Sometimes paying the bills means going the extra distance at the job.
What They Say:
At Date General Hospital, the nurses don’t just make you feel better – they make you feel pleasure beyond anything you’ve ever imagined. Dr. Date, the hospital’s director, is personally in charge of this hand-picked team of “special nurses,” whom he trains in every seductive and sexual “therapy” technique. Saeko is the vivacious veteran, Minako is the hot and busty new recruit, and Sayaka is the sweet and innocent virgin. Combined with his homemade stamina drugs, these ladies can keep going, and going…
But sometimes his nurses are reluctant to delve into the murkier side of the profession. That’s when Dr. Date has to take control… and his hardcore techniques will ensure that they’re ready and willing to explore every part of a patient’s body!
The Review:
Audio:
The audio presentation for this release is about as expected as we get the original Japanese language in stereo, encoded at 192kbps, while the English language track is done in the same format. Like most of the Vanilla Series releases, it has a pretty standard stereo mix that’s mostly just center channel based with its dialogue. The music and occasional sound effects use the stereo channels well enough but it’s not a standout piece nor is it expected to be. Dialogue is clean and clear throughout though and we had no problems with dropouts or distortions during regular playback.
Video:
Originally released in 2003, the two episode OVA series is presented in its original full frame aspect ratio. The transfer for the series looks really nice here with a lot of very bold and vibrant colors that are solid and don’t exhibit any cross coloration or aliasing along the line work. The numerous dark areas inside the hospital maintain a solid feel as well and don’t shift to lighter shades of gray or exhibit gradient issues. There’s a nice smoothness to the animation here that’s well captured and the transfer is pretty much clean and problem free.
Packaging:
The front cover is really quite tame with a close-up shot of Sayaka in her pink nurses uniform holding her wrists over her head where you can see the bandages being used as bondage ropes. It’s a fairly bland character design but it’s effective and cute enough in general to work here but it’s surprisingly tame for an adult release. The back cover makes up for this with numerous shots of bare breasted women strewn across the top and along the right that give you a good idea of what’s really inside.
Menu:
The main menu is designed in a cute way with the image of the hospital in the background while a shot of one of the nurses hiking her skirt up is in the foreground. Where you would normally see her panties is instead a block of clips plying from the show with some fast paced music playing along. Selections are lined along the left side and navigation is simple and effective and easy to maneuver around. The disc did not read our players’ language presets properly though and defaulted to English language with sign/song subtitles.
Extras:
The extras are fairly standard material here for a Vanilla Series release with a brief slideshow of artwork from the release as well as a brief clip of dub outtakes, some of which are amusing and a couple that fall kind of flat.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Hardcore Hospital is the latest entry in the nurses genre and it plays pretty much by the standard handbook of what kind of show it should be. We’re introduced to the Date Hospital’s director, a fairly young man who has something of a problem with his father about the hospital and what should be done and hates being called the director. You have an experienced nurse and a couple of new nurses that have joined recently. And amidst all of this, you have patients that need some extra care.
Each of the episodes focuses on one nurse in particular but also has plenty of other characters involved. The opening episode deals with the arrival of the newest nurse, Sayaka. She’s an attractive girl whose ready to do her best and is ready to learn from the head nurse, Saeko. Saeko’s someone we see early on as someone who is already enrolled in the director’s Special Nurse program. What this program involves is providing extra care for patients that really need it, namely in the form of sex. Saeko’s not keen on this but for whatever her reasons she goes along with it and we get the results from a rather creepy first scene with a rather large balding older man.
Sayaka’s definitely caught the director’s eye and luck and coincidence comes into play when Sayaka’s new boyfriend, a childhood friend that had confessed to her just four days prior, ends up in the hospital after a car accident. The director informs her that he’s going to have to go to the general hospital and have his leg amputated, but if he stays at this hospital he may be able to save him. Naturally, she promises to do anything and actually signs a paper about becoming a special nurse, which he then reveals to be exactly what you expect, a sexual slave to the director and the patients. Even worse for Sayaka is that she’s a virgin so everything is a shock to her and she cries out even more.
As he begins to train her, the second episode brings in another new nurse to work under Saeko named Minako. She’s a divorced and slightly older more traditional looking woman with noticeably larger breasts who used to work in another hospital but took a few years off. But now she’s back and happy to be working again, though in her brief introduction to the director and other nurses her uniform has a fashion mishap and it pops open on it, exposing just how big her breasts really are. So it’s little surprise that this good caring nurse ends up under the view of the director and he starts in on his plans to bring her into the special nurse program. The surprise is that she’s really into it after a brief bit of denial and the next thing you know it’s sex, sex and more sex.
And that really does sum up the show. While there is plot an story elements along the way, it really is just loosely connected in order to get to the next scene. Hardcore Hospital is indeed just that, a pretty much hardcore show that’s much more focused on presenting numerous sex scenes with its nurses as much as possible. There are plenty of shows that come out with one or maybe two scenes per episode but this one just hits it nicely with several sex scenes. The downside for me is in the second episode where they head down the enema route for one scene and it just turns me away completely. The upside though is the arrival of Minako as she’s definitely an attractive character. The designs for the characters overall is quite good and Saeko was one that I had liked from the minute I saw her (yes, yes, green hair) and when Minako shows up she brings some good fun to the show with her enthusiasm. The animation is pretty decent, a slight bit above average I’d say, without much in the way of repetition or off-model moments.
In Summary:
Hardcore Hospital is a fun little romp that doesn’t deviate from what a lot of shows similar to it is like but it does it well even though it hits the scatological material for one scene. The character designs are attractive, the plot is minimal but enough to string together the scenes and the animation is pretty good throughout it. The show is average in a lot of ways but the character designs helped this one rise up a bit more than usual as does the fact that it is the complete series with the two episodes that are here. While there are a lot of nurse shows out there, this is one that I’d easily recommend overall if you’re just looking for sex and not story.
Features:
Japanese 2.0 Language, English 2.0 Language, English Subtitles, Art Gallery
Content Grade: B-
Audio Grade: B+
Video Grade: B+
Packaging Grade: B
Menu Grade: B
Extras Grade: C+
Released By: Critical Mass Video
Release Date: March 5th, 2013
MSRP: $14.99
Running Time: 60 Minutes
Video Encoding: 480i/p MPEG-2
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 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.
