Senran Kagura – Estival Versus blows away expectations

This is without a doubt the most pleasantly surprised I’ve ever been after watching an ecchi OVA.  Just the latest in what is becoming a year to remember for ecchi fans.

Senran Kagura  was the pinnacle of blue balling, non-nude ecchi anime.  It was based off a multitude of manga, all of which are non-nude, as well as a host of playstation games that also kept things from getting too out of control.  Considering those factors it really wasn’t a surprise that the 2013 anime was non-nude as well.

Though nipples were never shown, it went down in the annals of anime history as one of the most intense tease ecchi anime of all time.

We had plenty of hints that this OVA would end the curse of blank boobs and give us sweet nipples to look at for the first time, but this was quite a bit more than I was personally expecting.  The way it was handled was damn near perfect.  This is the blueprint of what every ecchi OVA should look like.

Senran Kagura - Estival Versus OVA (AT-X) (1) Senran Kagura - Estival Versus OVA (AT-X) (2) Senran Kagura - Estival Versus OVA (AT-X) (3) Senran Kagura - Estival Versus OVA (AT-X) (4) Senran Kagura - Estival Versus OVA (AT-X) (5) Senran Kagura - Estival Versus OVA (AT-X) (6) Senran Kagura - Estival Versus OVA (AT-X) (7) Senran Kagura - Estival Versus OVA (AT-X) (8) Senran Kagura - Estival Versus OVA (AT-X) (8a) Senran Kagura - Estival Versus OVA (AT-X) (9) Senran Kagura - Estival Versus OVA (AT-X) (9a) Senran Kagura - Estival Versus OVA (AT-X) (10) Senran Kagura - Estival Versus OVA (AT-X) (10a) Senran Kagura - Estival Versus OVA (AT-X) (11) Senran Kagura - Estival Versus OVA (AT-X) (11a) Senran Kagura - Estival Versus OVA (AT-X) (12) Senran Kagura - Estival Versus OVA (AT-X) (12a) Senran Kagura - Estival Versus OVA (AT-X) (13) Senran Kagura - Estival Versus OVA (AT-X) (13a) Senran Kagura - Estival Versus OVA (AT-X) (14) Senran Kagura - Estival Versus OVA (AT-X) (15) Senran Kagura - Estival Versus OVA (AT-X) (16) Senran Kagura - 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If only Momo Kyun Sword  would get an OVA like this.

Among the surprises in this OVA was an extremely rare butthole sighting.  The re-encoded version you see here is slightly less obvious, but putting the source in Sony Vegas there was a clear ‘x’ demarcation where the butthole would be.   Hopefully this will be easier to convey on the BD version.

There are no laws against showing buttholes in porn, hentai, or anime in Japan, but ecchi anime have generally avoided even hinting at explicit nudity in the lower body, so this was rather mindblowing to see in the context of an anime where so much as a nipple or two would have seemed like a big deal.

Speaking of which, the first nude scene of this series opens up in the first few minutes, and occurs very suddenly.  I always love it in ecchi manga when they spring the first nude scene like a pouncing tiger, and I felt that was the perfect way to break the ice for a series that had been notoriously non-nude in the past.

Said nude scene occurs during an impromptu game of ‘Oppai Janken’ (rock / paper / scissors using boobs).  Such a wildly perverted and awesome concept, I don’t even care that DxD did it first.  Every show that wants to prove its bonafides should have an Oppai Janken scene.

Later on there is a playful ‘Shinobi Kibasen‘ scene,  the kind we’ve seen in a few nude ecchi anime before.

By the end, all the girls strip completely nude in order to power up when things turn ugly in a ninja ambush.  Some girls show their nipples during this scene, some do not.

There are some blank boobs yes, but watching the episode it felt like these were less about censorship and more about making the anime feel  like it belonged in Senran Kagura canon.  It just wouldn’t be a Senran Kagura experience without some battles and blank boobs, and the OVA strikes the perfect balance in their attempts to please pervs while remaining true to the source.

The bottom line is this: it’s more than a fair trade-off to lose some blurry, fast moving, long distance nipple sightings if the anime compensates with some well drawn close-up looks.  And that’s exactly what this OVA delivers.  Studio ARMS could learn a LOT from this OVA.

It gets better, because apparently the blu-ray version of this OVA will come with an additional 3 minutes of unaired footage (thanks to crafordstinson for pointing this out).  This extra 3 minutes is likely to be a fanservice special or perhaps an added ecchi scene ala Shinmai Maou no Testament  or High School DxD New .

The production of this anime is still a bit murky, but it appears that Genco, Artland, and Hoods Entertainment were all involved in some fashion.  The directing and screenplay duties, basically full creative control, were handled by Shigeru Ueda.  He’s basically a career episode director who’s rarely been given this kind of autonomy.  He had previously worked on some of the best of the best ecchi anime in a deputy role, and it shows here.

It goes without saying, I’ll have a compilation video for this OVA once a high quality 1080p BDrip becomes available.