RSSHana Haruna – Haruhana
29 May 2009 4 Comments
in Reviews
Hana Haruna – Haruhana (May 25th, 2009)
Air Control/Melon
Catalog # – OME-58 – All Regions Disc – 4:3 Aspect
Running Time: 70 Minutes
The Skinny: After the exhilarating Hana no Mai, which was released a month ago on April 25th, this new DVD starring Hana Haruna, is best described as disappointing. Oh, Hana still looks good, but as a video, it just wasn’t as good as I had hoped for. In fact, the superb cover image (see above) is a brilliantly conceived and executed image to veritably make this DVD a best seller, and it is taken from the video’s best and only superb scene.
And it worked. The marketing gurus for Air Control were surely pleased as the advanced sales for this DVD have been extraordinary. Through the roof. It was released on May 25th in Japan, and I have it my hands in Florida, 3 days later. The first pressing is already sold out because if you went to order it now from cdjpapan (I bought mine from them), they now state that there’s a delay of 2 to 4 weeks. Leaving that aside, unfortunately, this DVD doesn’t compare well to Hana no Mai despite the heightened sales figures, and the same crew. A double treat starts the video as there’s a pure montage as well as a mini montage that plays under the chapter menu card.
To get us started, we greet the enormously busty Hana on an Okinawan beach. She walks about, smiles, squeezes her impressive breasts together between her arms, and does little else. Sure, she plays with her sandals in the surf – but sorry, that’s not much of an activity is it?
The second chapter has a jumping rope sequence followed by an exercise ball sequence. While Hana is pretty good at jumping the rope, the slow motion elements that they used weren’t good at all. I thought the color was off and the camera was poorly placed. The local cat wandered into the scene and got Hana’s attention as well as some screen time before Hana had to go back to work by using the exercise ball.
Three is indoors. Haruna-san works with a soft ice-cream in a cone. This is a standard scene these days. Ice cream, ice popsicle, a juicy mango, or what-have-you, it’s all done to make you think of something else, something exceeding sexual and oral. But what made this one different is that she then began to spread the ice cream onto her tee shirt which had a slit cut into it to show off her cleavage, and then under her tee shirt. It was more messy than erotic. At best we can say that the scene was pretty good at showing us that Hana’s boobs are indeed huge.
Four is a ‘cooking’ scene. We are situated on a deck near the pool. Hana lowers her pink terry-cloth overalls to reveal a bikini top. She finds a bottle of chocolate sauce and places the bottle between her boobs and pours. Ditto with the whipped cream. She then mixes the whipped cream and the chocolate. Which is good so we can watch her boobs jiggle briefly. Then she adds a red sauce, also poured from a bottle held between her boobs. The a fourth sauce is mixed in. When she tastes the concoction, she makes a face and then steps away away, ending the scene. Basically this was about six minutes wasted.
In five Hana is laying on a pretty hammock. So we spend most of the time look up at her. Her mighty bust is obscured to a degree by the hammock or her arms. While again we can be impressed by the outrageous size of her breasts we are somewhat cheated by the fact that she’s mostly face down so we have to see through the hammock. When she finally rolls over onto her back, she will bring her arms up and cross them under her boobs. But she’s stationary except for the gentle sway of the hammock, and we get just two panning shots up toward her face. In fact it is the same shot done twice. In my view, another wasted scene.
Six has Hana wearing a blue and red plaid outfit. It has a bikini top and a matching short skirt. She’s in a room with a bar for drinks and a billiards table. She’s dancing, although that may not be the best word to describe it. Wriggle and jiggle fit better. Anyway, her movements and motions certainly didn’t match the music we heard on the sound track. Soon enough the wriggle and jiggle as pretense for dancing ends, and she’s doing it (w&j) for the sake of wriggle and jiggle only. And the scene has some continuity issues. She’s up on the billiard table then back on the floor, then up on the table again.
The few excellent shots of her cleavage are nice enough as is the way this scene is lighted. So we can say for this chapter that while she can’t dance, she looks good trying.
Seven is out by the pool. Hana walks across the very shallowest part of the pool (ankle deep) before setting up on a lounger. She wears a white wrap over a very very small bikini. There’s no way she could swim in this rig, but I’m of the thought that she can’t swim. So that question is moot.
The sun lotion is poured onto her body from above by an unseen person, and as she applies it, you can see 1) how flimsy this bikini is, and 2) how busty Hana is. Later on they employ a large piece of glass or lucite so Hana can press her boobs against it. This has been done in far better fashion elsewhere. The scene then has Hana using her hands to fondle her breasts and she waves bye-bye after the camera has panned up to her face.
