Aya Kiguchi – Koibito Tsunagi (August 26th, 2009)
E-Net Frontier
Catalog # – ENFD-5151 – Region 2 Disc – 16:9 Aspect
Running Time: 100 Minutes

The Skinny: 100 minutes (including the Extra Scene) is a long time for a gravure idol DVD. It usually means some scenes are bloated or overlong, or maybe they have scenes that are simply filler, or the 3rd possibility is that they didn’t come up with enough quality scenes for a double release.   Let’s check out Aya Kiguchi in Koibito Tsunagi and see if the hundred minutes are worthy of your time and mine.

After a rather long (3:00 minutes) and well made montage, Chapter I opens with Aya climbing out of a huge swimming pool. She flirts briefly while standing before us in her all-white one piece swimsuit. Then we watch a practice session of her swimming strokes – out of the pool of course. For us it is just arm movements.

Running six minutes and change, this scene is notable for it’s slow pace, and languid pans, zooms, and sweeps of this cute and sexy model.

Two starts with Aya pretending she’s actually playing badminton. A few swings, and whoosh, she’s indoors and it looks like she will take off her short skirt and top. She will have to because the room looks like some sort of empty shed or workshop. All we see is a table. And yes the skirt does come off about three minutes later. Then her shirt is tugged up over her bra. That’s about it. She’ll use the badminton raquet as a prop. Sorry – a model laying on her back for most of the sequence isn’t very scintillating.

Three has Aya as a teacher. However her frilly blouse is see through making costume inappropriate for school or work anywhere unless her suit jacket remains buttoned. But this being a gravure video – the suit jacket gets removed quickly. Aya is bespectacled in this scene in case you didn’t notice. I also wonder about wearing a black bra beneath a white see through blouse. Not that there’s anything wrong about that.

After some moments of languishing while simultaneously being skirt-less with her blouse buttoned right up to the throat – Aya finally decides to open then remove her blouse. More posing ensues while she’s on top of a table – just like the prior scene. Then whoosh – suddenly she’s back in her fully dressed mode, just as when we met her at the beginning of the scene. So it was a dream sequence – I guess.

The next chapter continues with more puzzlements. We start this segment out in the woods, and there’s a small creek flowing by – then whoosh – Aya is greeting us in the lobby of a hotel (in the country). As we head up the stairs – you can’t miss that Aya’s skirt is transparent. Next thing you know – she is slowly posing. Skirt is lowered, her top is opened. She’s sitting in a chair. Next she’s going to take off her pantyhose. It’s kind of sexy – I mean she’s taking off her clothes only it is almost excruciatingly slow. Get on with it girl!

But it continues as before. Skirt is gone, top is tugged up over her bra, and yes, she’s laying on her back again. So Chapters Two, Three, and Four are nearly exactly the same – different clothes – same actions. And also the same pacing. 100 minutes is the target, so they draw everything out and slow everything down to the nth degree.

Five is in the hotel’s public bath and we’ve seen this place before. I know Sayaka Ando has done a bath scene here, and more recently Hitomi Aizawa in her Seishun Dynamic videos has been here.Though the scene opens in the bath, it is likely an editing gaffe. In Japanese baths -

one soaps and scrubs and cleans outside of the bath FIRST. After you’re clean, only then do you go for a soak.

Though hampered by the same slow posing and slower camera movements, this scene is quite enjoyable likely because it shorter than what we’ve seen so far.

Six finds Aya wearing some beautiful and sexy lingerie – bustier, panties, gloves, stockings, and garter belt. Lace and ribbons galore. But given the fact that she’s confined to a bed, and limited to turning onto one hip or slowly moving her arms, this amounts to another long and lengthy scene with Aya on her back doing next to nothing. We would have enjoyed this more had it been a fashion show with Ata walking out on ramp, turning a few times then walking back. You know what I mean – maybe 40 seconds worth. The 10 minutes we got was nine minutes too long.

Seven has Aya in a gym. She’ll work on her abs by keeping a ball between her feet, and twirling it between her feet, as she raised her feet off the ground.The she’ll practice dribbling the ball like a basketball player would. Then Whoosh – we are in the locker room,

and Aya is – where else but on a table, only it is a desk. Sure enough, here comes the gym shorts coming off. Then right on cue she’ll tug up her top.

I wonder if I should even watch the rest of the scene. A few minutes later, after watching Aya seated on the floor with her knees up most of the time, the scene concludes.

Eight has Aya in an empty classroom. She’s dressed as a student, white shirt, white sleeveless sweater, a tie, a plaid skirt, and loafers with socks to just below the knees. Rather quickly, maybe a minute in, the skirt comes off. After a conderable amount of time following this (more than 4 minutes) we have reached a point where Aya has tugged up her sweater and her shirt to reveal a part of her bra. This is of course faster than the speed of a glacier – but in real time it is quite slow.

Then whoosh – there she is on the floor in just her bra, panties, her socks, and her loafers. Where aside from turning from a position on one hip to laying on her back, nothing else happens.

In the next chapter, Aya greets us at the door of her sunny apartment. We enter and watch her eat an ice cream on a stick. After a few minutes she hands us the ice cream on a stick so we can hold it and feed her. Soon she’s in a room standing before a window. We can see through her sun dress at times. The dress has buttons. In what might be called a rush (for this video only) the dress is going to be pulled up but this time not off as Aya is bra-less. She will tease a bit by lowering the dress straps to show some cleavage but that’s gonna be it.

Next is a bathroom scene. And a fancy room it is. Aya is cleaning the tiles, the glass, and the tub. Ok fortunately that didn’t last long. Soon she’s soaping up. She wears a strapless bra and panties. The whoosh. a hand with a brush appears. That would be us. Next we are at the helm of the shower nozzle and we rinse her off.

Off course this means a few minutes of her sitting or standing with her back to us. This might have been more fun to watch if the room hadn’t been flooded with sunlight.

With about 11 minutes to go in the main chapters, and in what is apparently the after bath scene, Aya is applying lotion to her legs after she has put on these mid-thigh socks. Hmmm – myabe this how she does it. I mean – why put body lotion on your calves? And in case you hadn’t had enough of Aya sitting with her knees up they have more of that too.

The last of the main chapters has a short coda. Aya as the student sees Aya as the teacher. They look at one another. Fade to credit. And that’s it.

The seven minutes of the bonus chapter are mostly of the behind the scenes nature. There’s a voice over and Aya answers questions that appear in script. It’s an ok series of clips. And why wouldn’t it be – nothing here is dragged out. It’s like a whirlwind tour of the first 93 minutes but unlike the montage, here we cameras and crew members in addition to Aya.

Summary: Aya Kiguchi, born in 1985, has a busy career well on its way. In addition to gravure work, she’s in demand for acting roles in movies. She’s got a cute smile, a beautiful body, and a nice manner about her. I’m scoring this one at just three point five. Too long, too much sunlight as almost the entire video was shot indoors, hardly any action, and most of the scene were all like. Though disappointing, I’ll recommended this DVD to Aya’s fans and for those of you gravure fans with extra time.

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