If Perfect Blue was a serious peek at a Japanese Pop idol’s life, let’s just say that Parade Parade gives us an alternative view of what it would be like if JPOP singers actually were hiding perversities and other closet secrets that are only possible in hentai anime—unless of course you count on Mother Technology.

If it isn’t obvious from the paragraph above that I’m talking about she-males, well, now you know. But that is just the cream of the story. There are also a few subplots that make Parade Parade quite…interesting. There’s your romantic love triangle, but the kick is that having she-males around kind of makes the problem a solution on its own. There is also that classic sob story that comes hand-in-hand with an idol’s rise to fame (read: greed, sexual harassment, tragic diseases, and letting go when you know that you can no longer hack it).

One amusing little quirk this anime has is the portrayal of the obvious JPOP stereotypes: (1) girl who dresses in a simple way but has the talent to bank on; (2) girl who has a relatively ok singing voice but relies on her sexiness; (3) girl who has no talent but has x-factor; (4) girl who is all bubblegum and no substance, as what her “creators” package her to be. The funny thing is, for every character in Parade Parade, there is at least one real-life JPOP idol that comes to mind.

There is one little story that touched me, though. It’s the element of blackmail. Here, blackmail isn’t as asinine as those shown in Shusaku and Black Mail: Tomorrow Never Ends. There really are true emotions involved; it’s almost real. The rape scenes weren’t sugarcoated with tons of THE white stuff flying around. There is pain. The scenes illustrated that fear and pleasure don’t realistically go hand in hand. As I was watching the entire event unfold before my eyes, I felt a twisting pain from my stomach to my thighs. As a girl who takes care of her physical health, it felt too real for comfort. Of course, it would have been preferable not to put a rape scene in there, but at least it was good to see the girl jump back, wise up, and build a new career for herself. Most blackmail hentai stories end up with a victim acting brain dead until the very end, so Parade Parade is something altogether different. The only setback that was triggered by the life-altering tragedy is that these women seemed to have shunned the entire male population—also easily understandable. I mean, if women were to watch the most popular hentai titles around and be exposed to those unforgivable rape sequences, they would probably shun the male population too. Not to mention, dismiss all men as being incompetent in bed.

Individual Rating: Art/Animation: 7 Story/Plot: 7 Characters: 7 Sounds: 8 Ecchi Level: 8

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 17th, 2002 at 2:53 pm and is filed under Parade Parade, Anime Hentai. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.