Manyu Scroll

If you like boobs, and you like anime, you should probably watch this. It is quite literally about boobs. Not in a way where you can say "It's about boobs and-" No. The entire plot centers around breasts.

Brought to you by Hiraku Kaneko, a director most renowned for making God-tier hentai and ridiculously raunchy anime such as Qwaser of Stigmata (the show about sucking breasts to get super powers) and Valkyrie Drive Mermaid (the show about an island full of lesbian fighters who "power-up" by getting sexually aroused) that blur the line between hentai and R-rated raunch comedy. Manyuu Hikenchou does not break the mold in this regard. It is unashamedly raunchy and chock full of gratuitous nudity and cheap shots meant for maximum boobage.

However, I do think this does stand out as the director's best TV show, and that's in part due to its premise, which is the most ridiculous of his career.

Manyuu Hikenchou takes place in an alternate history Japan where a woman's status and reputation in society is based solely on the size of her breasts. Ruling the country is the Manyuu clan, who use a secret "cutting" technique that turns any busty broad into a flat plank of wood should they get on the wrong side of the law.

Before I go any further, I do have to acknowledge how utterly insane and misogynistic this premise is. Had the execution been different, this could have been a horrendously hateful show. Aside from the premise, there is still morally objectionable content here, as there is in many other raunch-comedy anime, where sexual assault is played for laughs. In fact, the opening scene of the show is a woman getting assaulted. This isn't really something I can glaze over or wave away. For anyone who has dabbled in raunchy anime, hentai, or exploitation films and enjoyed it: the stuff shown here probably won't ruffle your feathers. However, if this sounds like something that would bother you, don't watch it. If you don't, I totally get it.

With that out of the way, what really makes this series and saves it from being a complete shit show is the main character, Chifusa. Within this porno-parody universe, Chifusa is special because she has gained the ancient ability of "breast flow," which allows someone to freely manipulate the size of breasts at will. However, she has not mastered this ability yet, and as a result, can only "take" other people's breasts, causing her own to grow. Her mission throughout the show is to master this ability to, in an act of breast socialism, equally distribute breasts among the masses and finally rid the world of the boob-obsessed system of oppression she lives under.

The main character is where the vast majority of the comedic appeal comes from. Her mission is comically ironic because, while noble, it directly goes against why anyone is watching the show in the first place. Chifusa is the straight woman in a world full of completely insane people. Her reaction to every breast-obsessed scenario the show presents is "... Are you fucking kidding me?" This show is horny as fuck, and she is having none of it. She is probably the most dignified female character in any of Kaneko's TV shows. She has her own agency, independently fights for her own freedom and the freedom of others, and the plot progresses as a result of her heroic actions.
This, and the fact that the show rarely takes itself very seriously, help to stifle the overwhelming misogyny of the premise, and helps make it a much more effective comedy show.

The personality and character of Chifusa is what helps make the show comedic, but the real reason why someone would want to watch this is her ability to absorb the boobs of her foes, leading to the main draw of the show, which is the question, "... Just how big can they get?" The answer is very - even unbelievably - large. So big that at one point in the show she bows to greet someone and literally can't stand back up. The struggles this woman goes through as a result of her gift (or curse, depending on how you look at it) is nothing short of laughable. Making it even more ironic is that she doesn't even care for breasts, creating constant comedic tension between other characters, who envy her physique, and Chifusa, who would prefer to look like a washboard.

The episodic story explores this bizarro world and its negative effects on regular, everyday women as Chifusa's chest gets larger and larger. It is a lot more sympathetic to the struggles of the women in the show than you would expect from a comedy show of this premise, or from a sadistically horny director like Kaneko, but it never gets deep enough in its introspection that it ruins the comedy of any given situation.

I fucking love this show. Everything about it is stupid and hilarious. It's a boob-lover's dream show where nearly every aspect of the plot centers around large chesticles. If Russ Meyer had lived to see this, he probably would have lauded it as his favorite cartoon. It takes every opportunity to titillate and entertain. It also has some surprisingly well directed action scenes (though action scenes are few and far between), and the two central characters are entertaining and endearing. But let's be real, all of this is just icing. I like this show because it's about tits. It's just that simple.

It's far from a perfect show. One of the show's flaws is that it gets less fun to watch around episode 10 when it begins taking its story more seriously. The last three episodes are not without their fair share of entertainment value, but it comes at the expense of the boob-centric comedy the show had to focused on up until that point. However, the OVA specials make up for this because they are nothing short of being bite-sized, soft-core lesbian porn. If the episodes that aired on TV didn't clue you into the fact that this was being directed by someone in the hentai business, the straight-to-video shorts definitely will.

The show also ends in a non-conclusive manner with the main character still pursuing her main goal. This is on a short list of anime shows that I really wish had gotten a second season, and an even shorter list of anime shows that I would pay an ungodly amount of money for on Blu-ray. Unfortunately, the series has never been licensed in the United States for distribution, and as a result, has never received a home media release - a fact which is puzzling considering that Kaneko's other notable shows have US releases. If the issue with licensing this show to the American public was problematic content, Qwaser of Stigmata would not have a Blu-ray from Sentai Film Works, because someone trying to account for every problematic element in that show would have a mental breakdown. So why Manyuu doesn't have a North American Blu-ray is puzzling by comparison, and I do hope that one day I can add it to my collection.

Anyway, I'm going to stop rambling and conclude by saying this is one of my favorite anime. It's a show that is incredibly silly and horny, and I love it - warts-and-all.