BEING UPFRONT: A Pictorial Guide to Bodacious Women in Anime--Page 3 (B-C)

BATTLE ARENA TOSHINDEN Sofia (BWH: 36"/22"/35") (Source: Anime V insert '96 OVA Gals) We just get started on the B's, and already, Masami Obari strikes again. Battle Arena Toshinden features Sofia, a onetime KGB operative who is currently an investigator. She has no memory of her past and hopes that entering the Battle of Toshin will help her find out more about it. Unfortunately that past also includes mental augmentation by the mysterious Organization, which occasionally triggers and turns her into a ruthless assassin. She also looks good in tight leather outfits with zippers (better than she does in the Phys. Ed. duds you first see her wearing in the first OVA), fights with a whip (what did you think she was holding?), and gets the shower scene. Huh? Plot? What plot? Okay, okay, just joshin'. Palace of the Storms is a tribute to the original videogame (with some pics from the anime), and you can pay tribute (in the seamy sense of the phrase) at Call Me Queen. English-version videos (duhhhhh-b VHS/UNCUT bilingual DVD) are available from U.S. Manga Corps. CPM have recently remastered and re-released the DVD for $19.99 USD MSRP, so look for the slick-looking cover and lower price tag.

BURN UP W/BURN UP EXCESS
Rio Kinezono (BWH: 36"/22"/34"); Maya Jingu (38"/23"/34"); Nanbel Candlestick (36"/23"/35") (left to right, upper row);
Maria; Axia (lower row)
(Source: Anime V insert '96 OVA Gals)
Forget

Tommy Shaw of Styx's solo career, here are the real girls with guns. Rio, the one with the blonde Mai Shiranui ponytail, is the hothead of this series who frequently faces life or death situations in her work. She unwinds by shopping, spending more than she earns, dodging bill collectors and winding up her solitary male WARRIOR teammate Yuji and her supervisor with her obvious charms. Maya is a gun fiend who lives to shoot at criminals with such scary zeal (she is pictured above having an ice cream break after one such spree) that young Lilica, WARRIOR's computer expert, comments that she doesn't seem to be getting enough sex. In short, two women you don't want to get fresh with if you value life, limb and manhood. Nanbel is the engineering brains of the team, who designs the weapons Maya loves to fire. She's much mellower/giddier/bouncier than Rio and Maya, but you're not going to mess with a woman who commands a giant attack robot she built herself, are you? Burn Up Excess is a TV series based on the W OVA characters. This doesn't have the luverly nudity that was in the OVAs (the Options menu of the first region 2 DVD has a damn good pic of Maya and Rio, though! I also got the full Romanized names of the characters from this), so the producers compensated by upping the motion quotient something absurd. One of Maya's scenes in the first episode made even me go, "Oh, for frell's sake!" And the whole thing kicks off with the most twisted visual double entendre since the first episode of Aika. If Joe Bob Briggs has a room rented out in your head, get this.
As an extra added bonus, the second ep of W features a virtual idol named Maria who comforts lonely losers on the internet (like Yuji). She is kidnapped and given this body to live in. Nice shell, Miss Ghost. When our team goes out to get her, they face the vicious assassin android Axia. She'll be back--and why not? She's already (up)front!

You can get busted at Archen's Burn Up Page. It has synopses of the stories in W, but you'd think he would have gotten aroud to doing Excess by now. There's also a mini-shrine of you just want to grab some pics.

English-version videos of the Burn Up W OVA series (sub VHS/dub VHS (one ep per tape; remember the days when we stood for that crap?)/bilingual DVD (all four eps on one disc)) are available from ADV Films. They have also released Burn Up Excess (bilingual DVD only; now available as a value-priced Perfect Collection), featuring their Plastic Little DVD Jiggle Counter™--with a count for each of the three main characters above. Janice Williams must have had a hard job counting all those movements--but somebody had to do it. I wonder how you'd put that down on your resumé, though. I might add that ADV have a nice official Burn Up Excess website. Now, I wonder where those BUW desktop wallpapers ADV once had up went to.

