Love Lessons (2001)
Film:
DVD:

Animation Direction & Character Design by Masahiro Sekiguchi
Art Direction by Jin Nagao
Written by Reiji Izumo, based on the story by Eve
Starring the voices of Takuya Yamagami, Sayaka Nishimura, Emi Shindo, Hiroshi Nozaki, Kenji Tokada

Features:

• Art gallery
  
• "Anime Artform" featurette
  
• Textless closing
  
• Trailers
  
• DVD-ROM:
  
  • Script
    
  • Cast and production credits
    

Widge's Anime Warnings:

• Male superiority complex and duplex
• Some fetishes may not be to your liking
• Female objectification, but no more than in any issue of FHM

Rating: 18+
Anamorphic: N/A; appears in its original 1.33:1 format.
My Advice: Well, if it's your thing.

Kusanagi (Yamagami) has got a bit of a problem. He's in debt to the yakuza...and is behind on payments. As a result, he's about to get his spleen handed to him. Instead, though, Takamori (Nozaki), a yakuza operative, decides to take Kusanagi in hand and put him to work. Specifically, he'll be working as a Trainer for an exclusive club. The members of this club have very specific kinks and fetishes that they wish to have serviced--and the Trainer's job is to prepare the right woman to take care of the job for them.

As far as hentai goes, for those that wish they could get theirs tentacle-free, well here's your chance. This is essentially two episodes of a series that I assume will be continued in another release at a later date. And everything within is ostensibly consensual--another rarity for the genre--albeit sometimes the people need some convincing. But nothing's forced, the fetishes involved (heels and domination, to name a couple) aren't ick, and it actually has a plot. Go figure.

If there's a weakness in the featured programs, it's the fact that the dialogue is pretty atrocious. Especially on the English side of things. And the voice actors don't seem to be doing much, but then again...they don't have that much to work with.

As far as extras go, the art gallery is merely comprised of stills from the program itself--not anything in the way of designwork or something new. What's surprising is the "Anime Artform" featurette, which is essentially a primer on the genre. I wouldn't think that anybody interested in a title like this would care why some of the ladies in anime have blue hair...but whatever works. They get points regardless. You also get the script for the two episodes on the DVD-ROM side of things.

For anybody who wants a hentai title that doesn't go off the deep end, then this would be a title to check out. In fact, if somebody wanted to try the genre without having to deal with strange lovemaking machines and other such weirdness, this would probably be a good primer. Still...if graphic sex and images and whatnot offend, stay away.