Yoko Matsugane – Lolita Paradox (March 25th, 2004) – Region 2 Disc – 4:3 Aspect

NOTE FROM JUSTMEMIKE: Readers, this is a guest review done by our friend from Mexico, Xater. He’s made a ton of comments on this site and has always appreciated my reviews, so I asked him if he’d  like to contribute a guest review.

He said he did one for Nonami Takizawa’s Toubou, but that since I had reviewed that one not too long ago, he would opt for a different video.

His choice, as you can see, is the fabulous Yoko Matsugane’s Lolita Paradox. At cdjapan, this DVD is out of print., but you may be able to find this DVD steeply discounted at other outlets including Amazon.co.jp or some vendors on eBay – (search via the catalog number FENF-1064).

Xater’s review begins just below. Thanks Xater.

The Opening has a pig-tailed Yoko in all her glory walking uphill in some sort of “Country Girl” outfit: a polka-dot bustier, western hat, and a fringed skirt. It turns out that this is a brief montage of what’s to come immediately after we land on a beach.  I’m guessing that this is Hawaii, but my geographical knowledge is rather limited [Edit: It is Hawaii - Waialae Ave, a street sign shown in the video is in Honolulu, HI]. Next Yoko is sporting a white bikini, although the bottoms look more like hot pants. Needless to say, Ms Matsugane is breathtaking. On the down side is the fact that this scene is rather short.

The first of several repetitive interval inserts begins with Yoko in a T shirt doing some rope jumping in a park, but a new scene hits the screen right away, with a green/bluish bikini clad Yoko is resting in a single seat upholstered chair and ottoman (below).

Following this we then find ourselves outdoors with Yoko who sports an orange bikini, next to a boat shed or something. The problem, so far, is that the scenes are pretty short and static, like the one in the beach seemed to be like 1 minute footage stretched with slow motion to the duration of the music track, and the two scenes that followed were more or less the same,

Yoko never leaves the big red chair, and in this outdoor segment, she barely moves 5 feet from where she started. Not a big deal as she is certainly stunning, but it is worth mentioning.

After another brief segment in the park, is time for Yoko posing next to a wooden fence in a tight little green dress with floral designs, and from there, to the top of a cliff (or so it looked) now using a black one piece swimsuit. Good thing Yoko is in a passive mood as falling off the cliff would not be a good thing.

She looks great in this outfit but when she teases pulling down the zipper, I can’t help to smile thinking on how a tease from 5 and 1/2 years ago, comes off looking pretty tame these days.

Finally, the basketball playing!  Besides that fantastic body, not only does she look cute, not only is she having fun, but she can do the crossover dribble and the behind-the-back dribble. What else could anyone ask for?

The fun mood continues with a second beach scene, this time with our friend in a red bikini, much more energetic than before, with Yoko rolling and crawling around… in slow mo, of course!

Country girl returns for an upbeat posing session around the city, Yoko is not that dynamic but the camera does move around and has some zoom and stuff… obviously, focusing on Yoko’s huge bust.

Things slow down a bit with Yoko clad in a yellow bikini and a purple scarf, posing next to a tree (and never wandering away from it),…

…then wearing a beige bikini rolling around on her bed, she actually looked as if she was having fun in that one, as if she was about to smother her pillow to death.

Later, the mandatory bathing scene, this one was lit by candles and I think it could have use some additional soft lamps as it was too dark, even more so considering Yoko was using a black bikini.

The video ends with Yoko posing down next to a green door wearing a maroon polka dot bikini with a song long enough to have the credits roll and some graphic effects take place, with a outro collage of what we’ve just seen.

Maybe I focused too much on the negative aspects of this disc, but we all know its strong points: Yoko was looking amazing in this video and that alone makes it a winner in my book, even if the intro collage of a Rui Kiriyama DVD has more action than this rather short (40 minutes) disc. I think that was the concept of Image Video, more than a picture, but not quite a movie… I should also mention that Yoko was posing to the video camera, not to a still picture camera with the video being incidental, which usually makes DVDs look like a lesser deal.

Besides that, the music was a mix of Britney/Backstreet Boys/Destiny Child proxies, and it actually went by without bothering me as much as music in these videos usually do, I actually liked all of her outfits (or she made them all look awesome) so the only reason to knock down a couple quarters of a point was the poorly lit bathing scene (which has gone to become somewhat of a staple in IV).  And its overall shortness, looked like 25 minutes of footage stretched to 40 minutes by the power of slow motion!! I also thought that the locations were not fully exploited or used to enhance the video, although I must say that no location can actually beat Yoko in her top form!

Thanks for reading. And thanks JMM for the opportunity to do this review.