon, but there isn’t any noticeable pixelation or remnants to hold it back further.

Music: The music is nicely balanced with the rest of the audio and changes to fit each scene in the movie, whether it’s sexual or non-sexual.

Disc Problems: According to the movie side of the DVD there’s supposed to be trailers on the B-side of the DVD, but nothing’s there.

Menus: The main menu is extremely long, but not bad. The chapter menu lets you choose a scene based on a small clip of each scene and a title for the scene.

The Feature

After nuclear war breaks out over an argument about the environmental pollution issue in 2038, the few humans who survive build a city of the future in hopes of peace and survival. El is one of the leading snipers, part of the police force of the future, who’s charged with being a bodyguard for Parsley, a pop star she saves from being gang raped. Their main enemy is the black widows, who are led by the mysterious Mr. Gimmick who’s main aim seems to be disruption things as much as possible.

Things start out with pop star Reiko getting banged from behind and fucked in mid-air before the guy pops in her pussy. Later Netsuke is tortured sexually in a variety of ways, such as with electricity, before her torturers fuck her.

The sex here didn’t do anything for me. The first scene was completely focused on close-ups and moved around so much that it never caught my interest. The second scene was anything but my cup of tea, and only made me want to find my remote. This is nothing new for anime, but unlike a lot of it the genitalia of both sexes are clearly shown and there’s even pop shots! Like many hentai features, the sex scenes are also extremely short, and I don’t think twenty percent of the movie is sex.

I’m not really sure what to think of El 1. It seems to have some decent ideas, but in the roughly twenty five minutes (there’s over two minutes of credits), there’s barely any time to keep things straight. It seems to throw ideas at the wall to see what sticks, and crams so much in that it’s convoluted and hard to follow. There isn’t a lot of sex, and most of that is a girl being raped and tortured. If this was an hour long feature it might have worked, but here it comes off as a few decent ideas in the middle of a mess. In the end, El 1 is confusing, barely has any sex and what there is of that is mostly disgusting, and doesn’t even last a half hour. I’m not impressed.

The Extra Stuff

A photo gallery is included for Shelbee, Lola, and the feature itself. Each gallery for the girls lasts about two minutes and a quarter with six seconds per nice looking full screen photo, while the feature gallery lasts about a minute and a half. There’s also weblinks.

The Down -n- Dirty Sex Stuff

Themes: Anime, peeing, torture, rape, group, and lesbian (very light)

Raincoat Factor: Low

Condom Usage: None needed

The Bottom Line:

Currently, the El DVDs can be found online for between $11 and $22 with most stores offering them for around $15. Rent this one before you even consider buying it! There isn’t much sex, the feature is confusing, and it looks like NuTech doesn’t have a quality control department because the DVD itself claims to have extras you can’t get it. At least the technical aspects are nicely done.

Note to NuTech: This might have been a passable DVD if you would have cared enough to include the entire series on a DVD rather than just half which doesn’t make much sense and hired somebody to check the DVDs before sending them out.

If you have any questions or comments, please e-mail me .

Other reviews by Astroknight