Sometimes a little spy tale with sex beasts is exactly what you need.
What They Say
When the government develops a bio-engineered cyborg, named Dragon, as a secret weapon, a failure in gene manipulation turns the creature into a sex-crazed monster! The government assigns three very sexy agents to find the creature, and execute everyone involved. Will they be able to solve the case before even more women are abducted to fill the creature’s sexual appetite? Or will they become Dragon’s next conquests?
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 224kbps. The show features a pretty basic but good sounding stereo mix that’s light on directionality but does the subject matter right by providing a clear and undistorted mix. Dialogue in the English track is also pretty clear throughout with no noticeable distortions or dropouts.
Video:
Originally released in 1997, the transfer for this show is presented in its original full frame aspect ratio. While it won’t compete with today’s releases or a high definition release, it’s pretty solid with no real issues to it. The style of the show is done in a real-world fashion with none of the bright purple or other colors of the rainbow for characters hair and whatnot. The color palette, in general, is somewhat drab but works well with the material. Colors are solid throughout with no cross coloration and very little aliasing.
Packaging:
The front cover features a good though somewhat stereotypical image of the three women in various states of undress as the tentacles slide all around them against the backdrop of the Tokyo bridge. It’s a good looking cover all around, very eye-catching. The back cover provides a couple of animation shots and a brief summary of the plot of the show. The production and technical information are all clearly listed while the insert provides the chapter listings while the reverse side is just boxart ads.
Menu:
The main menu uses the artwork from the front cover with no music set to it, providing a very nice looking but average menu. With nothing on the disc outside the show and trailers, the menus are fairly bare but quick to move about and easy to setup.
Extras:
None.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Spy of Darkness is in many respects a typical tentacle hentai show. The plot is fairly basic, as we’re introduced to a secret government-sponsored lab where scientists have been working on creating a new type of cyborg, and have ended up creating what they call a BioBorg, codenamed Dragon. This tall dark and studly creature is all green, very powerful and has one flaw; he’s insatiable when it comes to sex due to a fault in the gene coding. So he’s also been termed a sex beast.
All would be fine, if it wasn’t for radical non-political terrorist Vanessa Hammer who has decided to free Dragon and use him for her own purposes, though her end goal with him is never truly clear. While she considers him nothing more than merchandise, she’s got no problem with taking advantage of his special skills. And his skills are rather good, going by her expressions. When he gets overly excited, tentacles begin to sprout from all over his body, and the more he evolves, the more tentacles grow from him.
Since the escape of this subject would cause major harm to the government from international partners and the rest of the world, the special services group Q Section has been brought in to find Dragon and eliminate him. The group is made up of three women. The attractive red-headed Anne leads the group that has a demolitions expert in the form of Shion and a computer guru in the form of Layla. The three of them are all well trained in combat and take care of the dirty work almost in a Charlie’s Angels sort of way.
While Vanessa takes Dragon out to gather up women to keep him happy, the Q Section women make the rounds and pound the pavement to get clues and information about Dragon and Vanessa and their whereabouts. It plays out fairly typically from here, as they get closer to finding them and then making the big play. With the show only forty-five minutes long, there’s not a lot of time between their being brought in on the case and dealing with the end of the show.
In Summary:
The show plays out in the end in some distinctly non-standard ways with the characters, leaving me surprised at how it was done and enjoying it more for doing it that way. Spy of Darkness is a simple straightforward little action hentai with tentacles and plenty of non-consensual sequences, but it’s quite well done. Definitely worth picking up if you can get it for a cheap price.
Features
Japanese 2.0 Language, English Language, English Subtitles
Content Grade: B+
Audio Grade: B+
Video Grade: B+
Packaging Grade: B+
Menu Grade: B
Extras Grade: N/A
Released By: Kitty Media
Release Date: August 27th, 2002
MSRP: $29.95
Running Time: 45 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.