Cream Lemon

Story: 7/10
Art: 9/10
Sound: 9/10
Character: 5/10
Enjoyment: 8/10
Overall: 7/10

First of all I'd like to get this out of the way; THIS IS PORN. The characters and plot are all there as a set up to sex. This being said, if I only watched it for porn why would I choose to watch Cream Lemon as opposed to millions of videos on numerous websites of an unsavory nature? The reason is that this is much more than porn. With unique and strangely appealing storylines, fantastic visuals, and good audio, Cream Lemon has become a classic of all anime, not just of the hentai genre.

That being said, during the ... sexually explicit scenes, some of the fetishes (especially the bondage in the Escalation series), can be a bit overwhelming and detract severely from anything that makes this show anything but pornography.

I have only seen the first 16 episodes however, because these are the only ones available (that I could find) with English subtitles. Also this series may prove difficult to obtain and I was only able to find it through torrents.

Cream Lemon is an episodic show with new characters and different settings in each episode with the exception of a few multi-episode series. The stories surrounding each episode are extremely varied ranging from science fiction (Star Trap and Pop Chaser) to World War II era Japan (Black Cat Mansion) to pure fantasy (the Rall series) although most if not all of the other episodes feature some aspects of school in them.

The animation in Cream Lemon is superbly done and even looks good today despite being created in the 80's. The motion of characters is generally fluid although there are many sex scenes which do not always hold up to this standard. I would like to draw specific attention to the animation in "Black Cat Mansion" (episode 11) which was simply spectacular and brought out the story in very vivid detail. The only episode which was particularly unappealing in terms of design was the first episode of the two-part Mako series in which faces were just plain ugly or expressions were animated rather lazily.

In general the music was enjoyable and featured many piano pieces (especially in the escalation series) but also had some guitar stuff and, of course, had porno music going on during sex scenes.

I can't really say much about the characters being exciting or anything for the most part as their primary function was to lead to the sexual encounters between themselves and others. Almost all of the characters were pretty one dimensional. Some characters are enjoyable due to their personalities or due to the inherent humor of the episodes.

What I enjoyed most about Cream Lemon and watching it episodically were the differences between episodes. Some could be very funny and a few made me LOL a few times (Pop Chaser, Star Trap and Narisu Scramble). In some of the episodes the plots were so surreal in fact that you could even laugh at the premises of them even if the episodes themselves were not explicitly humorous.

Others had decidedly good plots despite being only to facilitate sex. An example of this is the Ami series which, if there were no sexually explicit scenes, easily comes off as simply a drama, albeit possessing a plot which involves an incestuous relationship. Another is the Rall series which focuses more on action scenes (scenes which did NOT involve sex) and in my opinion had less focus on explicit sex even though there were several scenes in which it did surface. This is about a village being attacked by a great evil (who wants to violate the women obviously) and a mythic heroine who must save them.

Overall this series is worth watching once and I feel that at least one or two episodes would be appealing to the average male (I doubt females would have any interest whatsoever). Thank you for reading :)

first of all I want to say that I really didn't see this series as something to masturbate to so I'll judge it more like an anime and less like hentai (meaning my review will be focused on the quality of plot, characters etc. rather than the quality of the sex scenes).
Also, because storylines are so different from episode to episode I'll just give small reviews for the episodes that stuck out to me instead of reviewing the series as a whole.

The Ami series (eps. 1, 5, 13, 27, 32, 33, 34, 35, 38): This is by far the longest plot line of the whole ... series and for good reason, it starts off as your typical shitty incest plot but gradually turns into a serious drama about a deeply hurt and lonely woman who keeps getting taken advantage of by everyone around her.
Although this series definitely had its flaws I enjoyed it quite a bit once it got past the first episode and I would definitely recommend watching it.

