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Urotsukidoji Review

Kicking this off with, well, one of the most infamous comics ever, Urotsukidoji by Toshio Maeda. Yes, I call manga "comics" they are Japanese comics. If you don't know, Urotsukidoji is a hallmark of hentai, credited with popularizing the tentacle-themed adventures that hentai would become synonymous with in the 00s. Despite this, it is extraordinarily difficult to find a full English release of it, an endeavor that I took up multiple times over the last 6 years. So imagine my surprise when I return to college, go to the library, and find all four volumes translated to English right before my eyes. To say I was shocked is an understatement, but I'm not one to beat a dead horse in the mouth or whatever that phrase is. I immediately grabbed the first volume and, assuming it must not be that bad if it's in a college library, immediately opened it. Confronted with a full page, full color sex scene, I proceeded to sheepishly close it and check it out of the library. Back home, I read it. And let me tell you, "it popularized tentacle hentai" is about the entirety of value I found in Urotsukidoji.

Let's start with the plot. Now, I know erotic comics are not exactly known for breaking the boundaries of storytelling, but even by those standards I found it extremely lacking. Through the story we follow the beast-man (ogre? The translation seems to flip between calling them beast-men and ogres, I'm not sure if this is because the translation is inconsistent or if the original dialogue used two terms) Amano Jaku and his search for the titular Urotsukidoji, the Over-Fiend. Our secondary protagonist is the loser Tatsuo Nagumo who is totally not the Over-Fiend as he pursues his love interest Akemi Ito. Meanwhile the reptilian demons, enemies of the beast-men that Amano Jaku represents, are staging their own search for Urotsukidoji to kill him. The motives of neither the beast-men nor the demons is really explored, nor is Urotsukidoji's relationship to either. From what I could gather, Urotsukidoji seems to exist as something besides either. Perhaps the demons and beast-men are warring factions of "fiends" and the continuously reborn Urotsukidoji is too powerful to bother with their petty bickering. Urotsukidoji himself is never really explained beyond having vast power and being reborn in the body of a human every 2000 years. The actual plot is meandering and aimless, never progressing too much just incase Toshio Maeda wants to extend it further to continue serving his audience their monthly dose of noncensentual sex scenes and gory violence. Until the final chapter, where all bets are off as the climactic finale aproaches and the story ends before any real payoff.

Okay, so the plot is bad but the "action" must be great right? After all, it spawned a fetish so huge it became synonymous with the genre. Well... the animated adaptation is actually what people credit for the popularization of tentacles. The comic has very little in the way of tentacles and what is present is a far cry from our idea of tentacles, sorry to disappoint tentacle fans. As for the rest, well, I'm not exactly itching to look at it again. The art was servicable, but very rarely did I find any excitement in these scenes. They weren't bad, but they weren't great. That's about all I can say about them. They happen. My main interest in it was for its significance in the "demon manga" niche, what with the numerous demons and beast-men, and while the monster designs did not disappoint me, their scenes were unfortunately scarce and served more as hints of what's to come in the future of demon-based manga and anime. To an extent, I would argue that much of this fits more as an exagerration of the "ugly bastard" trope than alongside the demon manga it would inspire.

Don't let all of my criticisms and shameless bashing diminish the place that Urotsukidoji holds in the history of hentai, though. It may not hold up as a great compared to what it would inspire, but without Urotsukidoji we likely wouldn't have Twin Dolls or Bible Black. But, in my opinion, that's where Urotsukidoji's story ends, as a historical curiosity best read to complete the story of how horror hentai got to where it is now. If you have any interest in the unfairly shamed history of erotica and have the stomach for mass amounts of egregious rape scenes, often featuring characters stated to be younger than the age of majority, then I believe it is a must-read. Though, you could probably skip more than half of the chapters.

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