Eight is the sunset scene on the beach, is the last of the main chapters, and is the setting of the cover image. A gooey lotion is again poured onto her. Maybe a bit too much of it, but given the angle of the sun, the scene has an amazing glow to it. Add in the sheen on her body, and a very sexy bikini, we do have a major winning scene. In fact, this is the only ‘winning scene’ in the entire video. It’s not that all the others were bad – that is not the case.
It is simply that none were this good.
This is the last of the main chapters. It is good to end on a high note. About a dozen minutes remain and we are treated to a pair of outtakes and goofs. Hana will blow her lines and the crew will find this hilarious. She says, ‘gomen na’ (sorry) and every one laughs.
With 10 minutes left, some one with a key to Hana’s room enters with a video camera. The room is dark, Hana is likely asleep (or pretending to be asleep). The intruder snoops around the room looking in at the bathroom, the toilet, the closets, and then the trash-bins. He then goes through her luggage as well as her hand bag and purse. Ultimately he wakes her up, and this is no easy task. Then they talk. Hana is not wearing any kind of cute pajamas or sleepwear. So we got 10 minutes of snooping around and some conversation before Hana asks us to buy her DVD. I thought this scene was mostly creepy.
Summary: Disappointing? Yes. Failed scenes? Yes. Big big boobs? Most definitely.
I think this one is nowhere near as good as Hana no Mai or her debut DVD. I’m not going to trash the video, but I’m not going to recommend it either. Hana will likely have a successful career in gravure, but this one isn’t really up to par. Still, watching Hana is never going to a chore.
So I’ll give this DVD a three point five. I’m not going to say I’m being generous, but I will say that compared with her first two releases, it is a very fair rating.
May 31, 2009 @ 20:05:26
Well, how good a gravure DVD turns out hinges largely upon the director and crew, and from what you’ve written, it seems that we can’t pin the failure for this one on Hana-chan. She did her job, but she was given crap to work with, it seems.
May 31, 2009 @ 21:05:35
I should say – you’re exactly right.
With a figure like this in front of the camera, it seems like a no-brainer, that the finished product would be good, but I’ve seen enough idol DVD’s to know when the crew and the director have dropped the ball.
This DVD also goes to show you how Idol Marketing works. When Takizawa and Natsume give us a double release, you can count on both videos being well directed and produced. Some times it is difficult to even say which of the two is better because they’re both superb.
But in this case, they let a month go by. They knew the Hana no Mai would get good reveiws and good word of mouth, which would help the sales on this one.
The plan worked fine. Except for the fact that this DVD is disppointing.
Thanks for your insights and comments Agent Wax.
jmm
Jun 04, 2009 @ 12:38:57
I think they shoot 15-20 scenes and choose the best 8-9 for the DVD and leave a couple of good ones to sell / promo / whatever in magazines and stuff while discarding the scenes that didn’t work… I haven’t seen this effort but my guess is that the previous title sold so well that they rushed this one (if they intended a double release, they could have mixed the better scenes with the filler stuff) and ended using scenes that are not up to par with Hana’s usual stuff. (For instance, wasn’t there a plaid outfit scene in HnM?)
On the other hand. 3.5 ain’t that bad… and Hana seems to be getting some mainstream (by gravure standards) exposure in an idol card game tv show and Weekly Play Boy and stuff. IF she chooses to move to AV, I’d like it to be because of her choice, not because their managers cornered there by keeping her doing raunchy stuff and providing zero mainstream-ish exposure (as it seems to be the case for many rookie idols).
Jun 04, 2009 @ 15:13:55
Hi Xater – yeah, that plaid outfit appeared in both Hana no Mai and this one.
I’ve always had the idea that producers never handle the double releases right. When they have two good ones they release them together. Natsume and Takizawa always do this. Seems to me that a second release spaced out effectively would insure great sales for both. Whereas a double release people don’t know which to buy.
That’s why they read me – (I hope)…
As for Hana – you’re right they didn’t have 20 good scenes, they had maybe 15. So they amped up Hana no Mai to basically have everyone eager for Haruhana. They probably knew that the 2nd one would suffer in comparison.
You do know that Hana will be in a I-One release from Line Communications slated for a July 20th release. cdjapan already has it listed but no cover image yet.
I gave a 3.5 more for Hana than for the quality of the director’s efforts. As for mainstream appearances, I can’t say much about this as I’m here in the States, but she’s kind of raw, she needs a bit more polishing.
But then again I’m not managing her career, or dating her, so what do I know?
As usual thanks for the comments.
jmm