Don’t be deceived by the slavery themes that abound this manga. There is more to the women here that meets the eye. In fact, if one would observe closely, one would notice that unlike most female “slaves” we see in hentai flicks, the girls here actually have brains. So they feel like calling some insecure males “master”. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. They can actually be feisty, eloquent, and yes, they do have a sense of humor. Like for instance, in Virtual Master, Akiko and Yue suggest naughtily that their master pretend to be a girl. They obviously get a kick from his appalled reaction. Perhaps they just didn’t want him to tag along their newest experiment? What I could actually see is a woman’s power of manipulation at work in most of the events. Trust a really powerful female to pretend to have the underhand in relationships such as these, when they actually do have the upper hand.

What’s also nice about this collection is that there are a lot of romance and really sweet, albeit bizarre, situations. This aspect is portrayed well in Tennis Balls and Pink Dawn, the last two chapters of the manga. Both stories deal with hidden desires, crushes, and even love in its twisted form. They also start out with one partner being subjected to “serving” the other, but then later end up with the couples switching positions, so to speak.

A Wet Night, Ties That Bind, and Vice Versa are not as remarkable as the three stories that I have previously mentioned, but Suehirogari’s humor and flair for minimalist, but beautiful artwork, are never lost. Ties That Bind, however, has an incestuous theme, so the feel is quite different. The hentai frames of this English release (by Eros) have been redrawn and uncensored by Suehirogari himself, but the there really isn’t much detail. Oh, you can still see how deep each penetration goes, if we’re going to talk perversion and ecchi-ness here. Still, if you weigh this particular manga against those thick Japanese hentai magazines with multiple stories, like Comic Gemikan, Suehirogari’s work seems mild in comparison. This is not a bad thing, though, because it adds to Sexhibition’s bittersweet and surrealistic atmosphere. One could only wish that there would be more hentai manga such as this. Truly, it puts the word “decadence” in a different light.

Individual Rating: Art/Animation 9; Story 8; Characters 8; Ecchi Level 9

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 26th, 2002 at 8:58 pm and is filed under Sexhibition, Manga 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.