Soukou Seiki Ysphere: Ingyaku no Sennou Kaizou

Reposting my review because it was unjustly removed back in AUGUST 24 by the Review Moderator.
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As a huge fan of GOLD BEAR and Murakami Teruaki's works, I've been wondering when is their next release since Toriko no Shizuku. And it's finally here, during the middle of a pandemic, no less.

Let's go through each category:

Story - 5
Honestly, who cares? I personally have never cared about plot or background stories of characters, especially in extremely raunchy works (even among hentai standards). So when they reveal that it's all about some girls in tight suits getting brainwashed who gets fucked out of their brains by orc-looking dudes (haven't ... seen that one before /s), I can easily look over it. It's nothing but a vessel for sex scenes and I'm fine with that.

Art - 7
This one's a bit weird. I absolutely love Murakami's violent approach to sex which is always about one (or mostly several) dominating the other. A lot of people aren't into that, but I am, so having more of the usual from Murakami and his studio is always a blessing. However, compared to a lot of his other works, this one especially focuses on sexual torture (brainwashing, injections, electricity, etc.). I wouldn't have had a problem with this if not for the fact that other scenes suffer because of their focus on torture. Blowjob and actual sex scenes suffer from staying in one shot for too long or reusing them over and over again because there's a clear lack of variety in angles/positions (but the torture scenes do not). This has always been kind of an issue with their previous works, but even more prevalent here. Even the god-tier direction from Murakami and amazing work from their animators cannot save them from this issue. And this not only affects the enjoyment of their viewer (me) but also affects the performance of VAs as well (will explain this in the Audio section). Anyway, the blowjob scenes are still hot as fuck, per usual (best in the industry), and the girls' crazed expressions while being showered, bowl-fed, and cream-filled with frothy semen will never get old. It's just a shame that these scenes could've been executed a lot better.

Sound - 7
If you're someone who closely follows Murakami Teruaki's works, you'd notice that they always have the same VAs playing different roles across different titles. Not only do they sound really hot, but they can also keep up with the crazy heaving/panting/moaning that can only be found in Murakami's works. I might be wrong with this, but from what I can tell, those VAs were not present for this project. Instead, they seem to have new VAs. I can almost immediately tell that they haven't had a lot of practice doing this kind of insane voice work for hentai before, but they tried their best. Unfortunately, as I mentioned in the Art section, some cuts stay on for too long and you can literally hear the VAs running out of steam in the middle of the scene. It takes me out of the moment, but now I just kinda find it funny. However, that still means the final product suffers, so I'm gonna have to lower the score here by a lot.

Character - 3
There's nothing to be said. Unless there's some elaborate world-building that needs to be established that intricately explains why characters are getting porked in all of their holes at the same time and why that's relevant to the overarching story, there is nothing to care about. These characters are vessels to deliver us sex scenes.

Enjoyment & Overall - 7
I enjoyed this one quite a bit, but a lot less compared to their previous works such as Toriko no Shizuku and Mashou no Nie 3. The quality has taken a bit of a dip, but it's still enjoyable. And as usual, Murakami teases me with really short DP scenes... my guy always makes gangbang hentai but only dedicates 2% of its runtime to DP scenes. Like, come the fuck on... More, please.

Soukou Seiki Ysphere: Ingyaku no Sennou Kaizou is simply dreadful and easily a contender for worst hentai of the year, maybe even decade. The story is a joke, it basically follows two magical girls that get captured then bounces between scenes of torture and rape. Which aren't really my thing to begin with, but these aren't even done well. The torture scenes are just long drawn out moments of the girls being electrocuted and some needles injecting them (which don't really do anything other than stick in them). Then the rape scenes are basically gang bangs by faceless ogre like men. The only thing you ... can call a story is the brief speaking parts here and there that just state the obvious.

As far art and animation, well let's say Queen Bee may have lost the throne for worst studio in those areas. At least Queen Bee productions have solid art and you get some decent angles here and there. This one, the art is a train wreck. The are scenes were there is no faces on the characters or any detail, just blobs in the shape of people. Then when there is motion its stiff with a mix of terrible angles and movements so unnatural looking it makes you question if the animators have even seen people. Another annoying thing is the clothing, its on all the time despite it being a hentai and the clothing seems to be a magician or something as it appears and disappears through out the scenes.

Now the sound may be the least bad thing to discuss about, but its still really bad. The VA doesn't match the girls very well as they sound like children/loli-like characters but with bodies of clearly grown woman. This problem isn't as noticeable after the first few minutes as they basically stop talking and only moan and scream afterwards. Then the sound effects are a step below your typical bad sound effects in hentai.

Overall, this is a hard pass on recommendation to anyone. It just doesn't look like it can scratch anyone's itch in terms of interest, quality, sex, or story. Gold Bear seems to be the newest studio to put on your avoid list on future releases as all of their releases to date have been well below average and only seem to be getting worse.