Reviewed by W. McQuade and E. Nagy
The cover of The Last Kunoichi promised something that one would think would be common in Hentai, but aren’t featured nearly as frequently as they ought to be. That is, ass-kicking babes. And the DVD certainly did not disappoint, delivering plenty of ass-kicking from the babes, albeit along with a disproportionate amount of beheading.
This is one feature that benefited greatly from its DVD cover. Not only were we drawn to watch it due to the ass-kickingness of the girls on the front cover, but the BACK cover also provides just about the only insight into the plot that was to be found anywhere in this thing.
“The winds of revolution howl through Kyoto as the Tokogawa era comes to a violent close. Will Kaede, Kikyoo and Ayame follow the ninja code of honor…?”
Spoiler alert…they do.
The feature begins with an awfully bloody and violent torture routine, but (in a rare move for Hentai) it’s a man inflicting torture on another man. As is often the case with man-on-man torture, the man being tortured apparently knows something about something but won’t tell. The brief torture scene is followed by an equally brief sex scene, which is also not terribly well explained at the outset, other than that the (very un-ninjalike) woman is Ayame, and the man is someone named Master Toshimoru.
What follows this is 20-some-odd minutes of a confusing and violent, but relatively enjoyable romp through what we have to assume is some kind of struggle for local power a few hundred years ago in Japan. The man who was being tortured at the beginning eventually gives in and tells tale of some sort of conspiracy, though who exactly was involved and what exactly they were conspiring to do remained a mystery. (Not for the sake of drama but because we couldn’t follow the plot.)
Near the end, Master Toshimoru, whose role in this thing was clearly important even though we never quite figured out what it was, says "In these confusing, violent times, do moral ends justify the means? Those things we've done, those things we've trying to do. (sic)" Then he stabs himself, and one of the ninja babes beheads him. Alas (…poor Yorick…) Ayame was looking on, grabs his severed head, and sings a song to it. Good times.
The dialogue was delivered relatively well by the English voice cast, especially considering that the script consisted almost entirely of lines like “This is unmistakably Kamiyata Motozuki, vassal of Toza.” Only to later realize that no, it was Yakimoru Takashiki, vassal of Minoru, or whatever. Also, the mouths kept going when the dialogue stopped. Nitpicking, we know, but it lends an amateurish air to the production.
The animation is very good, the motion is clean and fluid, EXCEPT during the sex scenes, which could be considered a problem, what with this being Hentai and all. But the characters all look good (especially the ninja babes) and the backgrounds are sometimes quite stunning.
As for the sex scenes themselves, there were plenty of them, but most weren’t all that hot. The sex between Ayame and Master Toshimoru was well acted, but the animation was repetitive, and there’s a really goofy-looking tongue-kiss scene. Aside from that, there’s a scene where one of the ninja babes (other than Ayame, we weren’t sure which was which) gets taken advantage of by some kind of monstrous samurai guy with grayish skin, and another scene where Ayame can’t remember the information she got from Master Toshimoru, so her ninja boss has sex with her so that she can remember. Neat trick. Given that the DVD’s menu has an option to go “straight to sex” these scenes were relatively disappointing.
Also worth noting is the bonus feature, a cute little 20-minute mostly lesbian thing called “Mini Skirt Baby” about an all-girls volleyball team, which was quite enjoyable.
Overall, The Last Kunoichi tries to pack about two hours worth of plot into a 30-minute feature, with about a third of THAT taken up by sex scenes, and any attempts to follow the storyline as it was unfolding proved pointless, but once it was over we sorta had some idea of what had happened. Still, it was entertaining, and the ninja babes DID kick an awful lot of ass, and one of them even bit off a bad guy’s dick. Bonus points for that. Overall, three and a half out of five.
TheLastKunoichi
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