COOL DEVICES This 11-part anthology hentai OVA series is dedicated to the darker sides of human sexuality, and the different shades of grey that this darkness holds. Of course, some directors are more mindful of the female form than others.
OPERATION 01: CURIOUS FRUIT
Ai; unnamed woman; unnamed catgirl (left to right)
The first part of this series, created by Mon-Mon (best known for the cheesecake artbook Mon-Mon Illustrations: Candy) features a quiet young woman named Ai who is sitting with her friends in a bar. They notice a quite daringly-dressed couple come in and act in a not-very-discrete manner. Intrigued, she follows them outside and notices them making out against a wall close by. Of course, they see her, and wind up leading her into a world she had previously never known about. Amway sales? Nope, S&M. Ai does not appear to fit this webpage--but she's wearing her normal outfit at the beginning of this story, y'see. It takes losing her clothes, inhibitions and a good lot of her dignity to make them stand out. The female half of the couple is never seen with her breasts fully covered; the better to see your fancy nipple rings with, my dear. I might add that about the only comedy in this episode is a nice jiggle she gets from cracking the whip. An elaborate, well-attended party features this dancing catgirl shaking her talents nicely. I might add that this is the only censored episode in the whole series, using bright glowing genitals and bodily fluids. Imagine being able to see your way to the bathroom to flush your used condom without having to turn on the lights.
OPERATION 03a: LOVER DOLL and 03b: FUYU NO MIZUGI [WINTER SWIMSUIT]
Unnamed bunny girl; unnamed girl (two pictures) (left to right)
Protonsaurus weighs in with three short vignettes, two of which are presented here for obvious reasons. Lover Doll features a cat girl who sneaks into a room with a very quiet and semi-bound bunny girl in a cage to get naughty with her. When their master catches the two of them together, he disciplines them, especially the cat girl. Not visible in the bunny girl's pic, for obvious reasons, is her unique body piercing; you have to see it to believe it. Winter Swimsuit is possibly the least shocking OVA in the series, with a young man and woman in an indoor pool who get it on after the lad cuts her swimsuit with a utility knife to get through to her excellent body. No cuts, no blood, no pain, no bondage...no dialogue or plot either, but what the hey. Sorry that I couldn't get a still that showed her face and clad body well at the same time (and that the pan composite is kind of Frankensteined; the background shifted with the pan, so that was the best I could do); these two pics should give you the general idea.

OPERATION 04: KIREI Kirei; Rui-sempai (left to right) In this segment by Yumisuki Kotoyoshi, two carefree young ladies visit an idyllic island they've heard about, which is lush and green and has a lot of beautiful butterflies, and find the natives to be very friendly--to a point. And too handy with the mickeys and aphrodisiacs. Of course, being a Cool Devices ep, it's going to be edgy, but you can see that it's also the most rounded of the OVAs. In fact, if all you want is the upfront factor of this series, the second tape/first DVD is really all you need.

OPERATION 11: (IDOL) FALLEN ANGEL RINA
Rina Yuki; Ayaka; unnamed escorts (left to right)
Last, but not least, is another Mon-Mon story. Rina Yuki is a popular idol singer with an innocent, virginal image. Things take a turn for the worse when her father, who is also her agent, becomes critically ill. That's when she discovers that he owed a lot of favours to different people, including Mr. Kurosaki, the head of Angel Productions (on the left in the above left picture). In order to protect her father's reputation, her career is signed over to Kurosaki--who then starts to systematically destroy her image (among other things), with the help of his "associate" Ayaka. At the end of the episode, Rina is escorted to the stage by these two fine upstanding (note the neckties) women to perform another concert. How does the concert go over? You'll just have to watch this to see.

English-version videos (five subtitled VHS tapes/three BLOODY HARDSUBBED DVDs!!) are available from Critical Mass, a division of

