As more slaves are added, the intensity picks up.
What They Say:
The Night Shift Nurses are back and naughtier than ever in this raunchily revealing adventure! On a forbidden hospital ward, the head doctor performs madly erotic experiments, stripping the nursing staff of their uniforms, inhibitions and self-control! Also known as ”Yakin Byoto.”
The Review:
Audio:
The audio presentation for this relase brings us the original Japanese language track and the previously created English language tracks in stereo encoded at 192kbps. Like most adult shows, it features a pretty basic sound stereo mix with little in the way of directionality across the forward soundstage. There’s a very simple full sound to its design that works well and is representative of the time it was made and the intent, but it’s not one that really wows in any way though it does serve the material well. We didn’t have any problems with dropouts or distortions during regular playback.
Video:
Originally released in 2001, the transfer for this OVA series is presented in its original full frame aspect ratio. This volume contains the fourth and fifth OVAs and is identical to what Anime 18 put out back in 2003 as it’s a repressing under a new label. This is a frustrating looking transfer, because for a good percentage of the time, it looks great, with good looking clean animation. What causes the trouble is when the camera pans, the aliasing really kicks in and the cross coloration gets very strong. These scenes are very shifty looking and just look bad in general. Outside of there, there are many really good looking scenes that stand out strongly, particularly the ones in the exam rooms where the animation looks really fluid and the colors vibrant and solid. It’s such a mixed bag from the source materials though.
Packaging:
Similar to the previous installment in this series, dark and voyeuristic is what the cover to this edition of Night Shift Nurses looks like. The nurse this time around looks just as innocent as so many other ones do as she’s leaning over slightly to reveal quite the delicate and intricate set of undergarments underneath that simple pink uniform. With her outdoors we get a lot of good green and blues here that play well to contrast it while having the edge of darkness around all of it. The new logo isn’t all that appealing but it’s decently done since it doesn’t detract from the allure of the actual artwork of the lovely nurse herself. The back cover uses some familiar elements seen on previous releases with a pair of the nurses showing up along the bottom in their uniforms while a large shot of Ako mostly undressed takes up a lot of space on the right. The summary is very brief overall but it’s cutely done on a small clipboard which also lists the discs extras. No show related inserts are included nor is there a reversible cover.
Menu:
This disc features the usual kind of menu we see on Anime 18 discs from this time period, with some animation from the show playing. It’s a simple but effective layout with the set of menu selections quick to load and easy to navigate. I do dislike one of the “Features” from then where if you didn’t make a selection in the first minute, the disc autostarts the show – and doesn’t read the players’ language presets in doing so as it just jumps into English. And with a number of unskippable warnings at the beginning, you’re trapped for a bit until you can regain control of the disc. I’m very glad this practice is for the most part long dead and gone.
Extras:
There’s only a few extras included here with the sketch and artwork gallery and the storyboards feature which we’ve seen on a number of Anime 18 releases. The notable extra here is the deleted scenes from the first episodes which were originally excised at one point but eventually brought out, even if not back where they belong.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
When this show was originally released in the US, Anime 18 played it on the cautious side and cut out a few scenes that they felt might have a problem with certain local laws. That raised the ire of fans who didn’t want their hentai cut. Bowing to the pressure, or just being plain sadistic, the company decided to make a fix when it came to the follow-up volume, this one, by ensuring that this release completely uncut. The result is that I know how the ability to say, “I’ve seen worse” when shown anything disgusting. And that’s how I felt for a couple of years after seeing this.
The story continues from the last volume, and we have the fine Dr. Hirasaka continuing his work in the Special Ward, far away from prying eyes. He’s currently checking out some of the new nurse help and ends up finding one of them up a tree while out taking his lunch break. While getting a nice peek at her undies, she ends up falling out of the tree and onto him. He’s surprised and plays the bothered person well, but she just insults him and calls him a pervert and heads off, not believing he’s actually a doctor.
The situation changes later on as he finds out that her sister is actually a patient in the cardiac unit, and his mind begins to turn as he can now use this to bring her under his control. He does this fairly quickly by getting her attention saying he may be able to help her sister, and then moves to dominating her mentally and humiliating her physically. She fights against all of it for some time, until she finds out that he knows the two sisters aren’t related. The revelation would likely kill her sister, so she finds herself falling under his grasp. And the photo’s don’t hurt either.
For the duration of the show, and with the addition of another girl later on that he’s dominated in the past, Remi finds herself going into worlds she never imagined. Hell, things I never imagined. Or wish I saw. There is a hefty amount of scatological scenes throughout. There are a lot of points during which I simply cringed and shook my head. But again and again, it gets taken so far (but still within reality) that you can’t help but laughing. It’s disturbing and hilarious at the same time. Or at least, I’ll plead that I’m using humor as a defense.
One of the defining elements of this show, one that was brought up in numerous places ever since whenever I talk about hentai at public events, is how the egg scene within the show traumatized me. It was certainly a scene that you didn’t expect when it first came up (or rather, out) and it left an impression. Viewing it again nearly seven years later, it obviously comes across as pretty tame. What I found this time around was that the scatalogical material is still the really offensive part here as it plays fast and loose with all manner of bodily excrement, whether it’s flying around in an almost explosive manner or if it’s being “tastefully” lapped up with someone’s tongue. The eggs don’t bother me anywhere near as much but this material still causes something of a gag reflex.
In Summary:
After revisiting the first volume of the series again recently and once again finding it to be surprisingly quaint, the second set of episodes is a bit less so as the nasty material really starts in earnest here. It goes with some quirky and goofy things, such as the infamous eggs, but the nastiest stuff comes with the scat that’s employed here. There’s a good arc across these two episodes with the bookend material and that gives it a bit of an edge as well, but Night Shift Nurses in these episodes still feel relatively tame compared to what’s followed in its footsteps over the next decade. I’m actually enjoying watching these again, amused that I find myself turning away at several of the same scenes, but generally laughing at a lot of it now while admiring the character designs and overall animation quality.
Features:
Japanese 2.0 Language, English 2.0 Language, English Subtitles
Content Grade: B
Audio Grade: B+
Video Grade: B
Packaging Grade: A-
Menu Grade: B-
Extras Grade: C+
Released By: Critical Mass Video
Release Date: March 3rd, 2015
MSRP: $14.99
Running Time: 60 Minutes
Video Encoding: 480i/p MPEG-2
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
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.
