Ishuzoku Reviewers

Summary: >

In a fantasy land with many humanoid species, some have intermingled. This led to many species having individuals with succubus blood in them, and thus have high sexual craving. With prostitution being legal, many of these individuals find work in the sex industry. But with so many options, which one to choose? Stunk came up with a great idea: visit each brothel and post reviews.

Thoughts: >

If there's one anime people want a review on this year, it's Ishuzoku Reviewers. For me this is a meta situation where I review reviewers, so my perspective is a little different, particularly how I sympathized with the review crew. Reviewing stuff you don't want to, the eye rolling "competitors" who say everything is wonderful (thus totally unhelpful), etc. Obviously if you're the slightest bit prudish, you shouldn't watch this anime. It will kill you.

I expected to love or hate Ishuzoku Reviewers, but I ended up with a mixed take. For me it was 33% fascinating, 33% cringing and 33% laughing. And not in moderation, I did all those things at the maximum. I didn't find this anime erotic, probably due to a combination of silliness, analytical stance on sex, and honestly pretty mundane artwork. Explicitness is hard to define. It never explicitly shows the "boat docking at port" so to speak, but does show characters having sex, with boobs out and all that. Depending on what incarnation of this show you see, the censorship can become incredibly annoying since there's a LOT to censor. Oddly enough many regions censor different things.

Stunk is a human who loves elf girls because they always look young. Zel is an elf who loves human girls because they're always under 100 years old - super young by elf standards. And yes, his favorite girl is an old lady and it really does show her naked. Ishuzoku Reviewers is not shy about showing it all - even if you probably don't want to see it. These two are perverts, but contrast with the newest reviewer member; Crim, an angel waiting for his/her halo to heal before he can return to heaven. I really liked Crim because he gives a more grounded and somewhat naive perspective. Also Crim is is packing male and female parts, which complicates things. Reviewers aside, the succu-girl's are often great characters too.

My favorite aspect of Ishuzoku Reviewers is the attention to detail given to interspecies interactions. On the surface this anime seems dumb, but someone put a LOT of thought into how things would work, even if it's often played for laughs. One brothel offers a magic service turning them into women, so Zel goes with a slime for his first time (as a woman) so it doesn't hurt. I'm like, oh wow that makes a lot of sense. Demons can make great or terrible wives depending on how you propose to them (contract fetish), it goes on and on. What about the pure blooded succubus? Ishuzoku Reviewers does a brilliant job illustrating why you may not want to go that route with a squeeze bottle of mayonnaise.

I like something new and different, but occasionally I was left befuddled. In one episode they visit an egg laying show and I'm thinking to myself: what in the hell am I watching and why am I watching it? Amusingly enough it doesn't turn out as expected and only the Llama guy is into it. I wasn't always into the featured succu-girls, but mostly I did find them interesting. In a very weird way, this anime has an evolving story in the backdrop. As modern anime goes it only gets half way by the end, but who watches this for the plot? Guys who buy playboy magazine for the articles?

This isn't the kind of anime you'd watch based on a rating, so I don't think I'd pay much attention to it. If you buy into the concept and aren't horrified by it for some other reason, it has a lot of fresh ideas I haven't seen tried before, and that's why I rate it so highly. Although I'm still all about the elf girls no matter what Zel says.

Screen Caps: >