Anime Meta-Review
Gigolo, The
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Title Info
- alias: Dochinpira
- type: movie
- grade: flawed
- genre: erotica
- source: commercial
- form: sub
- dur: 45
- made: 1993
- Review created: Wed Apr 21 19:42:36 EST 2004
- mod: none
You think something is forever, assume it will be there when you need it, and then you are taught the harsh lesson of loss. No, I haven't been dumped (Invitations from prospective dumpers welcome of course) or had a death in the family but the local crappy(tm) video store went bust. And in this store was a crappy old anime tape I was going to review when I had the time... what a tragic loss. So to avoid similar disasters here's one from the dusty recesses of the local store.
Synopsis
Jan is a beautiful young girl putting on a brave face, even though she has sold both her pride and her body. She's dropped out of studies in order to fund her life through street prostitution, her house-mate casually uses her for sex, street mobsters rough her up for "protection" money and threaten mutilation should she resist. And then slowly she is drawn deeper into the affairs of the mob as a brutal hitman uses her and then abuses her helpless love for him....
I do apologise, seem to have got my wires crossed, that's not actually the synopsis for this movie. Let me try again.
Jin is a hot young stud, a handsome devil whose sexual technique can make a woman scream with pleasure. And he's more than ready to demonstrate on anyone who's interested, and can meet the price he demands. And he's making enough, and getting enough, that university seems a waste of time. He can even pay some of his rent by screwing his housemate. Life is good for Jin, sure the mob wants a piece of those earnings but he's not going to give into them. He finds himself drawn deeper however when one of his clients proves to be a hitwoman for one of the rival mobs who both wants information... and to finally discover the joys of sex at his capable hands.
Review
As the opening shows the main audience for this title appears to be desperately horny guys and gender studies academics. It makes the unusual switch of having the prostitute be a male character while the mobster is female. It's honestly surprising, as I hope my synopsis shows, how different this makes the tone and style of the title. The situations play our quite differently when a male perspective (and my male own male viewpoint of that perspective) is represented.
Of course such in depth examination is impaired by the fact that the title itself is pretty damn shallow. The plot is simplistic and traditional to the extent that it's downright corny. The characters are shallow, not introspective or reflective about their actions or roles, and the dialog manages to make them look even worse. Regardless of anything else this simply isn't very good. The only originality it has is the role reversal implicit in male prostitution and it lacks the skill to do much with that. For example, through an improbable series of events, we end up with a slightly tragic event. Does Jin reflect upon this, about how he could change himself? No way, he goes home and screws his housemate again.
Which leads us onto the action, both in and out of bed. It's equally bad in each case. The sex is very soft-core, without character or build up, and only marginally animated. It's simply not very erotic at all, falling far more on the "tedium" end of the scale, although thankfully the incidences are also fairly short. The non-sex action is about as deep, very static and without style or interest. The hit-woman is supposed to be capable, so the back of the box says, but she's really a talentless thug with a gun. Much like the story and character work there's really no depth or quality to any of it.
The production continues this mediocre progression. The animation has moderately complex linework, washed out coloring and blocky shadows. Every effort has been taken to avoid the amount of motion needed in any scene, it's really half hearted and low budget without any style to save it. It doesn't look too bad though, and some of the females are moderately attractive looking, so it is watchable but it has little of interest to offer. The biggest weakness is perhaps that it's too easy to spot how many corners were cut in production. Dialogue is bad, the dub makes it sound even worse, although not even the best actors in the world could save some of this dialog. The music deserves special mention, it summarises the very worst "porn" music and is just horrific in addition to cheapening the whole experience. That half-hearted electro-jazz with heavy repetition was terrible when it evolved and sounds even worse now.
Just to confirm this is an adult title, rated R in Australia. It has exposed breasts, with one animated wobble per breast, and suggestive poses, with one repeated movement per pose. It's not suitable for kids because no one deserves to suffer through anime that's this bad... um, apart from me I guess.
The company that released this in Australia is now, I believe, out of business. What a sadness. The other trailers on this film, Adventure Kid, Urotsukidoji and such make it clear that they figured animated smut would sell. My faith in humanity is restored by the fact it looks like they were wrong. But they did manage to re-inforce negative image of anime and thus retard it's growth as a mainstream media.
Words by Andrew Shelton, Web by Ticti, Last Compile: Wed Aug 5 12:39:25 WST 2009