Any attempt of taking this title even the slightest bit seriously went out the window when you see how big their knockers are.
What They Say
John’s family is landed nobility; a house of tradition that has ruled for as long as the hills have stood. It is time for John’s grandfather to pass on his title, but John’s father is a disgraceful womanizer. The title is offered directly to John, but only upon his marriage. Overnight, every woman in the duchy is trying to get into John’s bed.
Although he isn’t afraid to sample what the nobility has to offer, his heart is already taken. He loves one of his father’s previous wives, Silvia. She has hills and valleys so vast that she puts the entire duchy to shame.
The Review:
Audio:
The audio presentation for this release is fairly standard as we get the original Japanese language track and English language track, both of which are in stereo and encoded at 192kbps. The mix for both are basic stereo mixes which sound decent but unexceptional. The English track diverges considerably from the Japanese track so there’s a lot of dialogue in it that isn’t in the Japanese track. There’s little in terms of real directionality across the forward soundstage but there aren’t any actual problems with either language track. We had no issues with dropouts or distortions during regular playback.
Video:
Originally released in 2005, the transfer for this series is presented in its original full frame aspect ratio. The source material for the show is in good condition and while some of the character animation looks rather flat at times, it’s got a lot of vibrant colors to it and they maintain a very good feel. Some of the blacks tend to shift to grey and get a bit fuzzy but it’s not that often that it happens. The animation in general for the show is decent, better than some of the budget titles out there, but it’s not an example of what some of the better shows look like. The transfer captures rather well what the end result is both in detail and clarity.
Menu:
The menu uses the artwork from the cover of Sylvia in a state of partial undress as the hands reach in to grab her with a lot of soft colors surrounding it as a bit of the instrumental music plays along. The look and design of it is okay in a sense but it doesn’t provide for an appealing piece of artwork. Access time are nice and fast and the layout is easy to navigate for what little is here and it also does correctly read our players’ language presets.
Extras:
None.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Duchess of Busty Mounds is one of the many titles from Kitty Media where even if they hadn’t overdid the dub it wouldn’t be a title that you could take all that seriously. In conjunction with the goosed up dub however, it moves even further into comedy and eye rolling territory.
The show takes place in a bit more of a classical time with puffy shirts, mansions and attractive young women in very expensive pretty dresses. The show revolves around a young man named Jean who has gone off to his schooling but ends up returning home upon learning of his fathers death. His mother had committed suicide years ago as she couldn’t handle the way her wealthy husband was screwing around. He’d remarried though and Jean is first introduced to her just before the funeral. The meeting was a shock though as she’s just a more blonde version of his own mother, right down to her massive funbags.
Jean’s intent on just helping her out for a little bit at the house but things change dramatically for them as his grandfather was apparently the only one in the will that was named so Sylvia and Jean get nothing. Everything has been liquidated but his grandfather is considerate to an extent and has brought both of them to live at his mansion. Presumably he’s the one paying for Jean’s schooling otherwise you’d imagine Jean would flee back right away to get as far as possible from these openly evil people. The woman of the house, Saibane, shows she has no love for Sylvia or Jean and that they’re a nuisance right from the start. Of course, the two young women of the house have their eye on Jean right away and use their position to take advantage of him while humiliating Sylvia as much as possible.
In its Japanese subtitled form, it’s a fairly average script and there’s nothing all that out of the ordinary that’s going on. In its English form though, considerable liberties are taken, such as Jean being referred to constantly as fuckface, plenty of swearing and other dirty talk. There are a lot of quiet moments such as the funeral or just moments walking in the woods where there’s no Japanese dialogue but numerous lines added to the English. A lot of lines are rewritten wholesale as well for no obvious reason other than they thought it flowed better with the story they wanted to dialogue. A lot of it is just gutter humor attempts, down to the basic crude dick and fart jokes you’d expect from teens and the like. I can imagine the scripting sessions for this taking place between a couple of guys in a bar to see who can come up with some of the most “amusing” lines and using the winners.
Of course, where the show will initially draw the most attention is from the huge breasts used in the character designs. What’s scary is that there are people that are either naturally like this or they get surgery to get like that so it’s within the realm of reality. But as entertainment, I and most adult anime fans I know tend to shy away from shows like this just because of how comical the entire thing looks. It’s even worse when you get older and really know a lot of women and understand the realities of even normal sized large breasts and the issues they cause. That’s not to be a downer, but it’s one of the things where reality ends up intruding on the fantasy. Thankfully, not all the women are as massive as Sylvia is in this and there are a few decent scenes with the women who live in the main mansion that doesnt’t produce the same comedy but they’re impacted by the really bad dialogue.
In Summary:
Duchess of Busty Mounds, from its title to its massive funbags, is a title that’s just intended to elicit humor, especially if you’re watching it in English. The Japanese side tries to go for the more serious angle but even there it’s a difficult road to go. The show doesn’t have any lofty goals or a real tale to tell other than putting a pair of strangers into a situation where they’re alternately drawn to each other but unable to go through with it unless they cave into their base desires, all while being tormented by those of the main house who see them as little more than toys they can use at their leisure. This is the kind of title you watch with friends at a late night party in order to get hilariously bad new sex phrases to use against each other as in-jokes.
Features
Japanese 2.0 Language, English 2.0 Language, English Subtitles
Content Grade: C-
Audio Grade: B+
Video Grade: B+
Menu Grade: B
Extras Grade: N/A
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Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Sony PlayStation3 Blu-ray player via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.