Gosenzo San'e

A hentai with an actual plot? And it’s… pretty good too? Say it ain’t so.

The story follows Gen, who moves to his families’ mansion after his mother dies. Here, he’s introduced to his wheelchair bound grandmother and her mysterious silver haired maid. His family line holds a dark secret, which is slowly revealed to us during the course of the show. The mystery of his past and the inhabitants of his new house was actually pretty interesting, and the melancholy atmosphere was a large factor. The pacing was good too, not too fast or slow. Sadly, I thought the actual mystery did start to fizzle ... out towards episode 3.

In terms of presentation, the animation was nothing special but the art was appealing and above average when you compare it with Hentai from the same time period (1998). The music was good and FAR better than your average hentai. There was an issue with the sound mixing in episodes 2 and 3, the music was so loud I could barely hear the voice acting in some scenes. I watched with the original Japanese audio, so I could of course still read the subtitles but a bit strange that this was overlooked.

There wasn’t that many H scenes either. In terms of tastefulness, it was a mixed bag. Obviously, there were scenes that were included just for titillation, I mean part of the plot is that Gen’s ‘curse’ forces him to inseminate as many women as possible. That being said, quite a few scenes were actually tasteful and in general what was there was generally short. An effort was made to tie the sex scenes into the story. Hell, often it just faded to black without showing anything at all. There’s actually an upload on Youtube of the full four episodes with all of the H scenes removed.

You know what's surprising? This was directed by the same person who directed Welcome to the N.H.K.! It was odd watching a Hentai show that had an actual story, characters that had something resembling a personality and an atmosphere that wasn’t overly happy. Nothing about the show was ‘great’ but this is easily the best Hentai I’ve seen as an overall package, and it works as a show in its own right.

Firstly, im not usually into hentai, but i do enjoy adult anime, which happens to include sex. Having said that, i actually quite enjoyed this anime, as it had a quite interesting story line. there were a handful of sex scenes where i thought eh why, but that is to be expected from hentai, but on a whole, the sex actually was integral to the story.

i enjoyed the immortal/vampire element to this anime as it was an unusual take on the myth.

the were some elements in this hentai which made me uncomfortable, but i was able to get through it because ... the story was strong enough to make me want to keep watching.

All in all, watchable for non hentai fans on the grounds its a good immortal themed anime, but could have been alot better had it not unfortunately focused more on the hentai aspect.

Gosenzo San'e follows the Hiraga bloodline, in which Gen is part of. Recently orphaned, he has to move into his grandmother's house, and he unwittingly triggers the Hiraga clan's curse in which nearly every member leads to a tragically short life. Soon, Gen's begin's to unravel vague memories from a dream that he's always had. With the help of an American graduate student, they try to uncover the secret of the Hiraga bloodline.

The whole thing is actually pretty well paced, something that I wouldn't expect from a hentai. Normally a hentai either has no plot, or a plot that rushes through it so fast that ... it makes you question why they included a plot at all.

While some of the acting English dub isn't all that bad, it's still pretty much the standard fare for an English hentai dub. Props to the voice actor for out main character, Gen, who sounds as stiff as a board. But on the upside, the animation and art artstyle is also actually quite good.

Also, apparently Gen's bloodline suffers from a rare "condition", and Gen ejaculates gold semen, called "Aqua Permanence", which can lead to immortality if consumed. After Doing a cursory search on google and ruining my search results forever, yellow semen can range from something as simple as a dietary change, infrequent ejaculation, to an STI , and even abnormally high white blood cells and jaundice. Basically, yellow semen doesn't mean immortality, it means that you probably should see a doctor, and quickly.

On the sex front, it's not that bad, but the OVA isn't really all that focused on the sex, instead making it more of a catalyst for the plot to exist. I don't know if it was made the way it was to be called a 'hentai', or if it was studio mandated to make it a hentai and the team behind it had to work around it, but if you edited down the sex, the plot would still work.

Would I recommend Gosenzo San'e? Yes, but weirdly enough, not for the sex. The story and characters are blander than tofu, but the fact that it actually tries to have both a plot, as shallow as it is, as well as being decently paced and atmospheric, it makes it a decent watch for the people who might want to watch an incredibly obscure anime. Here I was expecting another terribly put together horror hentai like "Mystery of the Necronomicon" or "Alien From The Darkness", but I actually got something half-way decent.