COSPLAY COMPLEX
Reika Aoshima; Jenny Matel (BWH: 88.0/52.2/73.3cm) (left to right)
(Source: First OVA)
Since anime has spawned costume players on both sides of the Pacific Ocean, then I guess an OVA series specifically about cosplayers themselves (including photographs in the ending credits) was the next logical step. Ooizumi Higashi Gakuen's cosplay club, headed by the gonzo president Goro-sempai, is trying to find another member for the club to help it get some funding. Female lead and club member Chaco Hasegawa once visited fellow member Maria's shrine to pray to do cosplay well, and was sent two spirits: Ikebukurou, a well-domesticated owl, and Delmo, a bunny-girl fairy who can actually transform herself into outfits now and again--perfect for the forgetful Chaco. Reika Aoshima is the irritable vice president of the club. At one point, she chews out a group of male students for peeping at them through their second-story window, but the costume she's wearing (the one in the picture above) makes her bob right in front of them. Jenny Matel is a transfer student from Italy. She's seen trailing Chaco in the earlier part of the first OVA whilst--you guessed it--cosplaying. She makes quite the impression on the club when Goro introduces her, and she ends up in a cosplay battle with Chaco. Tickets sell well, of course. This is brought to us by Wonderfarm, the same people behind Hand Maid May and G-on Riders, so it was kind of inevitable that references to (and costumes from) both of these would pop up. Being an OVA, fun is had watching the female characters change clothes--especially Jenny during the battle. All in all, Cosplay Complex provides more candy for the eyes than what Delmo constantly shoves into her mouth.

Here's the

CYBER TEAM IN AKIHABARA/AKIHABARA DENNOU GUMI
Left picture: Suzume Sakurajousui (BWH: 79/58/79cm) (second from left); Tsugumi Higashijujo (73/60/75cm) (right); Kamome Sengakuji (below right);
Right picture: Dark Pigeon (AKA Hatoko Daikanyama) (90/61/88cm); Blood Falcon (AKA Jun Gotokuji) (101/70/98cm) (also on lower right top); Death Crow (AKA Miyami Soshigaya) (96/63/92cm) (left to right)
Misa Rosario (lower right bottom)
In the 21st Century, small robots called "PataPi" (that look kind of like Pikachu if its mother had taken Thalidomide during pregnancy) have been created to serve as companions and helpers (and heavily-commercialized status symbols) for their human owners. A junior high school girl named Hibari Hanakoganei (the redhead in the above left picture) receives a magical PataPi from a guardian angel who appears in her dreams. Unbeknownst to her, her PataPi has a special hidden power, and a villain named "Shooting Star" is trying to steal it, with the help of three women. The first one we meet is Blood Falcon (whose disguise is office lady Jun Gotokuji). In the first two episodes, Hibari runs into her. Literally. And surprisingly doesn't get whiplash from it. Her co-worker, the Haiku-spouting Miyami Soshigaya, also works for Shooting Star under the guise of Death Crow. She's more of a serious character (not much more, though), so she's not as mobile as Blood Falcon, but her outfit would still lend itself nicely to a game of quarter-tossing. Just when you fear that things are threatening to get serious, the third member of the team, Dark Pigeon, appears. Her day job/earthly guise is that of idol singer Hatoko Daikanyama, and, by all accounts, both versions are extremely ditzy. Suzume Sakurajousui has been a friend of Hibari since they were really young, and stands out because of her overly formal speech and manners, and impressive build for a junior. She keeps a PataPi herself, with a name longer than Brian Eno's full name and a surprise for all involved. Tsugumi Higashijujo is one of Hibari's new classmates, the tough daughter of a martial-artist/dojo owner father and pro wrestler Misa Rosaria, and fellow proud PataPi (which also turns out to be magical) owner. Misa is usually training in far-flung parts of Japan, but she greets Hibari at the beginning of the third episode with a running clothesline and a pin. Gotta admit that those would keep me well-pinned. While Tsugumi is a good martial artist in her own right, she is also a hardcore idol otaku who dreams of being a singer one day, and the scene where she dances and sings along to a Hatoko Daikanyama video as she dresses for school proves she's at least got two parts down (and up, then down again, etc.). Suzume is very jealous about the time Hibari spends with Tsugumi, and, as a result, she and Tsugumi are almost constantly fighting. Those PataPis' magic? You gotta see it to believe it. Later, we are introduced to Kamome Sengakuji, a money- and status-hungry little brat who wants to be better than any of her classmates, by any means possible, including stuffing her clothing (she also argues with Suzume about bust size at one point, which apparently gives Suzume a good comic turn or two). The funniest picture I've seen of this show in a Japanese magazine has the main cast, wearing swimsuits, lined up at the blocks on a track, with Kamome looking quite distressed because one of her breasts is leaking air! This is a series (26 TV eps, the Summer 2010 movie), that plays it for cute and ecchi laughs left, right, and center, and should be checked out by any non-uptight anime fan with a slightly off-kilter sense of humour.