A violent and engrossing tale of tattoos, sex, and ogres. Visually and in terms of story, this is one of the better hentai series out there.
What They Say:
There is an ancient legend that says if a tattoo is drawn to perfection, it will come to life. Reiko Kure is a female detective with a strange massacre on her hands. Some kind of huge demon savagely murdered thirteen members of the mafia, and only the quiet Ema Nozomi was left at the scene. Ema is taken into protective custody. However, every man left with her is killed, and every woman left with her is raped. There are no clues, except the innocent Ema’s strange tattoo, perfectly depicting a demon. Reiko is drawn into this strange case, taking Ema under her protection and into her heart.
The Review:
Audio:
The audio presentation for this release brings us the original Japanese language track in stereo along with the English language dub, both of which are encoded at 192kbps. The episodes feature a good stereo mix which has a few moments of minor directionality but otherwise is the kind of show that just fills the entire forward soundstage. It’s a fairly straightforward track overall when you get down to it and the dialogue is clean and clear throughout with no distortions or dropouts during regular playback.
Video:
Originally released beginning in 200, the transfer for this OVA series is presented in its original full frame aspect ratio. Animated by AIC and Green Bunny, the show has a pretty strong look to it overall in a lot of ways, though it’s a bix mixed to some degree. While backgrounds tend to be skimpy or minimal, this one is fully fleshed out and adds a lot to the overall look and feel of the show. Colors are solid and vibrant when needed, cross coloration is non-existent and there are only a few minor moments of aliasing. This is a great looking transfer.
Packaging:
With tattoo’s being a central part of the show, the front cover features a great image of Ema’s back and the tattoo she has etched onto her. It’s definitely eye-catching and one of the best hentai covers I’ve seen in years. The back cover provides a number of images from the show and a decent summary of what to expect. Production information is clearly noted and technical information is provided in a great little box listing all you need to know. The insert provides chapter listings on one side and boxart on another.
Menu:
The menus are well done with the exception of one thing. The main menu is a close-up of the ogre part of the tattoo, which looks really good here with all of its colors. The episodes are all selectable and beyond the trailers, there’s just the basics of setup and scene selection. The downside is that it’s a very quiet menu with no music and there is no play-all feature. Once you finish an episode, it brings you back to the main menu without continuing on. This gets mildly annoying when you watch all four in a row.
Extras:
None.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
When AIC and Greenbunny get together to do a show, I’m usually quite interested since there’s just as much focus on the story as there is on the sex.
Oni-Tensei tells the story of two women who become linked. Both are equal leads in this show, but as different sides of the coin. Ema Nozomi is somehow kidnapped and used as a blank canvas for the worlds most gifted tattoo artist, Horioni. This particular master has the ability to create an image that will come alive. With Ema, he’s made a powerfully strong piece of an ogre that’s insatiable when it comes to sex. She eventually finds herself in a group of yakuza, only for the ogre to reveal itself and kill all of them. This leads to the police coming in, where we meet our other lead.
This is Reiko Kure, a Tokyo detective whose had a sordid past of her own. She ends up being involved in the case where the only survivor of the bloodshed is Ema. She sees something in Ema’s eyes that Reiko once knew was in her own years ago. She feels an affinity for the young woman, so she’s quick to take her into her care and to the hospital. But it’s not long from here that Ema’s ogre comes alive again and takes down a nurse, and Ema does her best to keep the beast satiated, which means simply pleasing herself.
Kure can’t figure out exactly what’s going on, but she knows something is going on. When a murder the next day has someone with another very intricate tattoo on his back, a connection starts being made and Reiko and Ema end up spiraling into a descent of more death and sex. Reiko ends up becoming deeply involved when the ogre comes out and attacks her, and even causes her to become pregnant by it, bringing an interesting twist to the entire relationship.
With the show moving into an area of descent into madness, and the woman who claims to be Horioni’s lover getting into the picture by dealing with a man who skins Horioni’s subjects as well as dealing with Ema and Reiko, it’s a well-layered piece of work that has its own internal consistent mood and logic to it. Everything plays out by the rules established and with some interesting twists later on that make you go back and rewatch the earlier episodes. Very few hentai have you do that based on the story, usually only by the ‘hot’ scenes.
The character designs for this show are excellent, and you can easily see hints of more mainstream AIC characters mingling into this show, at least for the female characters. The male characters tend to be a bit less done up, but a lot of focus is given to the tattoos that look fantastic here. The general layout and feel of the show are just like any other mainstream series, with plenty of secondary characters throughout as well as detailed backgrounds and settings.
In Summary:
This is an overall solid horror show with plenty of sex thrown into it. It’s shows like these that keep me from splitting off hentai into its own realm, and keeping it mixed in with everything else. It’s definitely worth a look for those looking for something that isn’t light and fluffy in the hentai world.
Features:
Japanese 2.0 Language, English 2.0 Language, English Subtitles
Content Grade: A-
Audio Grade: B+
Video Grade: A
Packaging Grade: A
Menu Grade: B
Extras Grade: N/A
Released By: Kitty Media
Release Date: August 27th, 2002
MSRP: $39.95
Running Time: 100 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.