Escalations (eps. 2, 6, 16): This is a (mostly) wholesome story about a lesbian bdsm-loving polygamous relationship (which is pretty fucking based for something made in the 80's). It gets a bit too rapey at the start of episode 6 but other than that it's very cute and filled to the brim with nice yuri moments.

Tales of Rall (eps. 3, 15): A fantasy plot about a heroine saving the world from horny sex demons, not the greatest plot but it has some pretty good action scenes and a cool setting.
I would say this is worth watching but you wouldn't miss out on too much if you skipped this.

Pop Chaser (ep. 4): This is what first made me want to watch the rest of the series, it's a wild west setting with lots of great comedy, mecha action scenes that rival those of full-scale action anime of the time and even some cute yuri parts. Fantastic episode.

Super Virgin Groupies (ep. 8): Not a good episode in any way but the ridiculousness of it got some chuckles out of me, also I just wanted to use the term 'super virgin groupies'.

Star Trap (ep. 10): A ridiculous story about two girlfriends with super powers who have to defeat a planet made of tentacles that has been kidnapping women from nearby spaceships. This episode felt a lot like Pop Chaser even though the setting is completely different, it's just as funny and has even more yuri. Another fantastic episode

Narisu Scramble (ep. 14): I don't even know how to describe this episode's plot, but what I can say is that this was by far the funniest episode of the entire show and also my favorite. Seriously, even if you don't care about Cream Lemon at all at least watch this episode, I can guarantee you won't regret it!

Summer Wind (ep. 22): I can't say much about the plot of this one without spoiling it but it's a cute love story that will leave you with a bittersweet feeling in your heart.

Impressions of Europe (ep. 29): This episode is not really good in any way but it's still worth watching simply because of the sheer absurdity of it.

Cherry Melancholy (ep. 30): a cute story about the awkward problems so many people face during their first time and how to overcome them, there's also a cute lesbian couple.

It May Be So (ep. 31): By far the most disturbing episode of the series, this one tackles bleek topics such as how crime often goes ignored even though so many people claim they'd do heroic things if given the opportunity and how even seemingly "nice" people can turn into monsters if given enough power among other such topics in an intentionally exaggerated story about a serial rapist.
If you want something that will make you feel horrible about humanity this episode is for you.


Overall this anime is a mixed bag both in terms of the themes and the quality of the various storylines, all of the episodes I haven't mentioned in my review either have very generic hentai plots or lie somewhere between mediocre and straight up horrible in terms of quality.
If you're planning to watch Cream Lemon I would recommend picking out the stories that seem interesting to you and skipping everything else, you'll definitely have a better time with it that way than if you watch the whole thing.

Every hentai series I've seen thus far has been absolute trash. "Cream Lemon" is by no means an exception but is certainly worth a try if one has to start somewhere. There was a short period of time when there was opportunity to do an anime series like Cream Lemon when animation in Japan was flourishing and an actual budget for a hentai series similar in quality to mainstream series like Touch and Kimagure Orange Road was possible.

Ever since things have become increasingly dominated by the streaming format, the genre has---to some extent, lost an experimental touch; but this could also be very well due ... to how the budget for hentai nowadays has it's own fixed costs.

Although most of the stories in Cream Lemon are absolutely abhorrent, it is certainly admirable that a multitude of genres are coming together and being integrated to have us rethink about some old cliches. It seems that what "Cream Lemon" wants to ultimately accomplish is something of a mix and mash; a hentai to be half-satirical half-raunchy; perhaps even inform us of the storytelling possibilities that a hentai could accomplish as oppose to what the genre is normally limited in doing with----ahem, sex and sex only.

I don't recommend watching the entire series but, I do recommend giving at least, a few episodes a try just to experience trash at it's somewhat finest. It doesn't have an overarching story either so, you can basically start anywhere you'd prefer. I'd also advise doing some research on the strongest episodes. Otherwise, you will be in for a painful experience with a select few, as its pretty inconsistent and over the top. For me, I like high fantasy so, I stuck with those instead and officially stopped there.