(Fun touch: They flash the name of every significant character on the screen when they first show up, a convention borrowed from some character-dense, live-action Japanese movies and TV shows.) There are some murders, our P.I. In the first two episodes, we're introduced one by one to the usual suspects, a Clue-style collection of characters at the condo.
Or, with about three minutes cut out of each episode, you'd have a mildly interesting horror series on your hands.Īs it stands, Mystery of the Necronomicon is one of three things: A hentai flick with way too much plot, a decent but sleazy B-movie with way too much sex, or a good B-movie gone horribly wrong. In a way it's sad, because with a little more restraint, most of the naughty stuff could have been passably erotic instead of outright smut.
Although sometimes at least peripherally connected to the plot, they're the kind of raging gynecological hardcore that makes most people squirm and all but the most hardened hentai fans at least raise an eyebrow.
There's only one little thing keeping me from judging it like "normal" anime: Every episode includes a couple of gratuitous and very graphic sex scenes. The course of the story isn't painfully obvious, and although there isn't a great deal of brain-twisting to the mystery, it's not entirely laughable if you're willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. The plot, while rather silly and riddled with holes, isn't all that bad-a sort of supernatural crime drama halfway between an old-school whodunit and a horror movie. In this case, we have something that's much closer to a reasonable quality B-movie (the kind that you see on late-night cable, but is good enough that you might watch it if you were having trouble sleeping). There are variations on those basic themes, but in any case the entire exercise is dominated by graphic, gratuitous, and wholly unnecessary sex. It usually involves either demons doing very bad things to women, female subjugation of some sort, or a silly excuse to get pretty girls in bed with inept guys. To clarify: In your standard hentai flick (overlooking many exceptions), the nominal story is just a framework. So why am I reviewing it? Despite the fact that it is dangerously close to standard "porn," it's different enough from the norm that it caught my attention. It goes far enough that even a significant percentage of adults will find it offensive. For the jargon-impaired and those who aren't clear on the concept, that means that it is by almost any standard pornographic. Which one is your call, but if you look at it in the right light, it's at least surprisingly not bad.įirst things first: Mystery of the Necronomicon is hentai anime. Mystery of the Necronomicon is basically one of three things: A hentai flick with way too much plot, a decent but sleazy B-movie with way too much sex, or a good B-movie gone horribly wrong. It's not bad looking, either, although the character designs are seriously inconsistent and it has that awkward look from the cel-to-computer transition period. The acting is largely good as well (look for Yumi Takada, better known as Ayeka, as an appealing traumatized tutor). As is, if you look past the extreme cheese and cheesecake, it's surprising how well the mystery/horror mix works, and there are a couple of fun, really weird sidesteps. Or, with about three minutes cut out of each episode, you'd have a mildly interesting horror series on your hands. The issue is that every episode includes a couple of gratuitous and very graphic sex scenes. It's very close to a reasonable quality B-movie, and while the plot is rather silly and riddled with holes, it strikes a decent balance as a sort of supernatural crime drama halfway between an old-school whodunit and a horror movie. Mystery of the Necronomicon is hentai anime (porn, for the jargon-impaired), but it's different enough from the norm that it caught my attention.