After a long hiatus of not watching hentai, I’m back in action with a hentai that’s been on PTW list for quite a while. Furueru Kuchibiru is a romance hentai exploring the rather taboo relationship between teacher and student in typical shoujo~esque characters who can’t seem to communicate with each other besides off-handed and vague comments so will these two be able to overcome this disconnect and find love? To avoid spoilers, I will at least say that this hentai does have an ending so it won’t leave you out to dry with faint promises of a sequel. I’m rather conflicted on this hentai as there are pros and cons to the prequel and the main story which together would make for a great hentai experience but felt slightly lacking in the same aspect.
Story : 7.5
Note: There are two ways to watch the hentai, broadcast order and chronological order however I personally prefer the chronological order as it adds depth to our characters and makes us care before truly developing the core romantic relationship.
While Furueru Kuchibiru is not exactly a slow hentai, it doesn’t take us through the motions at a breakneck speed that its contemporaries often prefer. The plot actually uses the sex scenes for the characters to truly break out of their shell and grow during believable moments of vulnerability as well as exploring the inner ramblings of the characters allowing us to follow how the character thinks and ends up at resolutions which makes this growth feel grounded in reality. The watch order is key to getting the full experience, in the prequel they could’ve just made that a one-off where the characters confess their love and that is the end of it. Instead we are left with uncertainty in how the relationship will continue and we have this resolved in the sequel that is able to continue this slower paced story telling due to the foundation being laid out in the previous episode.
I will go over the characterization in more depth later, but for now let’s think about the actual story and what it tries to achieve. Clearly the show is aware of the taboo nature of the relationship which the teacher expresses concern about in the hentai and that really is the theme of the hentai. ‘TABOO’ is not just present in the relationship, it hangs over the entire hentai with Kon refusing to conform to societal norms, she never felt in place anywhere running away from the places where a high school girl would be expected to fit in well. Similarly, we see the Sensei’s discomfort in the educational system where the school wants to raise the rate of students entering college rather than working, although not as abnormal it is still considered somewhat odd for high school graduates to work immediately. Both these characters feel like outcasts of society so they find comfort in each other’s acceptance yet they aren’t suddenly a perfect couple, they are socially awkward and guarded, unwilling to commit their emotions to each other fully.
What I love about this hentai’s main relationship is that it gradually and realistically grows, the sexual interactions actually play a big role in the hentai and it isn’t there just because it’s a hentai. Our main characters are obviously socially awkward and don’t often socialize but the vulnerability that is afforded to one another when they have sex is what allows for an avenue of communication that allows them to understand each other better. We see actual change in both characters with Kon becoming more comfortable around her Sensei, feeling more like a family than her own family actually made her feel. With Sensei we saw him gain a greater awareness that students aren’t just problematic to be problematic, they are people as well and have issues in their own lives which are usually where the bad attitude stems from. On the surface, this hentai just looks like your bog-standard 2D teacher-student hentai but upon a few rewatches I began to see deeper character growth than I was expecting initially. The story services the characterization extremely well and enables organic character growth which makes it feel much more tangible which makes it better than average.
Art and Animation : 7.5
This style of art may be polarizing among viewers as the style is in between the older much more realistic hentai and new ‘softer’ hentai. We see great detail in how the bodies move, nothing is censored which for the uninitiated can seem rather jarring. Personally I took a liking to it, the ways the physical moves were drawn felt meticulous and not too unrealistic since the movements weren’t absurdly fast. The character design may seem bland on the surface, but to me it feels like it is just in service of the story. This hentai explores the usual teacher-student dynamic in a very character driven way, so our characters themselves are drawn to look like the typical responsible teacher and delinquent student, yet this design is meant to draw in audiences thinking that it’s gonna be business as usual but then it subverts the expectations with great characters.
Characters : 8.5
As I mentioned in the story section, this hentai is very character drive and for that to work the characters must be compelling. The hentai definitely had a hump to get over because it could have easily blundered the character relationship and made the Sensei out to be a parental figure which would’ve been even less accepted and rather weird than just taboo. Like I expressed before, the actual sex played a big role in this hentai’s character development which is really usually neglected as being a legitimate story telling tool so I must commend Furueru Kuchibiru for using it’s sex to develop the characters. In Furueru Kuchibiru 0, having sex behind the school expressed how the characters were doing something quick and dirty, almost as if it was one-off thing that would not be repeated. It follows up with a bath scene in the Sensei’s apartment which tells us that they have moved past the ‘one-off’ status and entered not only into the house of another person but into the bath which exudes VULNERABILITY over anything else. It is where people are laid bare, where everything is left out to hang and in this case it was not only physically but also emotionally as we finally see them open up to each other when it concludes in the bedroom yet the relationship is still left ambiguous showing the audience that the relationship hasn’t yet broken out of its cocoon. This ambiguity sets up for Furueru Kuchibiru where they are casually hanging out in the Sensei’s apartment and the breaking point of this ‘half-assed’ relationship is finally reached and the Sensei finally establishes stability into their relationship. The relationship finally spreads its wings in a sense when they finally go on a date, officially labelling their relationship as ‘dating’ and not being afraid to be seen in public together. Throughout all this, we see how the relationship dynamics change our characters and how the relationship evolves from strangers to lovers. It is legitimately impressive how they used sex as a narrative tool in such a meaningful way leading to characters that weren’t just the usual tropes we see in every anime/manga/hentai/doujin. Furueru Kuchibiru’s characters well and truly surprised me by showing me something new in hentai and for that I will greatly praise it
The one fault of the show which made this characterization much weaker was the voice acting. Upon rewatches it became less prevalent of a problem yet on my first watch it stood out like a sore thumb, the dialogue was performed in such a boring way and ruined the impact of those moments of vulnerability and quiet intimacy. It would have been a much more powerful experience had the voice actors matched the caliber of the storytelling, alas no hentai can truly be perfect can it.
Prostate Attention : 9
I’ve watched quite a bit of hentai in my day, from the horrifyingly cruel rapes to the tentacles absolutely destroying every orifice on the surface of a young girl yet I was so surprised when that tongue went down south and yet it wasn’t so bad. Somehow little flairs like that coming out of a vanilla hentai added a realistic spice to a hentai that is so narritively driven by sex. It felt true to life that a couple that had been together for a little while would like to spice it up and it just added to the authenticity of their relationship. It needed none of the fanfare but that one scene had such a profound effect on the whole experience, it is worth noting in my opinion.
Enjoyment : 9
I had a ball with Furueru Kuchibiru as another comeback hentai, it got me out of my rut. I really didn’t like Furueru Kuchibiru on my first watch however it grew on me even as I wrote this review so I suggest others try it out as well. Vanilla is usually boring so I always look for the edge each hentai tries to bring in order to excite the audience that’s seen a thousand hentai and Furueru Kuchibiru is a great example of a hentai doing more than the bare minimum and actually surprising me when I wasn’t expecting anything. From the superb storytelling, the use of sex to drive the character growth, the moments of intimacy and the spices added to the sex, it was a departure from what I’m used to watching in the best sense of the expression. Furueru Kuchibiru came in as an underdog and boy did it come swinging at me, I doubt I will forget this hentai and I feel like anyone can pick it up as it is such a newbie friendly hentai that still has nuances that keep it interesting.
