Our first hentai review!!! Lady Red and I picked this series because I recently sold her my Marie Mamiya figure. Marie’s the busty antagonist in this story, and after what we just watched, I don’t think Lady Red can ever look at that waifu again without blushing.

In ten words or less, what’s Starless about?

Goatius: Redhead uses Craigslist to hire staff for affluent fuck palace.

Lady Red:  BYOB becomes BYOP to the Mamiya Mansion soiree.

Were there any scenes you found…arousing?

G: Starless fetishizes a lot of things, one of those being intersex people that present as female but have labia, penis, and testes. Starless obviously has a male audience in mind when choosing this form of intersex, a nuanced condition that rarely produces a perfectly fused male/female person. That said, the scene where the intersex threesome fucked was really good, unexpected and, as Red will tell you, a bright spot in a sometimes less-than-sensitive hentai. This reminds me of that Pokemon episode where James from Team Rocket has boobs, and I told my friends, “A breast is a breast!” because I found it attractive. And hey, James is still sexy.

LR: When I was told about the “shock” factor in Starless I wasn’t expecting much in terms of arousal. Turns out that was true. As Kohai says, Starless makes it focal points on the almighty fetish. Whether that be golden showers, anal play, or fecal matter, Starless  wants to do them all. Which is why the game is a lot more brutal and violent then the OVA. Overall, I’m pretty vanilla in this regard. Everyone loves a good kink, but for the most part I wasn’t into the going-on’s in Starless. Most of it was highly comedic or borderline offensive haha. In regards to my pal Goatius, the intersex scene was the better scene to me in terms of sex. While there was one line that really bothered me, the people involved seemed genuinely into each other and focused on pleasing one another which was a nice change of pace. While not perfect, it is a better approach to just pure fetishization of intersex people.    

When was the moment you said to yourself, “Dear god, what am I watching?”

G: Everything having to do with urine made me cringe. Most of the urine scenes involved pissing into wine glasses and then drinking it. There’s a particular part when Marie Mamiya drinks a cocktail of urine and something else, and that was the moment I said, “Dear god, what am I watching?” Starless has a fascination with “secretions and excretions,” as Mamiya puts it. I guess that’s my fetish limit.   

LR: That would have to be episode one when Mistress Mamiya wants a cum enema. Immediately I said to myself “oh god, please… no poop fetish. Please god, don’t show me animated shit”. Luckily, episode one was forgiving… but I can’t say the same for future episodes…

Favorite character, if any?

G: I loved Marisa Mamiya, the blonde with short hair. She always ensures her sexual pleasure is priority, and then her partner gets their rocks off. She’s the sexual equivalent of a tsundere, the best kind of anime trope if you ask me. Her scene with Sawatari is pretty hot. And when she hosts the other visitors to the mansion, I laughed at her complete dominance of her suitors.

LR: I liked the main guy Sawatari-kun. This poor dude takes everything in non-nonchalant stride (for the most part). He goes with the flow so to speak… ew. I also have to admit I liked Mamiya out of sheer hotness. I’m not wild about her… sexual interests…. but got damn, am I right?

The story here is pretty fucked up, but Starless doesn’t get into the details. What are your thoughts?

G: *sigh* I’ve mentioned this on our Patreon page, but Starless is a lot like European arthouse cinema I studied in college, particularly 120 Days of Sodom. Starless left me feeling sad, a bit queasy, and bereft of hope for mankind after watching all that hedonism. On a related note, anime does this weird thing where girls are reluctant to have sex, and then end up loving it in the end. If that’s part of the sexual foreplay, then that’s fine, but if I can’t tell the difference between bashfulness and rape… Let’s just say the setup in Starless is too close to sex slavery, which I can’t endorse.  

LR: I have to go with Goatius on this one. Hentai really likes to approach women in a way that’s hard to enjoy sometimes. Starless, among many other popular hentai titles, hinges on the idea that rape and dominance will, in the end, be something the female protagonists want. Although Sawatari-kun is as much a sex slave as the women, it is the female characters who are overall unwilling to participate. It’s unappealing to hear a woman constantly reject forceful sexual activity only in the end to be ok with it. I enjoy anime tiddy as much as the next girl, but I simply can’t endorse rape or sex slavery to any degree. 

Who would you recommend this to?

G: What an impossible question! If you like anal play and all the pleasure and risk that entails, you might be into Starless. If you like blowjobs so sloppy that semen pours out of people’s noses, you’ll love Starless. Tonally, the anime reminds me of the short story “The Most Dangerous Game,” Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, and even Kakegurui, as we’re bombarded by the notion that the super rich can get away with anything. The only disappointment is for audiences craving male-on-male action, which Marie Mamiya doesn’t even touch.

LR: You fetish folks out there! If you want a more intense version of the anime, there is a interactive choice based game. But, like I mentioned earlier, there is death and far more taboo fetishes in it then the OVA lets on. I’d say the OVA is a saint compared to the 9 terrible endings you can receive in game. In good conscious though, I’m just gonna say: NOPE.