RSSNonami Takizawa – Toubou
29 Sep 2007 2 Comments
in Reviews
Nonami Takizawa – Toubou (2007)
Line Communications Idol One Series
Catalogue # LCDV-40275 – Region 2 Disc
The Skinny: Just what you’ve always dreamed of – you and an Idol on vacation in a tropical paradise. Yup, this gravure Idol DVD starring the voluptuous Nonami Takizawa has this as its underlying theme – Nonami will treat you as her numero uno or ichiban boyfriend. Sometimes its a wee bit over chatty, and sometimes the two of us are so close that the camera angle becomes unflattering. But the overall package hits its marks, and you will be carrying home a wonderful viewing experience.
Before the montage we see Nonami at an airport. She wears a bomber jacket, camouflage jeans and a baseball cap. No sign of any luggage. A phone is dialed, answered, and fade to black. Then the montage is launched. Above and below are from the montage, and just like the montage, these picture are offered to entice you to read further.
The first chapter has Nonami on the beach. It might be any beach as we are not given any indicators at all as to location. That comes later; much later. Ok so she’s on the beach, in a bikini…but mainly she just scampers about acting kind of silly – a giddy young thing on a vacation with her ichiban (Number One) boyfriend. It’s midday as the shadows are quite short. We need the camera to back up a bit, and Nonami needs some direction to slow down. This isn’t a good scene at all.
The second chapter has Nonami in the hotel’s swimming pool with one of those round floating devices. Again it is an overly bright scene as they haven’t learned the lesson about not shooting outdoors at midday. Again the camera is in too close, and she’s in constant motion, so much so that it was difficult to find a decent image to capture.
Even if you look closely, you can’t really see the water – that’s the danger of shooting at midday. Your images are going to be washed out.
Chapter Four finds us out in a garden, quite near the pool as Nonami is taking a shower. In a directorial conceit, they open with ‘us’ peaking through some tree leaves angled just to give us the impression that we are spying on the sexy model. Of course she detects us quickly and they do a way with the leaves. Just a full blown look at the shower event. And you could not be happier. A marvelous scene indeed marred only because of it’s extreme brevity.
Back in the hotel we next are treated to the sight on Nonami in a very revealing top. This scene is set in a living room, and it is a lovely setting in line with the lovely model. Have a look. As you can see in the shot below, we have a pale body, a light colored costume and a light colored sofa – this scene screamed for some bold contrasts which we didn’t get.
Immediately following we do get some bold contrast. Nonami in black climbs into bed with us. Unfortunately this is just a filler/transitional minutes and half. Nothing happens after a few words we get the fade-out; yet they call it a chapter.
The following chapter is a bit of puzzle for me. As the scene opens a prim and proper Nonami, wearing spectacles, and dressed in a white blouse and short skirt finds her way to an apartment -
it’s actually the same hotel room. She says a few words to us, and then we lunge for her. Initially she is frightened and almost before you realize it – a zoom in and a zoom out – she turns from Ms Prim and Proper to a hot seductress. She’ll take off her blouse and skirt, and dazzle us with her cleavage and other charms. Don’t expect more as this is a gravure idol DVD – no nudity please. The puzzle is that are we to assumme that she is a professional working girl meeting a client at his hotel, or is she play-acting for her boyfriend (us). As I don’t speak enough Japanese to understand what she said so it remains a puzzle. As the scene concludes Nonami is buttoning up her blouse, she fixes her hair and she leaves. At the door she says a few words to us and then gives the the universal image for – don’t tell anyone.
But we get an answer immediately. It seems that the fade out earlier – when we had Nonami in bed with us briefly, has resumed. Therefore the entire preceding scene was a dream. But the question remains – her dream or ours?
So what do they do next?
We enter a room and Nonami is dressed as a nurse, complete with a stethoscope and the apparatus to read the blood pressure. But this turns out to be a repeat of the prior scene right down to the threatening gesture from us, the fearful Nonami, and then another episode of her clothes come off, and we get some good closeups of her cavernous cleavage.
And yes – this turns out to be another dream sequence as again are back in bed with her. Only this time, after a brief conversation, Nonami heads for the shower.
Its not a lengthy scene, she presses against the glass door to accentuate the size of her breasts, and then…
We are back in the same bed. She’s wearing the same bra and panties that we have already seen twice in bed, and one other time – in the shower scene of just seconds ago. So maybe the shower scene was just ‘our fevered imaginations’ at work? Or not?
Well, they do change the setting in the next scene but not the concept. This time we awaken a sleeping Nonami. It’s a different bed, and she’s wearing a man-tailored shirt. We try to get her to awaken and play. We tug the bed covering down , she tugs it back up. This is repeated a few times, and then finally she does want to play, as she takes off her panties, but this only means an immediate fade out.
On the balcony in the next scene, Nonami’s prop is a glass of water. We all know what comes next, and we are not wrong. Seems that despite being a grown woman, this model cannot drink from a glass without spilling water into her cleavage. We give her a flower and she likes it so much she does an impromptu dance for us. She’s not much of a dancer, but that’s not the point. The question that comes up is will she fall out of her top. The answer of course is no – but you knew that!
This is followed by a playful Nozomi scene where she sits and stretches on a hardwood floor. While not too scintillating to look at, we do see how playful she is.
Next we go for a drink. Nonami wears a low-cut dress, and as it turns out the wind will wreak havoc with this dress. Again we enjoy the life and spirit of the model while again seeing her awesome cleavage in this revealing dress. What begins as a drink end up as a dip in the sea.
Then they go back to the storyline of the model and her guy on this holiday. First they give us a whirlwind walk in the park with Nonami in this deeply cut black swim-suit. I call it a swim suit but I doubt we’d ever see a woman wearing this into the ocean. After the walk, we go again for a drink. But disaster strikes fast and hard.
We have a fight.
Nonami storms off. We follow as she makes her way out onto this cement jetty. She’s definitely upset. But in the grand tradition of all cinematic romances where boy meets girl, then boy loses girl, this will end positively.
Yes, they make up and as has been said before, all lovers reunions are beyond words. As the main chapters close we are close with Nonami and the camera leaves her and looks out to sea. Fade out.
Summary: I had my doubts about this DVD as gravure idol DVDs normally don’t have story lines, and we are not generally the other (2nd) party who reacts with the model. We are mostly the 3rd party as in silent observer.
But Nonami Takizawa is a star of the first order and her overall charms do trump the not insignificant technical problems.
Light management, too many closeups were too close, and some weak co-ordination of colors (the models costumes vs the background of the set) all were negatives.
But not so much that I will lower my rating appreciably or fail to recommend the DVD. Overall I liked the DVD but will not rate it as high as the companion DVD Rakuen. So that leaves us with a three point seven five score.
Sep 30, 2007 @ 08:58:49
Sorry Mike – I think you’ve misjudged Tōbō, but I can understand why: with the talk heavy nature of the DVD, if you can’t understand at least some Japanese, some of the charms of the disc will be lost.
I’d also disagree about some the technical aspects of the disc, but then that’s about par for course when we disagree about the finer points of a DVD. Given the POV camera work, I’d say that some of the close-ups you found troublesome were nescessary for the theme of the disc – when I viewed the disc, I never found them too off putting.
IMHO, add at least 0.5 to that score if you can understand the Japanese.
Sep 30, 2007 @ 10:31:59
Okay fair enough. I didn’t ‘get’ most of the talk -
so I didn’t know if the so called dream sequences were dreams or play-acting between lovers. I’d hoped you would touch on this for us but you didn’t.
As for the closeups – I am not troubled by either frequency or how close provided they continue to put the model in a good light.
JMM