Creative Staff
Story & Art: Takayoshi Sano
Translation: Steven LeCroy
What They Say
Young actresses, beautiful musicians, and busty models. What would you do if you found yourself living under the same roof of these up and coming rising stars of the entertainment world? Young, talented, and the type of girls you could only dream of, would you be able to keep your hands off them?
Enter Idolhouse! Kazutora Mayama, an ex-yakuza and the man once hailed as the Fighting Tiger, accepts the job of becoming a live-in superintendent to these young idols. Although, the job isn’t as easy as it seems! From dealing with house repairs, panty thieves, blackmail, and protecting these young ladies, Kazutora Mayama has his work cut out for him.
The Review! (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Contains nudity and adult situations
Technical:
There are a lot of girls in this book, but three of the more central characters are depicted on the front and back of this book’s cover. But don’t be fooled, there aren’t any maid scenes in Idol House #1, but plenty of other things to love, like the art. This manga-ka is a great artist, especially considering this is an ero title. This art could easily appear in any seinen title that I read. The characters are all very proportional, backgrounds are detailed, and SD for comedic scenes is kept to a minimum and works perfectly when needed. The art is also very realistic with a good variety in girls body types and hair, but nothing out of proportion like huge oppai (not that that is bad!). All in all, just a real enjoy to read considering many other eromanga artists might be getting their start in manga and their art still needs some time to develop.
The adaptation reads very well and I like that the manga-ka kept the SFX for sex scenes toned down and not all over the place. Through much of the book the English SFX translations are smaller and alongside the original Japanese SFX.
Content:
Idolhouse #1 starts out with an interesting tough-guy vibe with yakuza characters and an art style more common to seinen titles. The protagonist, Kazutora or Tora, is a mob muscle-man that is boning his favorite hooker one last time before he goes straight and leaves crime. The sex scene is short, but gives the reader a good feeling for the kind of guy Tora is going to be in this story. But even then, Tora has plenty of surprises about himself that keeps the reader on their toes as he does things outside of his character. In other words, he has good depth and not just a two dimensional dude with a dick like the standard eromanga male.
Now that Tora has quit being a gangster, he needs honest work but that can be hard to find with his skillset. What he does manage to find is being the superintendent at a rundown apartment building full of Japanese Idol wannabe’s. The rent is super cheap and helps the young girls get by until they make it big and can move out on their own.
At this point, I thought this story would degenerate into a story about a gangster screwing all the women that are living under his watchful eye. Luckily, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Tora may be a ex-yakuza, but he is an honorable man and does his best to help the girls under his roof. Whether that be fixing their leaking toilet, giving them pep talks about sticking with tough jobs, getting a girl out a tough spot with their creepy manager, or screwing his favorite prostitute, Tora is kind of a man’s man.
This is the aspect that I really like about Idolhouse #1, it is a story about an ex-gangster running an apartment building full of young girls with comedic scenes and serious scenes, and like real life, sex scenes along the way. Idolhouse #1 actually reminds me a lot of a 1980’s R-rated crime movie more than a porno. The sex in Idolhouse doesn’t drive the story but is a part of the story, but there is still a decent variety with couple sex, lesbian sex with an awesome toy (my favorite scene), and some group sex.
In Summary:
This may be the highest overall grades I’ve given to any eromanga title, and probably belongs in my top 5 eromanga of all time. Yeah, huge praise for a hentai book that isn’t all about the sex. Idol House #1 has great art, a good story, good packaging, and a great adaptation. I love eromanga that are a running story more than the anthology books. Despite being a book focused on one story, this book could have easily gone down the wrong road by having Tora enter the house full of upcoming idols and just have is way with as many of them as possible. While, I can’t say I wouldn’t have enjoyed that for the pure sake of the sex, it just wouldn’t have made a great story. Instead, Idol House #1 has the perfect balance of storytelling and sex that move the story forward and not just for the sake of drawing naked chicks.
Now, to be fair, my one complaint about this book is the censoring. This title has the ‘white-out’ style of censoring, which is a huge bummer. But honestly, the story was so much fun that I’ll be right there to pick up the next volume if there are more in this series. And while the sex is a part of the story and not the focus, there is still some hot scenarios in this book. Heck, I want to see anything else this manga-ka has done! So I highly recommend this title to anyone, not just hentai fans.
On my Eromanga Overall Hotness Scale (1 to 5):
1:Raised Eyebrow
2:Quickened Pulse
3:Pitched Tent
4:Orgasmic!
5:G-spot Rocker!!
I give Idolhouse #1 a 3:Pitched Tent
Content Grade: A-
Art Grade: A-
Packaging Grade: A-
Text/Translation Grade: A
Age Rating: Adult 18+ Only
Released By: Project-H
Release Date: July 1st, 2013
MSRP: $17.95
