The Sensualist

Overview: A few years ago, I wrote a review for an avantgarde hentai called "Belladonna of Sadness". Earlier this year, I looked at the grotesque yet captivating Shoujo Tsubaki. Now it's finally time to complete the holy trinity of art hentai! This is "The Sensualist", the king of artsy hentai! Background: This film was written by the legendary Eiichi Yamamoto, who also wrote and directed Belladonna. This one dude REALLY wanted to make artsy hentai a thing, but nobody else wanted to ride that train with him. While I liked Belladonna, I still had a few issues with it. Here Yamamoto has improved his craft. The surreal visualsactually add meaningfully to the experience, whereas in Belladonna I just found them distracting. The film is based on a famous Japanese erotic story called "Life of an Amorous Man". The author of this story was Ihara Saikaku, whose writing and poetry were considered "low-brow" during his own time, but influenced Japanese literature for centuries afterwards. Saikaku is credited with creating the "Floating World" Movement, which dominated Japanese literature for over 100 years. To get specific, Saikaku used a form of poetry called "Renku". These poems were often comedic and vulgar in nature, so his narrative poems were... pretty racy. The following is considered a classic example of Renku from the 1400s. It's still taught to Japanese students today. "The robe of haze is wet at its hem" "The Goddess of Spring pisses while standing" Meanwhile, on the other side of the Earth, Chaucer and Dante were kicking themselves because they didn't write that. Plot: Our hero is Yunosuke, who was born the son of a wealthy silver merchant and a high ranked courtesan. This is the tale of the horniest bastard to ever live! He lost his virginity at the age of 7 and by the time he died at age 60, he had slept with 3,742 women and 725 men. One day, Yunosuke encounters a buffoonish merchant named Juzo, who while drunk had been tricked into accepting an outlandish bet. Juzo has to sleep with the highest ranked geisha in the city on the first meeting with her, or else he gets his dick and balls cut off. This particular geisha is very classy, so she doesn't sleep with anyone before the 3rd meeting and even then only the wealthiest and most sophisticated clients. Yunosuke feels deep contempt for the man who fooled the hapless Juzo and agrees to help him. Art: Here is the highlight of the film. The visuals are absolutely gorgeous. The art style is heavily inspired by Ukiyo-e painting. I'm a fan of that art style, so I loved it in Mononoke and I loved it here. Isao Takahata loved this film and was so impressed with the visuals that he paid homage to the ending in Ponpoko. Yes, there is a visual allusion to a hentai within a Ghibli film! Sound: Very classic Japanese music. It's what you would expect from a Kabuki play or Jidaigeki film. Overall: An artsy hentai certainly sounds like an oxymoron. Hentai by its nature is quite possible the crudest and least dignified of all anime genres. However, this short film actually managed to pull off the impossible. Bravo Yamamoto-san!