The Non-Synapse Roman Porno Thread

[Takuma]

@Takuma, have you ever watched Hiroyuki Nasu's SAILOR SUIT (UNIFORM): LILY LOVERS? or the sequel? The print that's available is the 1080i Happinet BD release. I don't think #2 ever had a blu ray release but I'm not 100% sure?

Lesbians in Uniforms? Yeah. Typical Nasu. Some style, zero substance. It has cute actresses and some nice montage-like bits set to pop music, but it's so superficial you don't really care for it. I think I saw the sequel, too, but I'm not sure I ever finished it. The first film is out on BD, the second only on DVD.

There's a much better yurizoku / lesbian schoolgirls films out there, Koyu Ohara's Seifuku yurizoku - Warui asobi (制服百合族　悪い遊び) (1985). That one actually has nice story and characters, in addition to lesbian schoolgirls No DVD or BD release, though.


Getting back to Nasu, he is not entirely to be ignored though. I'd say he was the Michael Bay / Tony Scott of 80s Japan, and his filmography is more interesting to inspect from that angle. He perhaps did better with mainstream films than Roman Porno. The first 2 or 3 Bebop High School films are pretty fun, Shinjuku Love Story has some charm as well.

From his Roman Porno films Virgin nanka kowakunai (ヴァージンなんか怖くない) (1984) is kinda cool, a Roman Porno variation of Walter Hill's The Warriors. Rouge (ルージュ) (1984) is good too, but mostly because of Takashi Ishii's script. You get the feeling Nasu was the weakest link in that production. Beautiful Wrestlers: "Down For the Count" (美少女プãƒãƒ¬ã‚¹ã€€å¤±ç¥žï¼‘０秒前) (1984) is a bore. Elder Sister's Diary (姉日記) (1984) has an amazingly cool closing scene, but everything before that is dull.

[47lab]

I got get my hands on that Happinet blu ray release of DELICATE SKILLFUL FINGERS. The PQ is a definite upgrade.

@Takuma, have you ever watched Hiroyuki Nasu's SAILOR SUIT (UNIFORM): LILY LOVERS? or the sequel? The print that's available is the 1080i Happinet BD release. I don't think #2 ever had a blu ray release but I'm not 100% sure?

[Takuma]

More Roman Porno coming from Happinet!
- http://www.happinet-p.com/jp3/releases/

June 3rd

Blu-Ray
- Wife to be Sacrificed (生贄夫人) (Masaru Konuma, 1974)
- High School Teacher: Maturing (高校教師　成熟) (Shogoro Nishimura, 1985)

DVD
- Eve-chan no hime (イヴちゃんの姫) (Shusuke Kaneko, 1984)
- Shinshu shikoshiko bushi: Onsen geisha vs. ozashiki stripper (ä¿¡å·žã‚·ã‚³ã‚·ã‚³ç¯€ã€€æ¸©æ³‰èŠ¸è€…ï¼¶ï¼³ãŠåº§æ •·ã‚¹ãƒˆãƒªãƒƒãƒ‘ー) (Nobuaki Shirai, 1975)
- Nun Story: Frustration in Black (修道女　黒衣のä¸ã®ã†ãšã) (Nobuaki Shirai, 1980)
- Female Teacher's Awakening (女教師のめざめ) (Katsuhiko Fujii, 1981)

+ 「志麻いづみ　鎌倉夫人　みだれ絹蒲団」(1983) ＆「小川亜佐美の　おんなSEXカウン゠»ãƒ©ãƒ¼ã€€æ¿¡ã‚Œæ¿¡ã‚Œãƒ†ã‚¯ãƒ‹ãƒƒã‚¯ã€(1981)
This is a bit off an oddity. It's two a straight-to-video short features, each running approx 30 min and shot on video cameras instead of film, bundled together. They originally came out on VHS in 1981 and 1983. The directors are Katsuhiko Fujii and Shogoro Nishimura.




August 5th

Blu-Ray
- Black Rose Ascension (黒薔薇昇天) (Tatsumi Kumashiro, 1975)
- Double Bed (ダブルベッド) (Toshiya Fujita, 1983)

DVD
- Wandering Seagull: Night In Kushiro (さすらいかもめ　釧路の女) (さすらいかもめ　－釧路の夜－) (Shogoro Nishimura, 1973) *
- I Am Aroused (感じるんです) (Shinichi Shiratori, 1975)
- OH! Takarazuka (OＨ！!タカラヅカ) (Koyu Ohara, 1983)
- OL yuri-zoku 19-sai (ＯＬ百合族１９æ³) (Shusuke Kaneko, 1984)

+ 「麻生かおり　ザ・オルガスムス」(1987) ＆「朝吹ケイト　覗き部屋の女」(1983 )
Another VHS double with running times of 50m and 30m, directed by 佐々木尚 and æ± ç”°æ£ä¸€ (Shoichi Ikeda)

* Something odd going on with the title. Most databases, including some Japanese ones (jmdb) call this film さすらいかもめ　－釧路の夜－ but Happinet, Nikkatsu and the poster say さすらいかもめ　釧路の女. Which means the English title is also mistranslated (should be "Woman" or "Person" instead of "Night"). And to add to the confusion, the furigana in the poster says 女 is not to be read as "onna" but as "hito" instead. And I do believe these are the one and same film because no database, including Nikkatsu's own, list both titles, only one of them, and the cast, director and release date (or month) is the same.



