Pure Love / Spaceship Agga Ruter 4

by Madison Carter

It’s hentai. But better. Kinda.

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Hentai perplexes me. Or rather, the popularity of it does. I just don’t understand how, with the limited animation, annoying characters and near-plotless storylines (most of which only run 30 minutes at most) have garnered such a following. Okay, so it’s cartoon porn. I could understand if they gave this stuff the attention of, say, Ghost in the Shell, but the cheapness of them just makes it pointless usually.

That said, the newest two releases from Anime HotShots aren’t nearly as bad as most of their ilk. First up is Pure Love, the better of the two. This one concerns a young man named Hiro who has a love of tales of adventures. Finding a book of such in the library (and accidentally spying one of his teachers in a lesbian tryst in the process), he takes the book home to his sister to translate. From there, the two set off to find a legendary cave in the city, but what they end up finding is a lot of sex. Okay, well, to be honest, there’s only one of the usual x-rated scenes in this installment, surprising for the type. Better than most of these sorts of DVDs, Pure has some genuinely funny moments, a nice (if repetitive) musical score, and while the animation remains as stilted as any of this type, the designs are top-notch. So at least it has that going for it. There’s also some honest-to-goodness plot, which is rare in these. The use of some computer-generated animation, mostly in backgrounds, is interesting as well.

Spaceship Agga Ruter 4, the (obviously) fourth in its series, is slightly more generic and standard of the genre. It is the far future, and in it, a group of space pirates (including one that can transform from a woman into a cat) run afoul of the mysterious Yvonne. When Yvonne kidnaps Jannis the cat-girl), the others try to rescue her. Seems Yvonne has a dark, shameful family secret that could ruin her reputation. And then the whole thing just gets silly. Way silly.

Overall, the two aren’t a shining example of what anime can accomplish, but both are heads and shoulders above the typical hentai junk. Some decent plot progression, humorous moments and non-video game style music can work wonders. Neither DVD has anything really in the way of extras, save for trailers from some of Anime HotShots’ other titles.

If you’re into this sort of thing, these are recommended. I guess. I dunno.