Mikie Hara – Healing Fruit / Iyashi no Kajitsu (July 23rd, 2010)
Advance Agency/Tokyo1
Catalog # – ADVK-1013 – Region 2 Disc – 16:9 Aspect
Running Time: 50 Minutes

The Skinny: Sexy and beautiful Mikie Hara gets another trip to Bali in this brand new release from Advanced Agency / Tokyo1 called Healing Fruit. Why is Bali so often the preferred choice of the Japanese Gravure production houses? Maybe for them Bali feels more exotic than say Saipan, or Bali has a better sound to it than say Guam, and it is quite likely cheaper than Phuket, Thailand. Anyway, I’m not paying the expenses for the production crew and the model, so I’m happy when they go to a nice place. And this place just might be one of the prettiest locations we’ve seen in a gravure DVD.

Any place will look better with Mikie Hara walking through it in her graceful and beautiful style. To get things rolling, Mikie enters a small elevator car. This one doesn’t go from a top floor to a bottom floor. No, this one is an outdoor elevator that glides up and down the hillside on a track as it takes people to or from the infinity pool area which is still high above the beach. Mikie is stunned by the beauty of the place and she keeps saying, “Sugoi…sugoi” again and again. Sugoi is Japanese for Amazing. She ultimately heads out walking towards the end of the jetty. We see the amazing coast line. Quite a nice intro and in a surprise, this is followed by the montage.

The montage is the usual mix of brief excerpts from the DVD however, in this video, they’ve added a bit of a blue filigree pattern to the edges creating a vignetting effect. It’s not the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen, in fact it is a bit of a distraction. But let’s give thanks for the creativity.

Following the montage, Miki heads for the infinity pool. What is an infinity pool? Simply, it has an outer wall which allows the water to go right to the top of the inner wall and spill over. The effect is that when viewing from the right angle, the view appears that the pool and the sea beyond have merged – the pool water looks like it reaches all the way to the horizon or as it has been called – infinity.

Mikie doesn’t do much but she looks good in the water. She relaxes and then has a few drinks while still in the pool. Nice. The weather was very favorable and that certainly added to the great look of this scene.

A short scene on the beach follows. It is on the beach but all we see is Mikie posing against some large rocks. As it turns out this is only a segment because after a quick fade to black …

… there’s Mikie in the same shaggy bathing suit now posing in front of an ivy-covered wall.

Then without even a change in the music or a halt in the music, there’s Mikie in cutaway bathing suit. There’s a whole lot of rope around her middle which serves as an ‘accessory’ while accentuating her curvy hips. Besides all that she is posing on a few quite large leaves.

Before long, Mikie is on her feet descending some stairs and passing by a different kind of ivy. This scene gets a great marks for its varied locations and pacing.

Back indoors for the next chapter – Mikie is posed on a huge sofa. There’s a glass topped coffee table in front of the sofa.While Mikie looks good, this scene was a bit to static = meaning there’s not a whole lot a model can do while posing on a sofa.

Following this we have a simply beautiful chapter. It begins with Mikie walking about the resort.

She’ll make her way down a staircase to arrive at a terrace which overlooks the Balinse jungle further away but closer we see the tiered rice paddies on the hillside. Their color is a beautiful lush green.

This terrace has its own small splash pool which Mikie will make use of. When you watch a scene like this, you really do appreciate its excellent artistry. I for one am particularly grateful for such a scene. One – because, I’ve been there, and two – because you can so easily see the differences between scenes like this which are spectacular and so rare, and the more common run-of-the-mill ones which we see most of the time.

The next chapter couldn’t possibly top the one we just saw. It is set indoors in Mikie’s bedroom. It’s a beautiful room, a luxurious bed, and Mikie’s lingerie is great. This one will have settle for 2nd or third best in the DVD.

This shot is just before the fade to black. Mikie looks pensive and a little sad. The song lyric is ending with “…’til you come back home’. Marvelous.

A little more than ten minutes remain. Mikie is back in the sun again, and she’s also back in the shaggy swimsuit posing on the rocky beach. Not sure why they chose to reprise this location, not that there is anything wrong with it. But the answer follows in the very next chapter which begins with just four minutes left.

And this is a glorious sunset scene. That’s why we returned to the beach.  These sunsets are sometimes spectacular, and other times not so. But here we have a very beautiful scene. It’s really just a brief lead in for the credits which roll past in Japanese. But wait there’s more. We get the ending where Mikie breaks character from model at work to model just finished working. She smiles beautifully and laughs and congratulates the crew, thanking them for their hard-work.

But in reality, we stil aren’t done yet as there’s still the bonus scene of the behind the scenes and making of. It affords us some last looks at Mikie.

Summary: Loved it! Don’t miss it! This DVD is a shining example of how good a gravure video can be.

Beautiful locations, fresh new music, no cooking or shopping. And a great model!

I am pleased to award this one with a perfecto – five point zero.

Besides that, I look forward to seeing more videos from this outfit.