[email protected]

KiraRin Sep 29, 2009

3.5

StoryWhilst helping add new anime to the database, she-who-must-be-obeyed (sothis) pointed me in the direction of [email protected] “It has tentacles and shit; your kind of thing!” was the foreboding cry. Still not convinced, I sucked it up for the greater good, hoping for another hidden gem to share with people. As you will see after reading this review, a new love affair was sadly not to be. Tagged as “horror” on most sites, there are actually very few hair-raising screams and, instead, a boat-load of x-rated moans of pleasure await. A story that held immense promise was spoiled by a fetishist's wet dream, filled to the brim with tentacles and bondage. Set in a futuristic world where humankind no longer exists, our robotic creations continue to survive long after our eradication, desperate for eventual evolution. The supposed heroine of the show, Malice, is a Doll – a beautiful android girl who is a glorified fleshlight. Her numerous flashbacks to the good old days see some rather perverted moments of foot licking, ball gagging and erotic flesh cutting. It may sound like a hentai production, and the boundaries are certainly blurred, but the titillating action is mostly kept off screen with just some hand-sweater action to drive the viewer to distraction. Even the tentacle scenes are visually tame with a half-hearted limp worm disappearing up a girls' skirt. A flimsy offer of potential came from the transformation of the surrounding characters into real-life beings. The thought of a man-made creatures being left to run around Earth, whilst considering their makers’ as God was fascinating. Unfortunately, this concept was nipped in the bud and thrown by the wayside as a half naked creature paraded onscreen, and a woman attempted to bring herself to orgasm atop a giant insect. Yes, really. I was hoping that the tame sexual content in [email protected] would take a secondary role to the sci-fi storyline that oozes seductively with exciting promise, but this was sadly not to be. Any semblance of a plot is buried underneath the utterly perverted ecchi. The visuals take precedence as the creators spend too long showing off their abilities with the computer graphics and not enough time thinking about a narrative capable of carrying the viewers interest throughout the 90-minute OVA.AnimationDespite sporting superb computer graphics for its day, [email protected] now looks decidedly dated. The PS2-esque depiction of a forgotten city landscape is beautiful, if not a little self-contained. The animated robots look gorgeous and skilfully crafted but beg an unflattering comparison to more modern PS3 effects. Whilst Malice plays the part of a glorified Barbie doll, the aged graphics suit her matte complexion and soulless eyes. However, her transformation into a real, curvaceous woman makes her appear flat and special effects seem overly forced. The veins pulsating underneath her tongue are ugly and her lips in serious need of a collagen injection. Any action scenes are jerky, adding a comical twist to a damsel running away in despair and falling helplessly to the ground.SoundI’m actually considering banning dubbed shows from my household. Watching two of the three episodes of [email protected] with excellent Japanese seiyuu and subtitles, I waded into dodgy waters by switching to the English soundtrack for its finale. The once naive Heather transformed into an even more vapid bint, and the sexually husky Doris suddenly suffers from a transgendered problem. On the flip side of the coin, the soundtrack was beautiful. Ranging from orchestral vocals as a camera pans through a forgotten city, to an urban-techno closing track, my ears pricked up at the amazing musical accompaniment.CharactersIgnoring the show's exorbitant amount of perversion, Malice is a surprisingly likable character. It will take a cold hearted viewer to not feel compassion for the poor girl who is thrust into an alien body and shunned by her previous peers. The development from robotic android to virgin female is not a sudden transformation, and the tentative steps in new skin are well thought out by the writers. Unfortunately, the focus soon veers away and gravitates to the lesbian tonsil-hockey skills of the ex-sextoy. Malice is unfortunately shadowed by the other Dolls discovering their own humanity and another unhealthy dose of kinky scenes. The rest of the supporting cast could be boiled down to the remainder of the sex doll clique, as the other robots are insignificant. Of those, only Heather and Doris stand out. Initially, as Doris, the leader of the group, attempts to make a stand against Malice, her traditional Japanese dress and authoritative role empowers her. However, her failure sees her transformed into a nymphomaniac who wants nothing but sexual pleasure, and it doesn’t matter where it comes from. Heather is a typical girly character; kitted out in a slutty maid outfit to please her patrons, she giggles and plays the part of the annoying airhead extremely well.OverallDisclaimer: “Tentacles and shit” are *not* my thing. Perhaps I would have lapped up this degrading ecchi anime a little more if I was heavily into BDSM... or had an android fetish... or liked my girls to have a six-foot-long monstrous arm. Sadly, I don’t. As it stands, the only memorable thing about this show will be the terrible dub and apparent ease in which a female can orgasm. All in all, [email protected] is not completely terrible, but it is seriously lacking in anything but twisted stimulation material.

