What happens when people change bodies and find themselves unable to control their desires?
What They Say
What is the ultimate sexual experience? Kenichi and his classmates, Konomi, Miho, and Hikaru are about to find out. When a magic energy field forms around their school, they find themselves unable to leave. Not only that, but the magic lets them feel each other’s sexual pleasure and switch bodies upon orgasm! What will happen when Kenichi and all the girls are able to feel sex from both sides of the equation at the same time?
The Review:
Audio:
The audio presentation for this release brings us the original Japanese language track in stereo along with the English dub, both of which are encoded at 192kbps. The episodes are done in a stereo mix but since it’s almost all dialogue really outside of the minor incidental music, it feels very much like a center channel based mix. Dialogue and moaning is clean and clear throughout and we had no troubles with dropouts or distortions during regular playback.
Video:
Originally released to video in 2003, the transfer for this two episode OVA series looks quite strong here but isn’t problem free. As with most hentai releases, the color palette used is generally fairly striking in its bold colors and large sections that stand out. This is no different here and the characters make out great with vibrant hair and stand-out colors in their clothing. There’s a level of cross coloration to the show that comes across on both of our setups as a lot of movement around the edges of the characters hair. We aren’t getting the actual rainbow colors showing up though due to the suppression that’s involved in both the player and our set, but the liveliness of the hair is quite evident. Other than that, this looks really good and is definitely a pleasing transfer visually.
Packaging:
The cover artwork is just gorgeous for this release. With a triptych image that has a different combination of characters in each one with them all almost naked except for some careful placement of hands and underwear, the logo goes across this section and makes it all stand out even more. There is just something really alluring and erotic about this cover with its colors, character designs and layout. The back cover keeps things soft with a white and yellowish backdrop that showcases some character art of the various women in the show as well as some shots from the animation itself. The summary covers the premise fairly well and the rest of the cover is rounded out by the warnings and technical grid information. As is seemingly standard now on Kitty releases, there is no insert with this release. Considering there isn’t much use for them beyond listing chapter stops, it’s not something we’re missing and it probably saves the company a couple of pennies in print but some time in labor as well.
Menu:
The main menu is a very basic setup that has a static image of two of the girls just in headshot form with a second version of them ghosted behind them while the logo takes up most of the rest of the screen. A bit of music plays along to this but even for a static image menu this one just looks very plain and without much to it. Access times are nice and fast and everything is very easy to navigate since there’s hardly anything here other than show. The disc also correctly read our players’ language presets when it started up.
Extras:
None.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
As with most forms of storytelling, there aren’t really any original stories left to tell but rather just different ways to tell the basic stories and ideas. With hentai, there are a number of basic plots that are followed and it’s rare to get something that steps outside of that box. With Body Transfer, the story here isn’t original but it’s far from common in the field so that when you watch it, it’s like a breath of fresh air and plays with a concept that I can’t recall seeing anything of in the last couple of years. And that’s something that doesn’t happen often.
The show starts off simply enough with a rundown of a group of friends and friends of friends as well as a teacher that all go to the same school. They’re all women except for Kenichi, the sole young stud that several of the girls have strong feelings for. Like any group, there’s a dynamic that has some of the girls not liking others and Kenichi trying to keep the peace among all of them. Several of them belong to the archaeological group that meets after school and that day they’re getting ready to check out a new arrival that came in the form of a mirrored piece that looks to be made of gold. While everyone is on the school grounds, the world suddenly goes wonky and the entire school is seemingly transported to another dimension where warped space is all around and the few people that were in the school are trapped there.
Now normally this would be bad enough, but for Kenichi it gets even weirder when he realizes that he’s not in his own body but his mind is inside the body of friend and classmate Yoshimi, an attractive young redhead. When this concept is done in most other mediums, it doesn’t go too far but with hentai it goes all the way. Kenichi has to deal with a sudden urge to go to the bathroom and then has a strong desire to check himself out from there, which leads him to self-exploration of his new body and just how amazing it is to be a woman. The mental dialogue that goes along with his exploration is amusing and definitely different than what you get in a lot of other shows.
As it turns out, most of the other girls in the building have also changed into other peoples bodies and are finding themselves filled with lust and desire, mostly for Kenichi since he’s the only guy around, but sometimes the other women will do. The only one seemingly unaffected is the bespectacled girl Sakajou who has learned the secret of the artifact and is using it so that she can finally have Kenichi for herself. She’s always longed for him but felt second place to his childhood friend of Miho who just can’t admit her feelings for him. So Sakajou uses this as an opportunity to switch a few bodies around and have her way with Kenichi and prove to him that she’s really the right one for him… well, until this alternate dimension simply crashes in on itself and disappears.
The only downside to this series in my mind is that it’s over too fast, though there does seem to be room for more to happen. Within the two episodes we do get a conclusion and while it’s not the best it’s the most natural evolution for what they go through. Like many other Green Bunny shows, the character designs here are gorgeous and the animation lets them keep up a very good looking level during all the action sequences. Typically this company releases some of my favorite shows so I wasn’t surprised to find something creative like this coming from them. Thankfully the creativity is backed up by the great character designs and very erotic sex scenes that really work well. There are several characters that aren’t involved at all that make me hope for more episodes as that would also help to flesh out the cast a bit more since some of them go by too fast and it can be a bit chaotic keeping up with the names at first.
In Summary:
In a lot of mainstream shows that do deal with the subject, they never go far enough for obvious reasons of what it’s really going to be like if a man ended up inside a woman’s body or vice versa. Body Transfer takes that to the right hentai extreme and just has fun with it while making sure that you’re kept on your toes as the women are body-hopping as well. While not original, it’s very well executed and the sex scenes are great with wonderful character designs and some very erotic imagery.
Features
Japanese 2.0 Language, English 2.0 Language, English Subtitles
Content Grade: B+
Audio Grade: B+
Video Grade: B+
Packaging Grade: B+
Menu Grade: C+
Extras Grade: N/A
Released By: Kitty Media
Release Date: December 14th, 2004
MSRP: $29.98
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.
