Hidey ho, minna-san! You've waited patiently for however long to see the conclusion of Tales of Seduction by U-Jin -- it's admirable, really; I'm impressed; here, have some edible cookie-flavored panties -- but now that wait is o-vah! HURRAY!! And hopefully the anticipation has you ready to... pop... 'cause this tale of seduction may be the most titillating yet! Before we get into that final chapter, however, let's briefly recap what we've seen so far.
In the first story, "When Idols Fall Prey To Lady Luck", we watched awestruck as a young pop songwriter and composer had sex with even younger idol singers in exchange for launching their careers -- and by "younger", I'm talking 14, despite the subtitles and the prominent warning displayed at the beginning of the DVD. Yep. And then, if that wasn't depraved enough for you, in "When a Virgin Steals a Man" we met the mysterious Toyama no Benbei, a wealthy corporate executive who works as a rapist for hire by night -- and only accepts import video games as payment. If you missed either of those gems, click the text links or the images above to read the full reviews before proceeding. Naturally, neither review is quite work safe. Nor is this one. You've been warned.
And finally we come to Ujin's third tale and final tale of seduction -- "When A Superior Takes Your Girl", another story featuring that debonaire rascal Toyama no Benbei. Yes, he's back. Keep in mind that despite the lapse of time between the reviews, all three stories are shown one after the other on the 45-minute DVD -- which means that as soon as the previous episode ends and the viewer is still stunned by the fact that someone actually sat down and said to himself, "A company president by day who rapes women by night in a BMW for video games... what a great idea!" the viewer is immediately hit with a second short featuring said character! One has to wonder if this isn't how U-Jin gained his status as a hentai master -- he just kept dropping ridiculous shit in people's laps without giving them a chance to question it until they had no other recourse but to reach down into said laps and start stroking along to his mad and perverted design. Bloody hell.
Anyway, this second short starts right off with Tomoko and Iwata fucking, again noticeably skipping the seduction that was supposed to characterize the stories in this volume. (By this point, one could probably make a good case for false advertising -- unless the Japanese have very different ideas about what constitutes legitimate "seduction" -- but I digress.) During the short intermission from the sexcapades, Tomoko urges Iwata to marry her, but he replies that, at the moment, he doesn't make enough money to support a wife. Her response? "But once we're married, daddy can promote you." So already we've got a guy boning the boss's daughter -- who, by the way, looks to be in her teens -- and the promise of the great Toyama no Benbei. Joy.
The next day at work, we see Iwata extolling the beauty of a female co-worker -- whom, if you'd been watching the actual DVD, you might have confused with the boss's little girl. See, during last night's fuckfest, Iwata kept thinking the name of Miss Kyoko, whom I took to be the girl he was boning at the moment. However, apparently Kyoko is this woman -- Iwata's co-worker and (gasp!) girlfriend -- and though he's fucking his boss's daughter for indeterminate reasons, it's pretty obvious that he loves Kyoko. Moreover, at the scene's end, Tomoko witnesses Iwata with Kyoko, thereby setting in motion a chain of events that just can't bode well for Iwata's professional career. And speaking of Iwata's professional life, apparently he and his girlfriend both work at the company of Mr. Toyama (no Benbei!) -- which almost certainly means that rape will somehow play a role in their future.
Later that night, young Tomoko complains to her father, Mr. Umemoto, about this unwanted love rival and begs the old man to fire Kyoko -- and again we witness one of the many cultural differences between Japan and the States. Here, if one of a boss's male employees was fucking his teenage daughter, the daughter would probably hide that information from her father because, if he found out, he would almost certainly fire the man -- especially if he found out that the man was cheating on his daughter. But in fictional Japan? She tells daddy openly and he doesn't even get angry. He does, however, ask his daughter what she sees in Iwata (here's her answer; make of it what you will, then remember that she's telling this to her father), but that's beside the point; he can't comply with her request because he just happens to be fucking Kyoko on the side.
Therefore, since there's nothing he can do to Kyoko without it becoming a scandal, he decides that getting Iwata out of the office would be the best way of separating the two. And again we see the peculiarities of Japanese culture at work, because instead of merely suspending Iwata himself for some infraction -- like, say, fucking his teenage daughter -- he instead comes into work the next day and tells Mr. Toyama that Iwata raped his little girl. Naturally, this prompts Toyama to suspend Iwata at once, though it also has the effect of making Iwata out to be a rapist -- which, oddly enough, nobody seems to mind too much. So much for that promotion, eh?
But Toyama's secretary, Sakurako, doesn't trust Umemoto, so she decides to do a bit of undercover detective work to get to the bottom of things. First, she stakes out Iwata's place to learn the truth -- Iwata didn't really rape Tomoko; she serves the poontang up ready and willing and often. She's also apparently thrilled that Iwata's no longer working, as it means that he can fuck her all day long without having to break for his career. (But how will they survive, you might ask, especially since Iwata claimed to be lacking in funds even while he was working? Who cares, fool -- this is hentai!) Next, super sleuth Sakurako visits Umemoto's ranch, where she discovers not only that Umemoto and Kyoko are having an affair, but also that Umemoto has bought Kyoko a house -- presumably to ensure that she'll spend most of her time there and this keep her distance from Iwata.
