The simple tale of a family that’s just rather dysfunctional to the core. situations.
What They Say:
Angela (Allysin Chaynes), a beautiful young woman, is trapped in a loveless existence. Hate is the only word to describe her feelings for her cold-blooded father who forces himself on the family maid, Bridget (Alexis Amore). However, along with her budding adolescence, she finds lust and love in John, the butler. How far will she go to keep her love for John?
The Review:
Audio:
The audio presentation for this release brings us the original Japanese language track in stereo along with the English language dub that was put together at the time very popular adult film stars. Both tracks are in stereo and encoded 192kbps. As with other hentai of a similar nature, the show is essentially dialogue-driven and uses primarily the center channel. In this respect, things are nice and clear and undistorted. The show makes good use of directionality across the forward soundstage with the lightning effects and other incidental sounds.
Video:
Originally released in 2001, the transfer for this two-episode OVA series is presented in its full-frame aspect ratio. Done up like other releases at the time, each episode gets its own discs (think of single-disc sales in adult stores) so there’s plenty of room to work with. This is why, much like most other hentai releases from NuTech, the transfer here is near spotless. Colors are vibrant without being oversaturated, line noise is fairly minimal and cross coloration doesn’t show up all that much outside of some rather tightly drawn areas. The show does feature something of a more CG looking nature in terms of its backgrounds and these sometimes don’t shine through all too well, but that’s going to be a matter of taste.
Packaging:
The artwork used for the cover packaging for this release is a bit more manga/painted style than anime cel-oriented. The look is a bit softer but each of the covers does what it should; they show the main girl in stages of undress from her “society” style clothes. The back covers show a couple pieces of animation and give a good rundown of the episode contained on the disc. Features and technical information is also nice and clearly listed. The box itself uses the artwork from the first volume Japanese cover while doing a combination of the two back covers for its back cover. As with all NuTech releases to date, there is no insert provided.
Menus:
The menus are nicely animated with a shot of the mansion sliding into view with the dark cloudy sky in the background with the thunder and lightning going. Once the main menu loads, which is very fast, moving around and accessing the submenus is nice and fast and the layout is straightforward and easy to navigate. Menu selection is a breeze and everything is very good here.
Extras:
Two sets of the voice actresses video photo galleries are included here while the actual anime-related extra is a video image gallery with stills from the show.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Vicious is a rather decent little tale that’s adapted from a story of the same name. Originally appearing as a four-chapter work in the compiled volume released in 1998, it comes from manga Yuna Kagesaki and appeared in Manga Hot Milk in the mid-90s. The adaptation a couple of years later was one that was picked up as part of NuTech Digital’s push to expand into the growing anime market and try and corner the adult side with some hentai. That had them bringing in some regular voice actors but also a couple of well-known adult stars at the time, this time including Allysin Chaynes and Alexis Amore, and having fun with it. It’s always a bit of a mixed bag when you’re not going with full-on professional voice actors, but they’re game for everything here and they definitely go all-in on the more intimate performances.
The story takes place in a somewhat secluded mansion on the outskirts of some town probably around a hundred years ago or more. The mansion’s residents are still in some sense of recovery from six months prior when the lady of the house fell down the stairs and was killed. Well, the daughter, Angela, is still somewhat in a state of turmoil over it. Her father isn’t quite as bad off as he’s taken to pleasuring himself with the housemaid, Bridget. Bridget isn’t all that keen on it, but there’s something she fears more that keeps her succumbing to her master’s wishes. To round out the house, there’s John, who does various chores throughout the house as well as taking care of the luscious gardens.
Things begin to get worse though as Angela has decided that she wants to be with John and to be taken by him as her first since she’s convinced she’s in love with him. John really doesn’t want to go down that road, especially since his Master is someone who can be a bit over the top and violent, especially after drinking. But with Angela’s forcefulness, he finds himself unable to defend and does the deed. This leads to a whirlwind time for Angela whose mind begins to imagine much more than there is. This becomes especially problematic when John discovers what’s been happening to Bridget and tells her they must leave. For Angela, John simply cannot leave, so she starts putting new plans into motion.
The show’s storyline is pretty basic, and you can tell easily where it’s going to go, but sometimes it is the journey that’s the best rather than the destination. The show does move into fairly grisly territory in the second half when Angela starts taking charge of who gets to live and who dies. The blood really does start flowing at that point. While that’s not particularly bothersome, the part I found that is is the character design for Angela. Bridget makes out ok, but Angela’s design is just too young looking for my tastes in far too many scenes. In some, they do make her a bit older, but at other times it’s just not something I want to see.
In Summary:
While there are some minor story elements we just didn’t care for, fans of this show will definitely be happy with how it turned out. Like a lot of hentai from this time period, you get a mix in how the show is designed with some of the digital elements but it also features some pretty grim material. The sex and violence side has always been around but it’s something that was far stronger during the early 2000s release period and this one has its moments where you’ll cringe at a few things whether you’re new to this kind of material or an old hand. I really enjoy hentai a good bit and this one has some good moments, but it reminds me more of the fact that I like where hentai is today where there’s more interesting story and character/relationship-based stuff. still, it’s sometimes good to go back to the titles that brought you to the medium and revisit them.
Features:
Japanese 2.0 Language, English 2.0 Language, English Subtitles, Photo Galleries
Content Grade: B-
Audio Grade: B+
Video Grade: B+
Packaging Grade: A-
Menu Grade: B+
Extras Grade: B-
Released By: NuTech Digital
Release Date: March 29th, 2002
MSRP: $39.95
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.
