Here we are, at the final OAV of the Shoujo sect anime. And compared with the last two volumes, it was way closer to the manga. But….

Okay, so, Ma-ya and Shinobu have their little moment, and Shinobu is molested by the evil sempai. That situation was changed around a bit, but the rewrite didn’t kill the scene particularly. Momoko’s reaction was modified, for the worse, I think. The fire extinguisher wasn’t just an expression of violence – it was an absolute expression of just how deeply Momoko felt about Sempai’s attack on Shinobu.

The end too was rewritten slightly. Instead of Momoko moving away, and Shinobu and she having a reunion after four months, we harken back to the their first meeting on the playground and their first kiss (which had also been changed from the manga.) This leads into the final sex scene for the series.

And that, I’m sorry to say is where this series is a complete turkey. Porn, unless I’m mistaken, is meant to be sexually titillating. Listening to the voice actresses suck and slurp and lick so absurdly in this volume was absolutely laughable, and a little nauseating. I get it, I do. Sounds have to be exaggerated for effect, but uh…no. A thousand times, no. When I turned the sound off, the sex scenes weren’t that bad, but when I offered an earphone to the wife for a moment she said, “Eww?!” and made the same scrunchy face I myself wore. Each to their own, and all, but for me, the best part of the sex in this anime was that each scene was short, due to time constraints.

What did you think of this series?

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – 4
Characters – 6
Yuri – 9
Service – 8

When the sex in a piece of porn is the least good thing, you know you’re watching a real turkey.

And speaking of turkey – in the spirit of the Thanksgiving, I would like to express my thanks to all of you, my readers, fans, Okazu heroes and superheroes! I couldn’t do it without you!

So, Volume 2 of Shoujo Sect came out and I watched it dutifully. I’m pretty certain that porn is not meant to be this boring. ^_^;

Volume 2 of the anime picks up the “story” somewhere towards the end of Volume 1 of the manga and tracks it into Volume 2. We are treated to several sex scenes in this episode: Kirin and Matsuri, who yowled like a cat, and Nori and Aki, the unpleasant twins who shared a sempai snack. And Momoko’s short love affair with her teacher. The climax of the plot comes when Shinobu (suddenly and without preamble) confesses her feelings to Momoko.

Here’s where it actually offered a little entertainment. In the manga, Shinobu asks Momoko to jam with her – Momoko on bass, Shinobu on harmonica. She wants them to play Paul Anka’s “Diana,” a choice I still find highly amusing.

In the anime, we see Momoko play harmonica in music class, instead of recorders, I guess. It’s a flash-by scene, not meant to be anything. But as the episode ends, we hear the sounds of “When The Saints Go Marching In” played awkwardly on harmonicas. It was so random that it absolutely slayed me. Best bit of the anime so far.

Hopefully the last episode won’t be too clogged with other random couples and we’ll be able to focus on Kirin and Maya having a Shinobu appetizer before Momoko gets the main course.

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – 4
Characters – 6
Yuri – 9
Service – 8

I did a sanity check and re-read the manga after watching this episode. It wasn’t winning any Pulitzer Prizes, either. ^_^

The original Shoujo Sect manga was a series of very loosely connected “Plot, What Plot”-type Yuri porn chapters set in an ubiquitous girls school. While the couples depicted in each chapter may or may not have had any relationship to each other, the larger story – what there was of it – revolved around the promiscuous playgirl Honda Shinobu and schoolmate Naitou Momoko. Momoko moved through many of the early chapters as a catalyst or voyuer, while many of the stories directly involved Shinobu or members of her harem.

The stories were, in most ways, completely meritless porn, (which of course means that many people think they are awesome) but at the end of the second novel, several surprising things happened. A plot complication arises that separates Momoko and Shinobu and ultimately, they meet each other once again and finally become lovers. The end of the book ties up their story in a wildly amusing epilogue that was so charming in it’s own cracked way that it quite made the whole work for me. (For slightly more detail, feel free to read my reviews of Volume 1 and Volume 2.)

The anime is…odd. I expected it to follow the same PWP format of the books, basically following one primary couple per OAV, with an extended sex scene. Instead, it rewrites, cuts and pastes pieces of the stories into a slightly new whole and, even more bizarrely – adds details where there were none previously. Like, they were *trying* to make a real story out of it. Sadly, it doesn’t really work.

When we join the anime, Shinobu has a reputation as the school “bad girl” and she flashes her underwear to prove it. Momoko remains the catalyst/voyeur for the first couple, whom many Yuri fans will be pleased to know are sisters. There were two things that made it hard for me to find their sex scene appealing – 1) the noises they were making sounded rather like they were chewing their own arms off, as opposed to having what was supposed to have been enjoyable sex and; 2) in at least one moment I couldn’t help but notice that their hair and nipples were color coordinated. ^_^; This was so distracting that I was simply unable to stop laughing throughout.

In fact, I laughed through a great deal of this anime. I guess that’s pretty normal for porn, since it’s quite often laughably bad, but since I don’t watch it, I’ll have to take other people’s word for it. (No, I actually don’t. Live-action porn bores me to tears. I’d rather spend an hour at the dentist’s. Really. Anime porn usually makes me laugh, so there you go, I guess.)

The upshot of all this is – the Shoujo Sect anime had a lot of talking, some really choppy story-telling and howlingly funny sex. If you actually liked the manga, then you may really want to avoid this as being vastly inferior to what is hardly a work of literature. If, “zOMG Yuri hentai – all girls, no penor!” then by all means, please enjoy.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 6 as a comedy, 4 as a drama
Characters – 7
Yuri – 10
Service – 8

I was marginally irked that my favorite couple was turned into a school legend and their roles were switched, but it’s not like I’m going to lose sleep over it. ^_^