'Interspecies Reviewers' Pushes the Boundary to Its Most Extreme Limits and Infamously Breaks Through

Anime has been all about pushing the envelope.  Especially when it comes to ecchi, the medium has constantly been testing the limits of how much bawdy and racy stuff it can get away with.  But perhaps there has never been any anime as audacious as Interspecies Reviewers (also known as Ishuzoku Reviewers) when it comes to testing those limits.  In fact, it pushed the borders to such an extreme degree that it broke through and went overboard.  And yet, calling it a hentai is neither accurate.

Interspecies Reviewers is set in a fantasy world in which humans, elves, angels, demons, halflings, beastmen, minotaurs, cyclopes, myconids, lamias, fairies, undead, and many other races coexist, and follows a group of adventurers who are fond of going to brothels.  Due to the fact that there are many kinds of species in this world, there are also many brothels – one for each species of succu-girls (i.e. prostitutes).  At the same time, customers’ opinions vary from species to species.  So, while in the middle of an argument about which succu-girl is the best, these adventurers have an idea: they would write their individual experiences with each brothel they visit, rate them, and post their reviews in the local tavern.

Considering the subject matter, this anime constantly has steamy to lewd elements.  And while the visual storytelling would sometimes depict the sex scenes through hilarious visual metaphors (especially during the myconid episode), it would often get really graphic.  The only thing stopping it from becoming identified as straight-up hentai is that its purpose is not to indulge fetishes and incite sexual arousal, but to deliver laughs.

Yes, Interspecies Reviewers is essentially a trashy sex comedy.  But you know what?  Despite its awkwardly graphic content, the jokes actually hit more often than not.

Moreover, it has also some strength as a high fantasy anime.  Seriously, there’s genuine creativity and thought put into its lore.  Its setting is an amazingly imaginative fantasy world.  Its assortment of races is expansive, well-designed, and well-realized.  And we even get an enough idea on how their politics and society work to get intrigued.

In the end, Interspecies Reviewers will forever be known in infamy.  It’s indeed a groundbreaking anime, but it is so because it has completely blurred the border of ecchi anime and hentai.