STORY 8
What I really like about classic hentais is that they usually some thought about the story and plot which is all too often left out in hentais today. Queen and Slave manages to deliver a short tale of two individuals drawn together by a seemly innocent exchange which leads them down a series of life altering choices and situations with a thought provoking conclusion in the end.
Set in a typical urban city somewhere in Japan, salary men work by day and seek prostitutes in sex clubs at night. Behind closed doors their wildest fantasies are fulfilled by a whip touting leather clad sadist queen known only to her customers as "Yumi". By day she is Terada Yoshimi, a gentle and caring nurse at a local hospital. Her secret double life, however, is accidentally discovered by a young hospital patient, Andou Hiroyuki, who fell in love with her loving gentle kindness. He secretly follows her and finds out the dark side to her. What ensues is an emotional roller coaster of unrequited love, hate, humiliation, and self-realization.
CHARACTER 8
Terada Yoshimi, as I have mentioned before, is a nurse by day and a S&M prostitute by night. She is, considered by many, a sadist queen who loves to punish men. We find that she is a bit of a man hater, perhaps due to circumstances when growing up. However, during her day time occupation, not a shred of her sadist tendencies show up. On the contrary, she is a gentle and kind nurse. The sort of gentle kindness that shy young male college students like Andou Hiroyuki would fall for. And it is indeed Andou that brings about the catalysis of change for the two.
An innocent, shy, and perhaps insecure college student, Andou is emitted to the hospital for a broken leg where he meets the beautiful Terada and falls madly in love with her. Though it was a short exchange, Andou could not forget about that beautiful nurse, to the point where he began stalking her to the discovery of her night time profession as a prostitute. With mixed emotions, he decides to buy a night with her. Unintentionally, he discovers his dark side. You can say Andou is the tragic hero in the story. He really can't seem to do things right and, in the end, hurts the ones he loves, realizes too late, and cannot come to grips with it thus transforming him forever more.
In a sense, Tereda Yoshimi and Andou Hiroyuki are both protagonists and antagonists in a somewhat disturbing drama of love and hate. It is rare in hentai that we get to see character development and yet Queen and Slave manages just that in a single 30 min episode. But I think the biggest plus for Q&S is that you empathize with the characters and because of that you have an emotional bondage to what happens to each character.
ART & ANIMATION 5
Art and animation is of of Queen and Slave's short comings. For a title released in 2002, I would of expected something a bit better. Probably due to production costs I would imagine. However it does have that nice classic feel and I give them kudos for coming up with some innovative split screens and pans. It isn't often you get to see a close up shot of the penetration with a panning of the action superimposed. It was quite ingenious to make of for the lack of animation. Another plus is that this title can be found uncensored and I was surprised to find a high level of detail that went into the private areas, and by that I mean sucking pussy lips and swinging scrotums. Although, I do think there were excessive wrinkles in the details, but what ever, it certainly beats the usual plain red hot dogs.
Character design wise, Q&S is not bad. Terada Yoshimi looks good. A quintessential black haired beauty with full breasts. No, not the blond you see on the misleading cover. There are odd angles in some of the sex scenes where movements and drawings seem, well, odd. But none the less, the copious amount of sex, the gratuitous scenes, and the details all point to good fapping material.
SOUND 7
I have no problems with the sound. The voice acting was good and fit their characters respectively. The electric guitar in the back ground gave an air of tragic rebellious melancholy. The SFX were all on que and all the squishy sopping noises you would expect from hentai of today. The OP and ED is all instrumental. A mix between jazz and techno, it is rather catchy.
OVERALL 7.5
Queen and Slave brings an air of nostalgia, back to the days of hentai classics. Sure it is lacking the the art and animation department, but makes up with story, character, and innovative imagery. You can say it is a template for hentais of the BDSM/NTR genre we have today.
