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Coming into “Kara no Shoujo” (no pun intended), I had very little experience with hentai and its ilk. Aside from a few amateur doujins and the Bible Black series, I haven’t really watched or read very many hentai. In short, I’m not well-versed in the finer nuances of the genre. My hentai rating system, if I were to have one, would consist of two options: “Got a boner” and “did not get a boner”. Incidentally, if I had to give this series a score, it would be “half a chub”. With that being said, I do have some experience with watching anime, and I’d ... like to think that I do know what makes for a good one. Basically, what I’m trying to say is that I’ll be reviewing “Kara no Shoujo” in the same way I’d review a non-hentai anime. Okay, moving on…

“Kara no Shoujo” was originally an eroge developed by Innocent Grey and published in Japan sometime in 2008. Despite being notoriously hard and linear, the game managed to garner plenty of praise for having excellent production values, an interesting hard-boiled narrative and for generally being “fucking awesome"(TM). Furthermore, like most visual novels, the game is pretty long; I sank a good ten hours just trying to finish the game. With a game of this length you’d expect the OVA to run for at least four or five hours, right? Well, not necessarily.

The hentai adaptation of “Kara no Shoujo” is split into two 27-minute episodes, which roughly equate to about an hour of total runtime. If you factor in the EDs of each episode, you’re left with about 50 minutes to squeeze in (approx.) 10 hours of visual novel gameplay. To compensate, the OVA tries to simplify Kara no Shoujo’s plot, ignoring much of the events of the first half of the VN. This, in my opinion, is the OVA’s biggest and most glaring flaw. Through much revision and rewriting, the hentai version of “Kara no Shoujo” is distilled to a husk of its former self. The reason this is, is because of the ambitious nature of the VN. The plot is grand in scope and encompasses almost every single character with a sprite. Furthermore, the VN’s narrative meticulously connects every character in a way that makes each essential to the story. In simplifying the plot, the OVA adaptation becomes riddled with plenty of plot holes that make the mystery in “Kara no Shoujo” feel more like ambiguity. The result is an awkward patchwork of sex scenes and plot that are barely coherent and poorly paced. Moreover, characters become stilted and lack any depth or development; we get no insight into the characters motivations or their intentions. Everything about the characters is flat and obvious; in effect, they are pretty much just tools to further the plot.

It’s not all bad, though; there are lots to like about this one beside the story and characters. For one thing, the OVA still has the strong production values that the VN was known for. The art is actually really good, and it looks exactly the way you might imagine it when playing the VN. It also does a decent job of building ambience, as the torture scenes are appropriately uncomfortable and macabre; there’s one scene, in particular, during the very end of the OVA when they enter the killer’s hideout that I found especially creepy. Audio-wise, all the voice actors you loved and fapped to in the visual novel reprise their roles. Likewise, the VN’s jazzy and often haunting OST returns, even if it is sparsely used. Finally, the actual H-scenes are pretty decent, if not sparse and inconsistent. There are about 3 scenes in both episodes, which some people might find too little (though, personally, I didn’t mind). Out of the three, I’d say the last one with Toko was probably the best, mostly because she gets fucked over (literally and figuratively) in the VN, so it’s nice to see a semi-not-sad ending with her. All in all, solid production values keep this one watcheable and, at times, even enjoyable.

Honestly, it’s a shame that the hentai adaptation had to radically modify the VN’s story. Part of what made the original VN so great was the sheer madness and unpredictability that came along with the various twists and turns it threw at you. Even though I thought the VN ultimately took it a bit too far with the twists, I could still appreciate the meticulous way everyone was connected and the massive ambitions the game had. Unfortunately, none of that is present in the hentai adaptation. Watching a sex scene is infinitely more satisfying than reading about it, but it feels like a lot of the mystery and intrigue was lost in translation. Personally, I think it was the length of the OVA that ultimately did it in. I would have loved to see a 12 episode hentai as ambitious and narrative-driven as the visual novel was, though I guess a two episode hentai with decent sex scenes will suffice.