"Nothing like a firm, round ass to get the blood boiling!"

"I could spend my life in the toilet stalls of women’s rooms."

"To me, you’re just a receptacle for my cum!"

Words of wisdom from Kisaku, the letch. Words of warning to people who might want to spend their time elsewhere.

"Kisaku: the Letch" is yet another in the endless cycle of hardcore anime entertainments. Some that we’ve reviewed at Monsters, at least the few that this reviewer has had the dubious pleasure of watching, have contained a modicum of artfulness. "Blood Royale," "Behind Closed Doors," and even the silly "Vixens" had certain positive attributes. In fact, both "Blood" and "Behind" could even be enjoyed as true guilty pleasures.

What is markedly different about “Kisaku” is that it’s simply a distillation of every unpleasant aspect of the genre. Without the benefit of irony or any pretense of “animation as art,” all you’ve got is cartoon porn. In this instance mean cartoon porn. It’s misogyny, rape and debasement strung together in a series of loose vignettes For extra kick it revolves around a serial rapist protagonist.

The program consists of two episodes of said letch’s escapades, each a mercifully short 30 minutes. Episode 1, cleverly subtitled: “Screw a girl with a father complex in front of her father!” features the letch following virginal schoolgirl Yuri. Yuri is your typical anime vixen: mountainous breasts, big-eyed, vaguely Anglo features… always in a school uniform skirt, always caught in the wind. Through creepy first-person voice-over, Kisaku shares his only nugget of back-story: he was once a freelance photographer who now sells candid shots of women to porn magazines. His voice-over is heard throughout the episodes giving them a much-needed jolt of sleaze. Inane lines such as, 'You could say I’m a masculine feminist' almost elevate them into viewable trash. Almost.

It will surprise no one to learn that the letch has a very large… member and is, naturally, crazy about the sex. Though hulkish and rather clumsy, he nevertheless finds it easy to hide in tight, confined spaces. The better to spy on and photograph unsuspecting targets. He follows Yuri into the school locker room and photographs her both showering and peeing in a urinal. Special attention is paid to Yuri and her friends squatting over the floor urinals. (Bodily fluids figure highly into this genre.) He also follows her into a clothing store as she is coaxed by her friends into stealing a red thong. As Yuri heads home for the day, she’s followed not only by the letch but by three rapists who abduct her in an elevator. It seems that in this bizarro reality there are only virginal school girls and lumbering sex predators. The three men take her to the rooftop where two other girls are already tied up and waiting to be abused. Kisaku breaks up the scene and fights the three rapists away. While Yuri is unconscious, he rapes the two bound girls (who, it turns out, secretly wanted to be victimized anyway). Kisaku takes Yuri home and meets her father - whom he then drugs, rendering him comatose. While daddy sleeps, Kisaku tells Yuri that unless she does his bidding, he will show her father the indecent photographs he has taken of her. The two then have sex on the coffee table in front of the dozing daddy.

Episode 2, mercifully free from an English translation of the subtitle, is more of the same. Inexplicably, Yuri has become the sex slave of the letch - and with daddy’s approval. Her businessman father even attempts to help the letch find a job. Kisaku, for reasons quickly forgotten, is at one point introduced to a “country girl” new to the city. He escorts her to a doctor’s appointment. (Medical kink is also a favored flavor in this genre.) The two find the facility to be empty, providing ample opportunity for violent rape and further ugliness. The snappy closer features Kisaku maneuvering a large rickshaw. Inside are his sex slaves Yuri and country girl, both sharing a look of broken subservience. The letch moves the cart down the street, howling into the night, "What will tomorrow bring?" One can only imagine…

Aside from the dubious content, the animation in Kisaku is flat and unexceptional. It must be an unwritten law in Japan that every “sexy anime” have the same interchangeable character designs and backgrounds. The color palette and the musical score are circa 1985, giving the proceedings a distractingly dated feel. For those that are curious about this sort of entertainment, you’re better off searching out the aforementioned “Blood Royale” or the stylized, bizarre “Sacrilege.” Both contain large amounts of the same offensive ingredients, but at least offer some semblance of thought and purpose into the mix.

This DVD release from Kitty DVD is a standard package. Both the picture and sound are adequate. The Dolby Digital sound mix didn’t add much to the overall presentation. In addition to the two 30-minute episodes there are animated menus and 6 “trailers” for other hardcore anime titles. Also, for whatever it’s worth, the synopsis on the back of the DVD has nothing to do with the plot.

Evidently this was the first of many adventures featuring Kisaku. Why is that not surprising? Shockingly, Volume 3 is available on Amazon.com.