Koihime Box Set (1-2) Review

Reviewed by astroknight  on  5/20/2004

The Little Details

Running Time: 57 min. over 2 DVDs

Production Date: 2000

Director: None credited (at least none credited in English)

Cast: Animated and featuring the voices of Houston and Kobe Tai

The Short Story

Initial Expectations: I haven’t had the best of luck with NuTech’s anime releases. I’m not really sure what to expect here.

Initial Reaction: It’s by far the best anime release I’ve seen so far.

Who Should Watch It : Anybody who wants an adult story without needing a lot of sex

Who Should Avoid It: Anybody who wants dark and forced sex

The Technical Stuff

Audio /Video Quality: The technical aspects are okay. Most of the audio is nicely clear and well balanced, but there’s a few crackles in it that interfered with it for me. The video is much the same way. It has a primitive Pokemon feel, but gets a little shaky at times.

Music: The music is nicely balanced with the rest of the audio and keeps the Japanese style working very well.

Menus: The main menu is animated but goes on way too long before the selections come up. The chapter menu is pretty average and lets you choose a scene based on a small clip of each scene and a title for the scene.

The Feature

The Koihime Box Set includes Koihime 1: The Love and Koihime 2: The Princess. As I’ve reviewed both of these releases separately already, I’m going to cover a few basic things over the course of the series and leave the little details to the original reviews.

Koihime tells the story of Musashi, who comes to a remote rural village to visit his grandmother while on break from college. He doesn’t remember much of his time there when he was younger, especially Nami, Anzu, Suzaku, and Mayuki, four beautiful women who all seem to remember him only too well. They all want to be with him, and with their beauty and charm he doesn’t really want to resist any of them. As time goes by he learns more about them, as well as why he can’t remember what happened before.

The plot is all very nicely done. Although it doesn’t even last an hour, there’s some nice development throughout the movie. The girls all have their own personality, and it adds a lot to the overall story. Musashi also has his own personality, and the anime styles really play well to add to it. Although there’s sex here, the plot really drives things and does a fantastic job of it.

That isn’t to say there isn’t sex. There’s two scenes in each part, both of which are fairly short. Unlike most hentai, the sex here is consensual, which really works in the story’s favor. This is a love story, and without caring sex it wouldn’t have had nearly the power it does. There were a few uncomfortable moments, but I think they were mostly due to my being a westerner who isn’t completely familiar with the Japanese culture. I do know enough to recognize them, but they might get in the way of others.

Koihime is an excellent feature. It has some very nice soul to it as well as nice heat. It tells a complete story that comes to an excellent conclusion at the end, and even makes it an excellent love story.

The only faults I had with it were due to NuTech’s decision to see how much money they could milk out of the consumer. I can honestly say that Koihime would have scored at least a half point higher, if not a full point, if NuTech would have released this on one DVD rather than two. I’m more than willing to a little more for something decent, and much of the reason for that is getting ripped off a few times in the past. NuTech’s job on their anime DVDs makes it perfectly clear that they really don’t care what the customer wants as long as they have a chance of getting every last nickle out of them. I really hope that Central Park or one of the other reputable adult companies out there who are known for putting a little care into their DVDs gets a hold of Koihime. It definitely deserves more than what NuTech will give it.

The Extra Stuff

The extras are pretty similar on the two DVDs. Three photo galleries are included on each disc. The galleries for Houston and Kobe Tai lasts about two minutes with about six seconds per good looking full screen photo while the gallery for the feature only lasts about a minute on the first DVD and a minute and a half on the second DVD. . There’s also a multitude of trailers and internet information.

The Down -n- Dirty Sex Stuff

Themes: Straight, cream pies, and titty fucking

Raincoat Factor: Low

Condom Usage: None needed

The Bottom Line:

Currently, Koihime 1&2 can be found online for between about $15 and $40 with many stores offering it for around $25. Although I think everybody at NuTech should have their balls chopped off for the job they’re doing on their anime DVDs, at the low end I can’t help but recommend this one. The story is beautiful and very well done. The technical aspects are a bit above average and there isn’t much for extras, but this one’s still worth checking out.

Note to NuTech Digital: There’s absolutely no reason this couldn’t have been released on a single DVD other than greed.

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

Other reviews by Astroknight