So, absolutely nothing for me to buy. OH! Takarazuka is a cute film though, I even had a dream of Jun Miho once, haha. And Night/Woman/Person in Kushiro interests me a tiny bit because Nishimura's 60's mainstream films were so good that I keep imagining there'd be at least one good film in his Roman Porno catalogue too (ok, there is, Fujunna kankei from 1984 is great). And maybe I should try Double Bed again. I saw 30 min of it and were just bored. But it's written by Haruhiko Arai, so...

[Takuma]

Delicate Skillful Fingers: R2J DVD vs. BD

Solid upgrade over the DVD, thankfully. As many of you know, the new Nikkatsu Roman Porno HD masters from the past few years (boosted, often unnatural looking) are generally inferior to the old Nikkatsu HD masters (less detail, but more natural colours and contrast). With the new Japanese BD releases you never know what you'll be getting (e.g. Love Hotel: Amazon HD stream is the old DVD master in HD, the Happinet BD is a new HD master with boosted contrasts and yellowish colours. Thanks @Sundance).

Delicate Skillful Fingers thankfully is one of the good ones. It is 1080i unfortunately, the compression ain't too hot, and there's some hiss on the audio track, but the DVD had the exact same issues. The picture quality is otherwise notably improved, there's Japanese subtitles on the disc and the photo gallery has been greatly extended from 8 photos to 41. The artwork is less good, though.

Top: Happinet DVD
Bottom: Happinet BD




































(director Toru Murakawa in the middle)

[agent999]

For anyone that can understand Japanese or French, Elephant's 10 film Roman Porno box set is down to €76. I have the Angel Guts Red Porno BD and it looks great (although, in common with many Japanese transfers, the black levels are a bit too grey).

https://www.amazon.fr/Roman-1971-201.../dp/B081KRTJC1

[Jason C]

I really want to see Sex Rider: Wet Highway (1971)

[Takuma]

A few more Roman Pornos I watched recently:

Castle Orgies (色暦大奥秘話) (Japan, 1971) [VoD] - 1.5/5
Nikkatsu's half-arsed, first ever Roman Porno production (a double feature with Apartment Wife: Affair in the Afternoon). Setsuko Ogawa stars as a girl forced to leave her boyfriend to join the shogun's harem. This was strictly a concept film: take a routine period drama, add sex scenes and expect audiences to pay up. They did. Loads of sequels followed. Two points worth noting: 1) Some of the music is lifted from Blind Woman's Curse (1970) and 2) All male roles in the film are worth a round zero.

Enka jōshikō: kizudarake no kaben (怨æŒæƒ…æ»è€ƒ 傷だらけの花弁) (Japan, 1972) [VoD] - 1.5/5
Naive small town girl Setsuko Ogawa goes to Tokyo to become a singer, discovers the industry is full of jerks. An early Roman Porno drama may appeal with its nostalgia and relative restraint, but it really doesn't have cinematic merits of any sort. Except maybe the most ridiculous falling off a cliff shot I've ever seen. Koyu Ohara directs, but you wouldn't guess it if his name wasn't in the credits.

Sex Highway (ＳＥＸハイウェイ　女の駐車場) (Japan, 1974) [VoD] - 2/5
Plenty of sex, but no highway. This seems like an aimless miss at first, but an old geezer's young wife falling in love with a young bloke makes for watchable character drama during the 2nd half. Helps that the wife is played by the sweet Yoko Katagiri who delivers one of her better performances. This is also surprisingly un-explicit for 1974. Not to be confused with the Nikkatsu action influenced Sex Rider: Wet Highway (1971).

[Takuma]

I wrote a few posts regarding Nikkatsu censorship in a Facebook group, let me copy-paste them here as well. Most of the content has been discussed here before over the years, and our member Sundance is the one who brought most of this to my knowledge, but maybe this post serves as a quick summary / reminder.

Nikkatsu Censorship: Part 1

Some of you may be aware of the censorship case regarding actress Machiko Otani (大谷麻知å). Several years ago Nikkatsu pulled all her movies from distribution and ceased sales. Amazon JP listings of old VHS cassettes featuring her have been removed. Several Japanese movie databases (Allcinema, Movie Walker) have removed her name from movie credit lists. All movie director retrospectives held in Tokyo in the last 7 years or so (Noboru Tanaka, Chusei Sone x 2, Kichitaro Negishi) have omitted films Otani is in. Synapse said they tried licensing the Angel Guts series but Nikkatsu wouldn't sell the 1stfilm because of an actress who appears in it.