Determined to help Iwata out, Sakurako comes to him that night with a slip of paper and a proposition: If he brings one of the four video games to the swimming pool of the local sports club on the following day, a man named Toyama no Benbei will help him to clear his name. Personally, I'm at a loss to explain Iwata's compliance. Yes, he's lost his true love and no longer has a job, but his life now consists of hot naked sex all day long with a girl he obviously finds to be reasonably attractive (if a bit young), not to mention that all of his financial needs are mysteriously being taken care of by unknown means. The only help Iwata needs is the help of condoms to keep children from intervening and disrupting his enviable utopian lifestyle!
Alas, unable to recognize a fucking (literally!) fantastic thing when he's got it, dumbass Iwata shows up at the pool with the requisite electronic tribute and instructs Benbei to rape Tomoko Umemoto. What??? Why?!? Well, Iwata's been accused of raping Tomoko, so when she really is raped -- and not by him -- he can somehow use that fact to blackmail Mr. Umemoto into withdrawing his complaint and relinquishing Kyoko! It'd be a brilliant plan if it made any sense whatsoever.
That night, Benbei-san delivers on his promise -- this time, for real. This isn't a legitimate seduction like last time, folks: There's protesting, there's screaming (which are admittedly followed by moans of pleasure once he gets involved in the act, but still), there's fear (especially when she sees the telltale cherry blossom tattoo, which leads her to believe that Benbei is yakuza) -- there's rape. Yes, you read that right -- he really does rape women for video games! Fucking unbelievable. Someone got paid to write this. But that's not all; someone read the story after it was written and liked it so much that he got a whole team of people to animate it! Someone voiced these characters, people. A whole lot of events and hard work and capital came together to produce this animated episode -- no, two animated episodes -- about a businessman who seriously rapes women for video games. And I unwittingly paid to own them! My DVD collection now includes a hentai video that is largely about the exploits of a CEO who is also an import gamer who is also a hired rapist. My shame knows no bounds.
So the following morning Mr. Toyama calls all parties involved into his office, including Iwata, to discuss the situation at hand. Iwata smugly notes that though he is innocent, Tomoko was raped, and he'll see that she continues to be raped until Kyoko is returned to him! Good plan there, buddy, because having a hired rapist at your command isn't at all a criminal offense that should in any way entail your being fired from your job and/or jailed. No sir. (Welcome to Japan.) At any rate, Umemoto and his daughter are hesitant to come clean about the situation -- after all, blackmail doesn't work too well if there's no proof of the sordid incident. But there is proof, which we all see as Mr. Toyama leaps up on the desk and bares his gangsta tat for the assembly to see! And really... how could Tomoko forget that raping storm of cherry blossoms?
Yep. I don't know how having the president of the company rape his employees' daughters is supposed to solve anything, but apparently it does the trick -- Umemoto dejectedly agrees to release Kyoko and Iwata throws a fucking party right there on the spot. But oh, the twist! It turns out that Kyoko and Umemoto are really in love -- and that she stayed with him of her own free will! Apparently Kyoko didn't appreciate Iwata's relative poverty and literally found it repulsive that he would've been happy in his lower station in life as long as the two of them were together, so she dropped his flabby ass in favor of a rich, older man. And then, to make matters worse, Tomoko leaves Iwata as well, stating that she can find a better and wealthier guy who'll appreciate her lovin' (and won't pay mysterious men to rape her in the night)! Poor Iwata -- not only has he lost both of his girls, but he even wasted what little money he had on a hired rapist. I'd be inclined to pity him if it weren't for that last part.
The story ends, then, with Toyama firing Kyoko -- officially because she's created a disturbance in his company; unofficially so she can devote all of her energies to the man she loves -- and Iwata regaining his job and learning some valuable lessons about life. Mind you, I'm not exactly sure what those lesson are -- don't run around on women you truly love; don't hire rapists; don't eschew wealth and believe in true love because women will leave you for rich old men if you do; company presidents can rape women and get away with it scot free; sometimes women enjoy being raped and will later venture to compliment the rapist on his sexual prowess -- but this story definitely has a moral. A twisted, perverted, and what-the-fuck-esque moral, yes, but that's hentai for you!
And so, on that note, our three-part Tales of Seduction by U-Jin review comes to a close. I'd like to be able to expand upon the potential lessons we've learned above and suggest some all encompassing lesson that spans the three chapters of the DVD, but all we've really learned is that Japan is apparently one fucked up place with completely different and incomprehensible sexual mores, laws, and appetites. Japan does, however, have great toys and video games -- which is why Toyama no Benbei's willingness to go to such great lengths to secure import video games kinda doesn't make sense. Nor does the DVD's insistence that these girls are at least 19 mesh too well with what we're obviously seeing onscreen. Was Benbei supposed to represent a pervert -- albeit, a rich and powerful pervert who could do anything he wanted -- even among even the Japanese? Were the ages of the girls changed due to pressure by American distributors or because the Japanese were actually ashamed of their sexual appetites and wanted to hide or otherwise misrepresent them to the American public? Does this DVD actually represent a complex case study of conflicting attitudes towards the perverse in contemporary Japanese society? Could it even be suggesting that the importing of American culture is to blame for these perversities (note that Benbei was interested in Western games and that the protagonist of the first story worked with pop music, another industry where Western culture plays a large role)? Or I am perhaps putting too much thought into analyzing an entry in the same genre noted for tentacle rape? With hentai, anything is possible.
