Shusaku

Continuing the -saku series here is Shusaku! A slightly less good show than its predecessor. Let's get into why!

The story:
There's this music academy and a bunch of girls come to attend it in order to strengthen their music abilities. Inside this academy there's a janitor named Shusaku, he's an old fart who picks up information and uses it to blackmail and have sex with the girls at the academy.

Easily the strongest part of the show is the characters as the plot is rather lacking. There are funny moments, sad moments, and in general just enjoyable interactions between a bunch of the characters.

Unfortunately, even with ... that the show ends up being rather confusing at a few times, which definitely lowers my rating for it.

The protagonist, Eri Takabe, doesn't really have ample time to shine in this entry (she will in the later Shusaku seasons though) but I will say she helps end Shusaku's rampage in a rather satisfying way.

The art/animation:
Shusaku is an Elf game turned OVA by Pink Pineapple. The animation was handled by the little-known Production D.M.H and, to be honest, it really doesn't look bad. The character designs were done by Hiroya Iijima, who you may know for Afro fucking Samurai. Safe to say the art looks really good. Also, for whatever reason Shusaku's penis is glowing yellow, I don't know if this was for censoring or what, but it looks goofy as shit.

Sound:
Easily one of the weirdest soundtrack's I've ever heard in a show, it isn't bad but it does NOT fit at ALL with the circumstances. The voice acting on the other hand is good, which is nice.

Overall:
This genuinely wasn't a bad watch, but a lot of the show is confusing and/or terribly paced, which lowers the rating substantially. Shusaku isn't really a compelling villain in this first season, but he does get better in the coming seasons (foreshadowing!!!). Would I suggest this show? I mean if you like rape or fun characters yeah, other than that no. All in all, I'd give Shusaku a 6/10, enjoyable'ish but not brilliant.

I've seen enough hentai, that at this point more or less nothing offends me. With that said Shuusaku is terrible and fail to accomplish anything it sets out to do. It fails as porn, it fails as an anime. Its story and characters are horrible and bland, and as porn it's far to soft core to provide anything of any interest. It attempts to play to fetishes, but fails to deliver anything of any interest, that can't just be obtained better elsewhere.
It's most glaring flaw is of course it's characters. The most vital part of any hentai is its characters. ... If porn is to be a vicarious sexual experience, it's rather vital to provide people who are actually interesting in some way. Even the shallowest of people would want to have sex with any of these characters because of their lack of personality. The cast consists of a character who lost her right to be considered a loli five years ago, doing her best to be the loli character; the rich girl, who I assume was supposed to refined or something; a girl who is tan, and apparently a whore because she has had sex, not that that plays any role in how she acts in the series; a girl whose primary character trait is that she has irritable bowel syndrome (nope, I'm not kidding); two girls I almost always forget exist; a teacher, who never actually acts as a teacher; and the protagonist/antagonist, I don't really know since there isn't really a main character. It would either be her, or maybe Shuusaku. Oh yeah, there's also him, a gray skinned janitor with a glowing yellow penis.
It's a minor complaint, but the glowing yellow penis is a problem. This OVA came out in 1999, when series began to become more hard core, and more genitals started being shown. I suppose there was some experimentation with censoring technique or something, but when it got here his penis is yellow. This ruin any chance of anything going on being taken seriously. It's hard to tell if you should be facepalming or laughing whenever it shows up, both of which will make it hard to fap, not that you'd really want to to this.
Shuusaku doesn't have anything interesting to offer pornographically. Animation wise is okay for it's time, and the character design is passable, but it's lacking in sexual content and what content is there is isn't particularly graphic. Most scenes are simply soft core porn with stupid dialogue explaining what's going on. Okay series, we'll take your word for it that that is anal sex, because it would be impossible to tell otherwise, good thing you told us. Mostly it's just bland uninspired sex scenes between a nasty gray dude and some girl you only want to see in a sex scene because it might mean she will be talking less.
Shuusaku goes for a darker tone, but doesn't execute it well. It consists exclusively of rape, which is par for the course I guess, and tries to incorporate scatological and urination fetishes. As I said nothing bothers me, so I won't complain about such fetishes being present in something. I will however complain about their execution, and Shuusaku doesn't do a very good job of this. This series has an irrational amount of enemas, but no actual scat. I really don't want to see it, but if you are going to include stuff like that, go all the way. People who aren't interested still won't be interested, and people who want to see geysers of shit shooting out of girls asses will be disappointed in the lack thereof. Don't stop halfway and please no one. Fundamentally it fails to be intense with any of its fetishes, and isn't interesting enough with them to make those who don't care about them interested in it.
So what about it's story. A good story can keep us interested in what's going on and possibly distract us from the yellow penis that takes us out of the action whenever anything happens. Shuusaku also fails in this aspect. There really is no story or coherent narrative to this series. There is a gray janitor, he blackmails girls using photographs that would be in all ways impossible to obtain, and then rapes them. That's really it. There is no flow to it, and each sex scene/new victim seems to come out of no where. It all ends with the [pro/an]tagonist informing him that she is putting an end to his evil ways, she has called the cops and they're on their way, and with all that evidence on his computer he will be put away. One would think that he would have a contingency for just this kind of thing, but no it really never occurred to him that one of the girls he raped, might inform the authorities, and maybe using evidence of your crimes to blackmail the victims isn't the best idea in the world. Thus he runs away and is hit by a car. What a stupid and anticlimactic ending.
Shuusaku really has no positive aspects, as porn it's uninteresting, as a story it's complete garbage, and as something awesomely bad it has little to offer. The yellow penis is kind of funny, but it's not worth watching just to see. Overall it's neither good or bad enough to warrant watching. Just bland and pointless.

I don't really know how to review this thing, because I really disliked it.
The story is just average for the anime of this kind (I mean hentai actually). It consists of constant blackmailing and sex scenes that follow, and I really wonder who would like it. In fact, the story could be described in a few words and it is just a small introduction to the sexual content. So let me say there is no actual story at all. I forced myself to watch it up to the end just to see what all this nonsense will finally lead to, and the ending disappointed me, ... too.
The characters also were of nothing special: one bad guy and a huge tribe of frightened innocent girls who later stop being innocent. I've seen many of that kind already.
The sound was ok, and the art reflected the atmosphere (was supposed to, at least), but imho was too dark.
To sum up, a mediocre product that can will most likely arouse the feeling of disgust, but not pleasure from watching.