Orphan has just released a soft-core h-anime OVA series, Doukyuusei (Classmates) 2. This is not as far afield as it might seem: one of Orphan's very first projects was Kage (Shadow), a beautiful and very violent h-anime that was abandoned midway. However, Doukyuusei 2 is not technically an orphan project; no English fansub group ever started on it. So how come?
The best answer I can offer is that one thing leads to another. In this case, Orphan redid the subs for a three-episode OVA called Sotsugyusei, which is a sequel to Doukyuusei 2. The former made very little sense, because the episodes were interwoven with events and characters from the latter. So it seemed like a reasonable idea to translate the prequel and thus have the entire series in English. Raws were available, and notwithstanding the subject matter, the project got underway.
Doukyuusei 2 has an interesting history. Made initially as a set of hentai OVAs, in 1988 it was turned into a series for broadcast TV by the simple expedient of excising the sex scenes. This was easy to do, as there was no more than one scene per episode, typically at the end. According to Anime News Network, Doukyuusei 2 was the first eroge to be turned into a broadcast TV series. If it seems utterly generic today, that's because the eroge genre has been plundered repeatedly for harem and moe series over the last fifteen years.
Doukyuusei 2 features a single male protagonist, Kondou Makoto, and a bevy of females. One, Narusawa Yui, is Kondou's childhood friend and the main female character. There are a host of other girls, as well as several male sidekicks - the perverted photographer Yoshiki, the rich snob Aritomo, the tongue-tied athlete Ayako - who are there solely for comic relief. The story starts out in "girl of the week" mode, with Makoto providing help, consolation, and sexual healing to a different girl in each episode, but it eventually settles down into a semi-coherent plot about Makoto's pursuit of Izumi the archer and Yui's brokenhearted reaction. After the usual manufactured crises, and some flashback padding to stretch the series to twelve episodes, (spoiler alert) true love triumphs.
Technically, Doukyuusei 2 is uncensored because, as is typical of h-anime of that era, all of the "naughty bits" are concealed by blankets or obscured by careful angles. Not a single scene is pixellated or needs to be. Orgasms are shown symbolically, with a scattering of sakura petals, lightning flashes, breaking waves, or rain showers. If Yosuga no Sora is not considered hentai, then this isn't either.
There's one more set of OVAs in this series, Doukyuusei Climax. We're in the process of finishing it up.
P.S. All the Internet raws for the Doukyuusei series are terrible. If you have better raws, please let me know.
The best answer I can offer is that one thing leads to another. In this case, Orphan redid the subs for a three-episode OVA called Sotsugyusei, which is a sequel to Doukyuusei 2. The former made very little sense, because the episodes were interwoven with events and characters from the latter. So it seemed like a reasonable idea to translate the prequel and thus have the entire series in English. Raws were available, and notwithstanding the subject matter, the project got underway.
Doukyuusei 2 has an interesting history. Made initially as a set of hentai OVAs, in 1988 it was turned into a series for broadcast TV by the simple expedient of excising the sex scenes. This was easy to do, as there was no more than one scene per episode, typically at the end. According to Anime News Network, Doukyuusei 2 was the first eroge to be turned into a broadcast TV series. If it seems utterly generic today, that's because the eroge genre has been plundered repeatedly for harem and moe series over the last fifteen years.
Doukyuusei 2 features a single male protagonist, Kondou Makoto, and a bevy of females. One, Narusawa Yui, is Kondou's childhood friend and the main female character. There are a host of other girls, as well as several male sidekicks - the perverted photographer Yoshiki, the rich snob Aritomo, the tongue-tied athlete Ayako - who are there solely for comic relief. The story starts out in "girl of the week" mode, with Makoto providing help, consolation, and sexual healing to a different girl in each episode, but it eventually settles down into a semi-coherent plot about Makoto's pursuit of Izumi the archer and Yui's brokenhearted reaction. After the usual manufactured crises, and some flashback padding to stretch the series to twelve episodes, (spoiler alert) true love triumphs.
Technically, Doukyuusei 2 is uncensored because, as is typical of h-anime of that era, all of the "naughty bits" are concealed by blankets or obscured by careful angles. Not a single scene is pixellated or needs to be. Orgasms are shown symbolically, with a scattering of sakura petals, lightning flashes, breaking waves, or rain showers. If Yosuga no Sora is not considered hentai, then this isn't either.
There's one more set of OVAs in this series, Doukyuusei Climax. We're in the process of finishing it up.
P.S. All the Internet raws for the Doukyuusei series are terrible. If you have better raws, please let me know.
