Maybe it wasn’t the story line per se that I found annoying – instead I think I didn’t care for whining and cranky attitude Hitomi displayed in the story. Yes, it was a scripted role, and probably she played it as well as could be. It just bugged me.

I realize that office ladies, as well as shop girls, and working people living in any country on the planet face disappointments and stress on daily basis. That’s why I like gravure idol DVDs – for the sheer escapism from real life that they offer.

When I am hiking on the Cedar Highway outside of Hakone, Japan, or body surfing in Kata Noi Beach in Phuket, or sailing off Lemboggan Island in Indonesia, I’m not thinking of coming home from the office so tired that I collapse right inside of my apartment door. When I push the PLAY button to watch a Hitomi Kitamura DVD – I don’t expect to be reminded of or even watch another individual have that experience.

I mentioned the 51 minutes of the main chapters and 10 minutes of the behind the scenes in neither a positive or negative mode. I guess that is a plus because I didn’t feel any of the scenes were too long or too short.

Z – As always, I respect your opinions, and enjoy having opposing perspectives on display on this site. I am sure we’ll go down this road again, as I know you will have the new Yoko and the new Nonami Takizawa DVDs the second your favorite dealer opens the box. If they are officially released on a Friday in Japan, I’ll have them on Monday in New York.

JMM

Definately much better than her previous release, Tsubara Na Hitomi, this one seemed to solve a lot of the problems of the former, most prominently the annoying tendency for the camera to go in for those long, disorienting closeups. The close up fetish shots are fine if done in moderation, but when they’re done to death you lose site of the model in a random montage of body parts.

I think you’re putting too much into ‘storyline’ aspect of the DVD – it’s there as a flimsy excuse to tie the scenes together. The alternative would be the far too often overplayed interview segments (another issue with Tsubara) wherein the same questions get asked over and over again and the idol puts on the same, somewhat generic cute persona. Remember Marshmellow? Even if you can’t speak Japanese, just watching the visual cues from the idol’s expression and body language are generally so similar from interview to interview that they become interchangable.

It wasn’t clear from the review – did you consider the length a drawback or a positive? I quite honestly think they nailed the timing dead on… roughly an hour. Any longer and things tend to drag unless you’ve got a good crew behind the scenes. As much as I love Rio, Yoko and the gang, I found there were a lot of editorial cuts which could have been made in their recent releases to provide a better viewing experience.