Koihime came as a sweet surprise. I was at the height of an anime burn-out prior to watching it, to the extent that just about everything I tried to finish ended up pissing me off. Fortunately for me Koihime is a title that you just can't help but enjoy... unless you're anti-Hentai, which I doubt because then you wouldn't be reading this.

Koihime is about a nice young man named Musashi. When Musashi was a little boy, he spent summer vacation in the countryside with his grandmother. Fifteen years have passed since then. Musashi is now in college, and like any other guy his age, he gets hot and bothered at the sight of attractive young ladies. It looks like Musashi is in luck however since four beautiful girls go flocking to him in no time, each one claiming to be his friend from way back. There's the cute and vivacious Anzu, who refers to Musashi as "Big Brother"; the feisty and short-tempered Suzaku, who'd punch Musashi's lights out at the slightest annoyance; the soft spoken and seductive Nami (pictured in the title graphic above), who'd do anything for Musashi; and the extremely shy and delicate Mayuki, whom everyone wants to protect. As it turns out, these girls are not ordinary girls... because they aren't even human. They are princesses who hail from different demon / spirit clans, and something happened in the past that made Musashi forget their days together. The main conflict lies in the fact that these girls all love Musashi, but their kind and humankind can never have a relationship. Of course, thanks to everyone's raging hormones, Musashi predictably has sex with them all... angering their very powerful parents and guardians.

The art and animation are eye-popping impressive. Everything is no less than crisp, vibrant, and gorgeous -- from the characters to the locales. Sex is depicted very explicitly. Every single detail of every act and body part are shown in their full uncensored glory. Since this is a Nutech release (they like hiring porn stars to do the dubbing, and it's almost always crappy), I was expecting a really bad dub job. Surprisingly though, I found Koihime's English dubbing to be a lot better compared to most other Hentai dubs. I wouldn't call it great but at the very least the voices suited the characters and the performances were not out rightly maddening.

Overall, watching Koihime proved to be a very enjoyable experience. The mood is always light even during the more dramatic moments, and the main character Musashi is a rather comical and likeable protagonist. In fact, he reminded me a bit of Kintaro Oe in "Golden Boy". I was also pleased with the astonishingly good ending. Highly recommended.

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