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Cool Devices
One of the highest-selling hentai titles of
all time, Cool Devices gets off to a particularly promising
start: its title sequence consists of a series of scantily-clad animated
hotties moaning and gyrating as a series of tasteful neon slogans such
as ‘put your frankfurter in my honey pot’, ‘I’m ready for your prick’
and the rather more direct ‘let’s fist fuck’ are displayed.
Things hardly get less libidinous from
there. The opening sequence consists of a woman being penetrated by a
snake, and in the next a rubber-clad submissive wanders into a bar
wearing an outfit that raises eyebrows, to say the least. Over the
course of this two-parter’s 53-minute runtime several bondage themed
tales are interwoven, and I must say it’s all done rather well. Plenty
of attention has been given to backgrounds and character designs (one
memorable scene in which young women are used as furniture is
particularly inventive), the costumes are out of this world, the
couplings energetic: despite the abundance of pseudonyms in the credits
this is actually an intense and highly competent study of the more
extreme side of human sexuality. Or possibly just an excuse to drench a
series of panting nubile vixens in come, but at any rate it works. On
both levels.
The censorship is annoying – male genitalia
in the first episode glow like light sabres and the semen is practically
phosphorescent – but the whole spectacle is so wondrously over the top
that it hardly matters. Plus the series was banned outright in Canada,
so we should count ourselves lucky it escaped the attentions of the
usually over-rigorous Australian customs. If the Marquis de Sade were
transported to 21st century Japan and put in charge of an
animation studio, Cool Devices is what would result. Highly
recommended for anime fans who like their heroines bound and gagged and
their popshots elephantine.
Audio & Video
The English and Japanese two-channel dubs
are not without their faults: there is a slight lag in the audio, the
soundtrack is a mindless electronic affair and the dialogue drops out on
a least two occasions, though the English subtitles are error-free,
which is something of a rarity for the genre. Picture quality is quite
good, if a little soft, colours are vibrant on the whole the series is
extremely visually arresting.
Special Features
A teaser trailer for Cool Devices 2,
which looks to take the debauches to the next level, and a trailer for
Girl Next Door. The promised art gallery is nowhere to be found;
nor, incidentally, are two sequences touted on the back cover, one in
which a pair of costumed Sapphics are ‘punished for their forbidden
passions,’ and another which involves a dalliance between two randy high
school students. |
