FUTARI ECCHI

DESCRIPTION

CAST

MANGA ComedyFutari Ecchi
OVA ComedyFutari Ecchi (2014)

REVIEWS

• 

  TheRealKyuubey

  50/100
  Or, how I learned to step up and love this story.

  So this is going to be another short form review, but before I get into it, I should clarify a few things. It has been said, based on my activity on this site, that I have really eclectic tastes. To this I say, well, yes and no. Yes, because I generally have weird tastes in most forms of media, including anime, but probably most of all in music. If you were to listen to my iPod, you would be left scratching your head as it jumps randomly through my collection of over 4000 tracks. You could literally go from a rapping police dog to an audio clip from 300, and I just downloaded the musical scene from Hawkeye. Of course I would also say no, because my activity on Anilist does not accurately reflect my tastes. I watch a lot of random shit, and I’m not sure how normal people do things, but I don’t know anything about most of the shit I watch before I watch it.

  I am quite aware that a few people have been introduced to less well-known or relevant titles through my activity. I have seen this in play, as comments I make about an anime in the forums and updates over a show I’m watching or rewatching, are often followed up by people adding those very titles to their planning lists, and while I do enjoy this... I am an attention whore, after all... The fact that I’m watching something doesn’t mean I’d recommend it. Sometimes, I’m watching an anime because I’ve heard of it and I’m curious. Sometimes, it’s because I heard from some source or another that it has nudity in it, and I like animated nudity. Sometimes it’s because I’m addicted to online shopping, and when the Rightstuf or Sentai websites are having one of their massive sales... Holiday sales for both, summer sale for Sentai, birthday sale for Rightstuf... I can resist the urge to buy random cheap anime about as well as Dragonite resists blizzard.

  For Step Up Love Story, all three of these are true. I remembered its name from the trailers that were available on old ADV Films DVDs, I heard it was full of bare breasts, and it was on sale for ten bucks at Rightstuf... Still there, actually. It also helped that, at only four episodes, it was short enough to compensate for the previous 50 episode series that it took me way too long to get through. I should also mention that in recent months, the only review I posted that didn’t underperform was a cheap shit, low effort, fish-in-a-barrel review of an old ecchi anime, so hey, let’s do that again.

  So what is Step Up Love Story? It’s a 2002 OVA based on a manga that’s been releasing since 1997 and hasn’t ended production as of this writing. 86 volumes, according to Wikipedia, although personally, I would have stopped at 69. The manga was called Futari Ecchi... I can’t believe it took me this long to realize that the word Ecchi is derived from the Japanese pronunciation of the letter H... And while I have no idea what it’s about because I have no interest in reading it, it’s apparently like the kama sutra with a story. How to fuck, but with named characters and writing and plot and stuff. There’s also a TV drama, which... Wow. How the fuck did they pull that off. I can’t find it, but I’m imagining awkward representations of all the cheap bullshit that anime uses to censor nudity, rendered in live action with bad CGI.

  The story revolves around two 25 year old newlyweds, Makoto and Yura, as they navigate their relationship, and while that’s basically the whole plot, there’s some genuine depth to it. Neither character is particularly interesting or unique... I have to imagine this is different from the manga, as it can not be fucking possible for characters to still be boring after literal decades and 86 volumes of story... But even just in this OVA, they’re likeable enough, neither one of them is ever annoying or infuriating, nobody acts like an asshole for comedy or forced conflict. It’s basically four episodes of #Relatable as the two of them grow closer and more comfortable with each other as sexual and romantic partners.

  The animation is fine... The budget was obviously small, but considering the material, a massive budget was never required. You may remember in my Sextra Credit review, I said there was a good reason for hentai to be cheap and look like shit, but despite its “adult” label, Step Up isn’t actually a hentai, so it should come as no surprise that more effort was put into it than you would find in an anime porno. Yes, the content is highly sexual, and this is definitely not an anime for kids, but it doesn’t quite cross the line into porno territory as genitalia is never shown, either on standby or during insertion. You do see characters fuck quite a few times, but it’s filmed in a way that any average R rated movie could get away with... Bodies positioned just right to block certain interactions from view, characters thrusting on a repeated animation cycle, etc. One kinda weird note is that the two main characters never cheat on each other, so at least half of the H scenes take place in the husband’s elaborate fantasies.

  The first episode deals with the main couple getting married... We find out Makoto has never met Yura’s sister before, and they find out right before they have sex for the first time that they’re both virgins, so it’s unclear how long they knew each other before tying the knot... And this is probably the only episode that’s straight up boring. We don’t know the characters very well, the narrative does very little to explore who they are in a very short period of time, with a reveal of Makoto as a premature ejaculator at the end. There’s also a sub-plot about a guy on the street trying to recruit random women for porno, and there’s an awkward scene where Makoto walks in on Yura watching one of his porno tapes, I don’t fucking know, man.

  The second episode revolves around Yura finding out how to better manage their encounters, while Makoto rejects the advances of a former tutoring student who never appears again. The ending of this episode is kind of off-putting... I don’t mind so much that Makoto and Yura finally start to get into the swing of things while spending the night at his parents’ house, I’ll bet every couple has a story or two about weird places they had amazing sex, but the fact that his little sister listens to them through the wall while masturbating felt like a bridge too far.

  Episode three follows the two of them on a vacation with another couple, there’s talk about mixed gender open air baths, and it’s also revealed here that Makoto’s sexy fantasies have a Scrubs like quality to them where he can sometimes lose track of reality. The final episode deals with Yura getting a job as a waitress, while Makoto learns how to deal with the jealousy he feels over his wife being leered at by random dudes in a sexy uniform, and while the subject is mostly approached with a surprising level of respect and maturity, it ends on a resolution that... I’m having a hard time figuring out how to take. It’s not explicitly problematic or anything, but it’s unclear what lead to the decision, and whether or not the writers are trying to say anything with it. Oh, but Yura’s sister has a boyfriend she once gave a ‘sex slave for a day’ coupon to, and there’s no ambiguity there, it gets deeply uncomfortable. I don’t care what someone promised you, do not grab them by the head and fuck it I’m not finishing this sentence.

  Step Up Love Story is like nothing I’ve ever seen before. It didn’t let me down by any means... It wasn’t boring after the first episode, and it gave me a decent amount of well-drawn and animated nudity. For ten bucks, that’s really all I ask. Still, it doesn’t feel as if it was made for me. It feels like something that was made specifically for bored newlyweds, as it offers some advice on developing a sexual relationship with a marital partner, and while I’m too asexual to judge the quality of said advice, it didn’t feel OBVIOUSLY shitty. There’s also a lot of moments where I can vividly imagine one spouse turning to the other and chuckling, saying “Hey, remember when something like that happened to us?” I’m not sure how I feel about Makoto being the only one indulging in fantasies while his wife does most of the work of learning to enhance their sex life, but again, I’m not a sex-haver, you can argue that among yourselves.

  I didn’t hate or even dislike this title, and I got the right amount of boobs for my buck, but it still feels like an extreme niche of an anime, so I guess I’ll give Step Up Love Story a 5/10.

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