REVIEW: Sexy Battle Girls

狙われた学園、制服を襲う
(Nerawareta gakuen: seifuku o osou)

Released: 1986

Director:
Mototsugu Watanabe

Starring:
Kyoko Hashimoto
Yukijiro Hotaru
Yutaka Ikejima
Ayumi Taguchi

Running time: 60 minutes

Reviewed by Matthew Hardstaff

Let’s say you’re a cute, sort of sexy 18 year old Japanese schoolgirl, and all your life your father’s made you wear a chastity belt. Sure he’s allowed you to take it off so you can practice crushing apples and bananas with your vagina, but most of the time, he ensures that your private parts are locked up safe. You’ve trained in martial arts, and your father often mutters about revenge, but you don’t know why he’s making you endure a life absent of physical love. One night, you steal away with your teacher, and manage to open up your chastity belt. However something goes horribly wrong, and the moment you orgasm, your vaginal walls attack, and the ‘venus crush’ destroy sensei’s manhood. Now you know what your father has been up to, but why?

Welcome to Mirai’s world in the pinku eiga "Sexy Battle Girls". Mirai is played cute, idol-like Kyoko Hashismoto, who became quite the hot pinku item during the 1980’s, while the genre battled it out with the tidal wave of AV (adult video’s) that came with the rise of the VCR. In order to give viewers a reason not to stay at home and watch nude stars on their television, directors needed to ensure they were going to get something special. And director Mototsugu Watanabe, who was a graduate of the pinku eiga studio system, and would develop a penchant for filming bizarre and outrageous scenes, ensures the film supplies you with an ample amount of sex, with an ample amount of inspired insanity. How does he do this?

Well, you see, Mirai’s father, played by the venerable and prolific actor, director and producer Yutaka Ikejima (producing "A Lonely Cow Weeps at Dawn" just last year) transfers her to a new school after her ‘incident’. However, he has ulterior motives that involve nothing short of vengeance. Seems his wife, Mirai’s mother, was caught sleeping with another man while she was still pregnant with Mirai, and after giving birth, she ran off with him. That man became the headmaster of a high school, the very high school Mirai is transferred to. Mirai is to seduce the headmaster, using her ‘venus crush’, allowing her father the revenge he deserves. Sounds simple enough. Unfortunately, the principal is also selling his bad students into prostitution. Anyone caught by the truancy officer, who behaves like a sadistic Mr. Bean, takes the bad students to the punishment room, where he ties them up, molests them for sometime and then sells them to rich polititians. Mirai, armed with a kendama (sort of the Japanese equivalent of a ball and cup toy) that has an extendable dildo, battles with the principals chain clad daughter, hoping to finally exact vaginal revenge.

The plot is outrageous, but the film still manages to remain somewhat grounded, partly due to Kyoko Hashimoto’s performance as the disillusioned school girl, and partly by Watanabe’s direction. He doesn’t push the cinematic envelope quite to the limits of some of his pinku breathern, and once the groundwork is set for the film, nothing seems to come too far out of left field. It creates its language and then sticks too it, making the film both comforting and enjoyable. He also sort of works around the strict censorship laws by using a squirmy, gyrating dildo’s in the place of a penis, which are creatively shot to sort of hide the falsity of their appearance. When its all said and done, "Sexy Battle Girls" is the perfect example of what makes a solid pinku film, and what makes the genre cinematic relevant, setting it apart from the AV world. You can’t go wrong with 60 minutes of flying dildo kentama’s and vaginal apple crushing!

Read more by Matthew Hardstaff at his blog.