The reasons behind this case are not clear to me. If anyone knows, please clue me in. The only piece of info I can find is this Japanese language message board post from 2013, where someone claims he/she saw a message from Otani's family member "about 7 years ago" saying "Otani died deeply regretting her film career".

７年程前、ネット上で遺族の方から〠Œå¤§è°·ã¯æ•°å¹´å‰ã«äº¡ããªã‚Šã€èŠ¸èƒ½æ´»å‹•ã ‚’大変悔やんでいました」との内容の 投稿がありました。ご冥福をお祈りだ—ます. https://r18theater.info/board/yyregi.cgi?room=roman...

If that is correct, it would appear her family has requested Nikkatsu to pull her films from distribution. However, I cannot find any confirmation for the claims above, nor for her death.

She had a very short career lasting only about 6 months, during which she appeared in films by several notable directors, e.g. Angel Guts: High School Co-ed (Sone, 1978), Pink Salon: Five Lewd Women (Tanaka, 1978) and High School Girl (Negishi, 1979).




Nikkatsu Censorship: Part 2

Sometime in the 80s the pink film industry agreed to stop exploiting high school girls in pink film advertising. This resulted in many old films being re-titled. Sometimes the results were… ironic. In many titles ”high school girls” (女åé«˜ç”Ÿ or 女高生) became “school girls” (女åæ ¡ç”Ÿ or 女校生). Is that any better? The funniest part is that "high school girl” (joshikí´sei / jokí´sei) and “school girl” (joshikí´sei / jokí´sei) have the exact same pronunciation. They just replaced the “high” (kí´) kanji with the school (kí´) kanji. You can see this for example with Angel Guts: High School Co-ed (1978) where the poster spells “High School Girl” (女高生 天使のはらわた) but for the VHS cover it was changed to “School Girl” (女校生 天使のはらわた.



There were other name changes as well. For example “Sailor suits” (セーラー服 / Síªrí¢-fuku) became “uniforms” (制服 / seifuku). e.g. Young Girls' Holding Cell (セーラー服鑑別所 or 制服鑑別所) (1982).



It seems the censorship has since loosened since many of Nikkatsu's Japanese DVD and BD releases have reverted back to the original titles e.g. Lusty Discipline in Uniform (1982) which went from the original theatrical “Sailor Suit” (Síªrí¢-fuku shikijí´ shiiku / セーラー服 色情飼育) to the theatrical re-release “Uniform” (Seifuku shikijí´ shiiku / 制服色情飼育) and finally back to “Sailor Suit” (Síªrí¢-fuku shikijí´ shiiku / (セーラー服 色情飼育) for its DVD and BD releases.

[Takuma]

Lusty Discipline in Uniform (セーラー服色情飼育) (Japan, 1982) [VoD] - 3/5
Middle aged, well dressed professor has a crush on a cute high school girl, starts harassing her with obscene phone calls. And he's the film's hero! At first a positively ridiculous piece of Japanese pop culture - surely no other country could produce films like this - but it's only so far till you start feeling bad for the victim, and become disgusted by the filthy bastard of a protagonist. But then, what do you expect from a film written by Gaira Komizu! He wins you over again by the end. Kazumi Kawai, an insanely pretty young actress in her film debut role, plays the stalking interest. This was her first and only foray into Roman Porno, which has further elevated the film's status. She went on to act on TV and films, including Chusei Sone's Blow the Night (1983), before taking her own life by jumping off a building in 1997 at the age of 32. Title is a bit of a misnomer btw, there's little lust under this girl's uniform, and Kawai does little more than topless nudity as contractually stated. The film remains one of Nikkatsu's most popular titles, having been released theatrically multiple times, as well as on VHS, DVD (4 times!) and BD!

The caps below are from an ancient VoD, for HD Kazumi get the BD!





Our hero, who was also in Girl and the Wooden Horse Torture








I have to admit I'm completely smitten over her, something that rarely happens with RP actresses


There was a very good comment from Goro Taku at BnB, let me copy-paste it here as well.

It's been a while since I watched this but what I found most disturbing about it was that I felt that the script was written with a girl much younger than the lead actress in mind. The way she talked and her overall naiveté didn't seem to make sense for someone the lead actress' age. Maybe that was just me but considering some of the other stuff that Nikkatsu was putting out in the early 80ies, I wouldn't be that surprised.

I didn't think about that before, but now that you mention it, yeah, maybe. The scenes between her and her mother are certainly in favor of your argument.

