EROTIBOT

What to you give a girl who has everything on her 18th birthday? Why an android servant of course! It is this very premise that starts Naoyuki Tomomatsu’s latest insane offering.

The teenager in question, Tamayo (Mahiro Aine), is the soon to be heiress to her grandfathers huge fortune. As such, she has been tended to by these droids within the precincts of her luxurious mansion. She is given only the best nutrition and tended to hand and foot. She is even treated to a little bionic styled cunnilingus when she comes of age!! But Tamyao is a simple girl with a penchant for badminton and who dreams of trying ‘cup noodles’ from the local convenience store.

Although she already has two far superior models, (one stronger and one more skilled) once the third droid and birthday gift, Sukekiyo, emerges from the flurry of polystyrene packaging, it becomes apparent that he has a very special quality which the others notably lack – the power of sentiment and feelings. He soon starts to covertly indulge in romantic fantasies about his young mistress..

When her granddad has a stroke, his impending demise throws up a complication regarding his intended will. A disgruntled relative Tsukiyo (Maria Ozawa) is not happy with missing out of the inheritance and hires a private dick (the Twilight Detective!) to dig the dirt on the heiress. He discovers that Tamayo is actually the bastard-ette of a lowly servant that used to work at the Nekogami family home.

Clad in a red leather Basque and brandishing a samurai sword, Tsukiyo and side kick Azumi set about their mission of destroying the young heiress by taking out her robotic guardians first. But with the bizarre humanoid romance starting to blossom between Tamayo and Sukekiyo will the heinous plan be realized – or will love prevail???

EROTIBOT is Japanese cyber-sploitation at its finest!! At times sexy, at times violent, the movie is a wonderfully hilarious concoction of weird. I was initially a little worried when the opening scene started proceedings. An android was dismantled violently enough, but does white ‘blood’ spraying about the screen count as gore?? I am not so sure. Tomomatsu didn’t hold back with his previous romp, ‘Vampire Girl Versus Frankenstein Girl’, so I curiously wondered if this was a new direction he was taking.

The real gore, when it does finally come, is worth the wait however. Two hideously violent comic book deaths finally grace the film with lashings of crimson.

That said, EROTIBOT, as the title suggests, is not a splatter movie. It is a pretty ridiculous concept that is executed in an undeniably entertaining manner. Ok so the humor contains more then a whiff of juvenility throughout, but what IS intriguing are the two villainous characters. You see, both are played by Japanese AV idols. (Adult Video Idols or PORNSTARS if you prefer!). It seems the Japanese film industry is not as prudish as their Western counterparts and eyebrows are rarely raised if an actress flits between adult and mainstream projects.

The two in question here are Maria Ozawa and Asumi who have clocked up a couple of hundred adult features between them. Both enhance the movie with their violent yet titillating exploits within movie. Anyone with a passing interest in these two beauties may be interested to know that the disc’s ‘Extras’ chapter contains extensive separate interviews with both ladies.

Overall EROTIBOT is a slice of brainless fun that had me yearning for a Pot Noodle and a box of Kleenex – only because I am a messy eater of course…!

Review by Marc Lissenburg