First Love

Ok, let's do this. This hentai was recommended to me by a certain someone. "Watch this. You'll thank me later" is the introduction I was given to this series. And if that certain lovely someone is reading this review, then thanks! It was well worth the watch. This series is made up of 3 separate stories, which I wasn't used to at first, but I got the hang of it. The upside is that if you don't like the couple introduced to you, then you can go and watch the next episode instead. If you do like the couple, however, you're out of luck because ... you only have one episode of the goodness that comes wrapped in a bow with that coupling. I'm going to split this review into 3 parts, since it's overwhelming to squash 3 different stories into one massive chunk. I also never compare anime to it's source because anime should be able to stand on it's own and support itself. Also, I'm totally a girl, so sorry if that makes this review biased or useless to you! Here we go.

Story 1
I really liked this couple of brother and sister. I'm quite into brother and sister stuff, (shh! don't tell anyone ¬.¬) so this was right up my street. The relationship was portrayed in a very romantic way, with love confessions and everything. It was very sweet. I quite liked it. I'm used to rough-and-tumble hentai, so this was quite a nice little break from that. With shows like "Love Ess M The Animation" and "Furifure", it's nice to find a soppy one. I rather enjoyed the change of pace. The characters were very nicely done for a hentai and I was pleasantly surprised to find myself being attached to both of them. The girl also has one of the most beautiful character designs I've ever seen. Her eyes are very detailed and gorgeous, and her hair is messy and falls in wavy strands since she's meant to be a NEET. I found her "bed hair" to be very sexy and because she actually had a tangible personality, I found myself liking her. A lot. The brother is an all-round nice guy and, while being a little bland, I liked him as well because I knew he had good intentions. He was also good-looking, which was nice as well. Too many series are making their protagonists ugly to reassure the male audience, don't you think? ANYWAY. This arc is a lovely introduction to the series and I enjoyed it immensely. A few of the same animations were used twice during the same sex scene, but the animations and positions were pretty hot so I didn't mind that much. At least they weren't copy and pasting stuff that was crap.

Story 2
I don't quite like the personality of the second girl as much, but her character design is lovely and she's a good enough character. She's the exact opposite of the previous girl, and is a tsundere. I can't help but mention that she looks almost identical to the sister in "Ane Koi", which is cool because I really liked her character design too. I was also wondering if they share a voice actress because they sound similar too. This male protagonist has his eyes shut the whole time, a la "Natsumushi the Animation". He's not much to look at, which was a bit disappointing for a girl like myself, but I don't really expect any more from the hentai industry since I'm sure guys watching this won't really care about that. I only found it a tad off-putting because of the aforementioned likeness to the train-groping guy in "Natsumushi the Animation", since that guy is one creepy motherfucker (Both "Natsumushi" and "Ane Koi" are really solid shows by the way). Somehow his assertiveness and dominance made him pretty hot in "Natsumushi", but I think that because the characters look just like each other, it weirded me out a little bit. I'll stop talking about other hentai now. I found the tsundere's sex noises in the first sex scene to be pretty outstanding and I enjoyed that scene very much in general because it was pretty good. The sweet, caring guy balances out the tsundere quite nicely, and I enjoyed this couple too, but maybe not quite as much as the first couple. Although I loved the fact that he actually manages to erase the "tsun" from the "dere". That was super cute. I especially liked the ending! Youi know what? I'm being stingy here. This couple were just as good as the first one.

Story 3
Ooh! This one was super interesting to watch! I was intrigued by the opening scene where the guy was sleeping because I hadn't seen anything quite like that before. It was right up my street. I found this girl to be more attractive than the tsundere and just about tied with the sister. I like her body type the most though, since she's nice and curvy. I much preferred her with the long hair and the girly personality, so I was a bit let down when they decided to scrap that. But then I fell in love with the tomboyish girl too. They are all so likeable! The boy in this arc has a more cartoony character design, with a rounder face and round, expressive eyes. I liked him, but he wasn't remarkable or anything, looks-wise. The girl really grew on me, and some of the dialogue in this hentai as a whole is so damn cute. That's my girlish side coming out, sorry.

I loved this. You know what? All of the female characters in this are so fucking solid and actually have personalities, it's a lovely breath of fresh air for me. I enjoyed every sex scene, every character and every storyline here. The only thing that lets this series down for me is the repetition of animation, which got a bit lazy. I understand that they've sacrificed a lot of possibilities with the animation by having lovely character designs, but even so, I feel like they shouldn't have copy and pasted quite so many. They kind of pulled a "Tayu Tayu" on us- great character designs at the cost of animation quality. Other than that, it was a really solid series that I enjoyed immensely. I am glad I watched it.

I was initially excited upon my find of First Love's, Smile Again and Smile Again After Chapters having been adapted into a Hentai. Then came the straight realization of Hentai, not really being capable of executing works that would at least be great. With Digital Works and Y.O.U.C leading this, I should have known for the better that this adaptation would be nothing more than your general 'material' for the audience it is meant for.

First Love's First Episode is not truly worth the 27 minutes it runs through. There have been some additions to the Original Story for the Hentai to properly fit the half-hour ... mark, and I find these unnecessary. The Original Story, left alone as they are, would've probably played much better by themselves within the space of 15 minutes. (Innocent: Shoujo Memoria compiled two stories into 12 minutes, and our brother-sister couple could have done just that.)

Hentai Studios within the lineups of Suzuki Mirano and T-Rex, or Mary Jane and PoRo, wouldn't been nice in picking up this project. I am critical in my assessment of First Love because of my original love for the Hentai Doujinshi. I just wish that an adaptation was done better.