[AngelGuts]

Still no English subs but I decided to watch the first one again, NAGASAKI BUTTERFLY aka Foreigner's Mistress Oman: Holland Slope In The Rain and I think this is one of Chusei Sone's underrated RP works. Sally May portrays such a striking sympathetic figure & it's just a well directed/scripted tale of loss, redemption and vengeance with plenty of the usual soft-core sex thrown in. Screenwriter and director, Atsushi Yamatoya plays a small but pivotal role and is really the only sympathetic male figure in the whole flick. He is credited with writing the screenplay for the second film, DEAD BLOSSOMS. Shusako Muto plays the main scumbag with such relish that you can't wait for him to get his comeuppance at the end. Wish this movie would get the blu ray treatment as it's deserving of it.

This is a Sone film I've read about but never seen. I'm doubly excited to see it after this review, 47.

[47lab]

I know we have some fans of Sally May here and just recently released is a WEBRip of the Chusei Sone directed second film in the RASHAMAN OMAN (Foreigner's Mistress Oman) series from the usual suspects. Word is that English subs will be forthcoming which is excellent news.

Still no English subs but I decided to watch the first one again, NAGASAKI BUTTERFLY aka Foreigner's Mistress Oman: Holland Slope In The Rain and I think this is one of Chusei Sone's underrated RP works. Sally May portrays such a striking sympathetic figure & it's just a well directed/scripted tale of loss, redemption and vengeance with plenty of the usual soft-core sex thrown in. Screenwriter and director, Atsushi Yamatoya plays a small but pivotal role and is really the only sympathetic male figure in the whole flick. He is credited with writing the screenplay for the second film, DEAD BLOSSOMS. Shusako Muto plays the main scumbag with such relish that you can't wait for him to get his comeuppance at the end. Wish this movie would get the blu ray treatment as it's deserving of it.

[fatboyslim142]

Elephant Films will release Roman Porno 1971-2016: Une Histoire érotique du Japon, a series of ten Nikkatsu Roman Porno films as a box set in France on 17 December 2019.

Please note that these are not English-friendly releases, with only Japanese and French support.

The ten films will also be released individually on the same date


Five are from the original run of theatrical films:

Nuits félines í  Shinjuku (Night of the Felines) (牝猫たちの夜) (1972)

Les Amants mouillés (Lovers Are Wet) (恋人たちは濡れた)(1973)

L'Extase de la Rose Noire (Black Rose Ascension) (黒薔薇昇天) (1975)

Angel Guts: Red Porno (天使のはらわた 赤い淫画) (1981)

Lady Karuizawa (軽井沢夫人) (1982)


and the other five are the Roman Porno Reboot films released in 2016-2017 in Japan:

Chaudes gymnopédies (Aroused by Gymnopedies) (ジムノペディに乱れる) (2016)

í€ l'ombre des Jeunes Filles humides (Wet Woman in the Wind) (風に濡れた女) (2016)

L'Aube des félines (Dawn of the Felines) (牝猫たち) (2017)

Antiporno (ANTIPORNO アンチポルノ) (2016)

White Lily (ホワイトリリー) (2017)

[Takuma]

Girl and the Wooden Horse Torture (Japan, 1982) [VoD] - 3.5/5
Between 1974 and 1988 Nikkatsu produced nearly 40 adaptations from SM author Oniroku Dan's novels. Most of them were intellectually underwhelming, morally questionable, and tiresome at best. But what would happen if one of the best Japanese screenwriters of the 1980s, Takashi Ishii, adapted a Dan novel and handed it to first time director Fumihiko Kato, who later became known for his atypical Dan films?

Despite the misleading title, this movie bears all the trademarks of Ishii's psychological erotic thrillers and could be an SM-oriented entry in the Angel Guts series. The protagonists are Nami and Muraki: a bullied high school girl and her terminally ill teacher. The opening scene sees Nami saved from violent delinquents by her teacher, who however then collapses in front of her. She leaves him there. The experience haunts her in her dreams, which begin to merge with reality. Years later they meet again after Muraki has been fired and has hit the rock bottom. The film never loses its psychological tension, even though the prolonged SM finale - and a few other bits - may be a bit much for the casual viewers. The overly simplistic Oniroku Dan conventions are nowhere to be found. The film also looks pretty good with the usual urban and occasionally surreal Ishii imagery.

This popped up on Japanese streaming site U-Next.

[Takuma]

Yasuharu Hasebe's excellent Roman Porno neo-noir Erotic Liaisons (1978) makes its HD debut on Toei Channel next month.
- https://www.toeich.jp/program/1T0000013206/201911

A DVD or BD release may be coming next year... Let's hope for the best.

[47lab]

I know we have some fans of Sally May here and just recently released is a WEBRip of the Chusei Sone directed second film in the RASHAMAN OMAN (Foreigner's Mistress Oman) series from the usual suspects. Word is that English subs will be forthcoming which is excellent news.