SadisticTendencies Dec 14, 2012

4.5

Story: 5/10 Having lost their human masters since long ago, the entire cast of [email protected] is comprised of androids that no longer have any reason for being but still choose to carry out their original duties with loyalty. Amongst these characters we find Malice, a specific kind of robotic creature made solely to provide sexual satisfaction to human customers who used to exist. When an abnormality grants her the gift (or curse) of humanity, everything changes as she allows not only herself but also the other "dolls" to be reborn as sentient, emotional beings who quickly start to explore the pros and cons of being human. This OVA suffers from the defects of poor backdrop and several excessive scenes. With the premise in mind, a rather explicit sexual tone is to be expected but it happens with unreasonable frequency and sometimes even with questionable relevance. The viewer is also expected to develop an emotional attachment to the struggles of the protagonist which simply won't happen as we never really get to know who she is before the roller-coaster begins. Are there any virtues to the story? It's debatable, but I'd say the answer is yes. Amongst the scenes of violence and BDSM-themes sexuality, lots of interesting questions are raised. The most prominent one would probably be "what does it mean to be human?” something quite common in anime. If there was anything I absolutely loved with [email protected] however it was probably how humanity and not technology is viewed as a corruptive force and the fact that it never assumes sentience is better than artificiality. Animation: 4/10 Character designs look appropriately non-human and our robotic protagonists walk around deserted landscapes in deliberately poor movement. Upon its release more than 10 years ago the animation must have been somewhat impressive, but as is the case with most CG it has aged terribly. It's still more or less watchable and there are even certain scenes that managed to maintain some strange sort of beauty, but overall the visual quality is passable at most. Nobody can deny, however, that some of the metamorphoses depicted are incredibly unnerving. Sound: 7/10 Voice acting is relatively fine assuming you choose the Japanese audio track and the soundtrack is mainly comprised of eerie noises and simplistic but appropriate scores. It accompanies the overall morbid atmosphere quite well without ever getting distracting or obnoxious. Characters: 4.5/10 Being human is not necessarily a condition preferable to being a machine. This was, as far as my own subjective interpretation goes, one of the main themes and it's almost fascinating based on its rarity alone; I don't think I've ever encountered such a statement in any work of fiction that comes to mind. It would have worked even better, however, if we actually cared more about the characters which we, thanks to poor writing, never really do. Their struggles generate minor amounts of sympathy but in the end they don't really do much with their recently acquired humanity other than explore the realms of pleasure and pain. Furthermore, their personalities are incredibly simplistic which is to be expected when they were made for one single purpose. I just expected more of a change when they acquired emotions, even if the main theme I mentioned above is interesting enough for me to provide a mediocre score. Overall: 4.5/10 Don't let the low ratings fool you; [email protected] is not a terrible anime and nor is it filled to the brim with gore and perversion even though several bits are very explicit. It gives birth to a fascinating discussion topic you probably haven't considered before and features enough morbid material to be memorable. The last thing might not be a proper assessment of its quality but all in all I found this hidden OVA both interesting but also VERY poorly scripted. I expected more from a man like Konaka Chiaki but I got a lot more than the ratings of other users indicated I would.

angelsreviews Aug 6, 2013

5

[email protected] is a strange CG anime that takes place in the world of Dolls that were made for prostitution. This was a rather interesting show that brought up a lot of questions about what it meant to be human and what might happen if one loses their identity. It was created by the same person that did Serial Experiments Lain and Ghost Town. Malice seems a bit more thought out then the rest of the characters, except maybe Joe who seems to be almost a voice of wisdom to the dolls, a father figure. I don’t really understand the relationship between the two but from what it looked like, it seemed that Malice and Joe were very close although you don’t normally see him around the other sex bolls. I wish I could have seen a bit more of the other characters because they really seemed one dimensional throughout the whole show. The storyline is really slow for most of it and hard to figure out. It took me a very long time to get a feel of what the story was even trying to say let alone what was going on. They never really tell anyone the history about the area or what actually did happen to the humans, pretty much leaving it open to speculation. Because you never actually see the top world in a sense, you are left to imagine your own answer for why human’s aren’t there. My thought was that the human’s wiped themselves out but others might think that they died off from an illness, they were using sex dolls for their means and never repopulated, or other such things. The show to me really is open to your own ideas and what you get from this show is pretty much all you get. The only thing I couldn’t get was the ending with how it happened but I won’t spoil it for you. During this time, CG was just starting out and nothing looked real at all. Characters were all looking plastic and shiny and yet, this show pretty much works pretty well for that. It’s a bit like Reboot if you ever saw that. The characters are odd looking, some looking humanoid and others looking like strange mixtures of man and machine. The animation part is rather stiff and movements are a bit… well, robotic. It works well with the idea of the show but even when they become something more natural, they still are stiff and robotic making it hard to tell if they even changed. The colors are rather dark and steam punk-ish making it sometimes hard to see what is going on. The voice acting is pretty well done for the most part. The English dub is a bit off though as most sound rather static even when turned humanish. Some points that should have had really dramatic scenes with loud voices sounded more tin like. The Japanese was a little better and had the better feel for the characters personality including Malice.