I mentioned this series on passing in a previous post, and I think it's a good pick for a review since it has just two entries and they have some pretty significant differences.
Sennou Ring, or Brainwashing Ring, is a series by SOD, as most mind control JAV I'll be discussing in the future, really, both by a matter of taste - their directors tend to make the kind of mind control movies I enjoy -, and due to SOD being such a centralizing company in the current JAV market some accuse it of monopoly. But that discussion is neither here nor now.
And now that the core concept has been explained, let's get into the specifics of each film.
Sennou Ring ni Shinshokusareteiku Konkatsu Josei-tachi "Watashi-tachi, Unmei no Danna-sama Goshujin-sama ni Deaemashita"
The Marriage-seeking Women Corrupted by the Brainwashing Ring "We Met Our Predestined Husband Master"
Production Number/"JAV code": SDDE-671
Release date: 2022/04/21
Maker: SOD Create
Label: SENZ
Director: Dazai Chinpo (太宰珍歩)
Actresses: Yuuki Nono (結城のの), (Kobayakawa Reiko (小早川怜子), Misono Waka (美園和花)
Runtime: 125 minutes
The JAV opens with two office ladies working, played by Yuuki Nono (who I learned while working on this post has since retired from JAV to work as a regular talent, a jump not many can make. Good for her!) and Misono Waka. Like most JAV, the characters share their actresses' names, so unless I specify I'm talking about the actress, I'm referring to the character. Hopefully, that doesn't get confusing.
The focus of this first part is squarely on Nono, who is the main female lead, or rather, the main target of the soon-to-be-introduced male protagonist. While she works, she thinks about how from a young age she adopted a mentality that women can succeed in the workplace not just as well as men, but better, and with that mindset she applied to a first-rate company and has been outdoing her male co-workers for a while. She also admires her senpai, Waka, for also being a high-ranking woman in the company, but Waka doesn't share Nono's distaste for men and in fact, wants to marry. However, her standards are high (she wants someone of a higher social standing than her, nice, from a good family, etc), and from Nono's very biased and sapphic perspective, Waka is a goddess and there must be almost no men worthy of her, aside from a few CEOs out there. At the same time, she also thinks to herself that if she was born a man, she would definitely be able to make Waka happy. Of course, given the kind of porn this is, Waka is going to get knocked down a peg from her lofty ambitions and Nono is going to get a bit of a paradigm shift, so to say.
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| Nono (left) and Waka (right) |
Waka frequently participates in activities and services meant to introduce people who want to marry, a very East Asian thing as far as I know that sometimes raises some eyebrows in the West. I really don't find it too dissimilar from using dating apps to search for partners, just with another focus. Nono accompanies Waka in many of those, as is not uncommon to attend such things in group, even though she obviously has no intention of getting married. This is what leads them to Kobayakawa Reiko, who works at a company that offers this kind of matchmaking service, and she's able to quickly discern what kind of image they want to send out to potential suitors. However, while they were there, Waka and Nono caught the eye of Watanabe, a member of the board of directors of the matchmaking service's parent company, who forces Reiko's hand into arranging a meeting between him and the two women, much to her dismay. It goes as well as you'd expect, with the two women laughing off Watanabe's attempts at flirting and leaving after verbally humiliating him.
The old man returns the next day to Reiko's meeting room and says that she'll become a sacrifice for him to get those women back, taking a Brainwashing Ring out of his bag and clasping it around her neck. Reiko is first forced to stay awake but unable to move her body while Watanabe explores it with his hands and tongue. Reiko Kobayakawa is a great erotic actress and has lots of experience with mind-control movies, so she's able to sell the idea she can't move very well by combining stiff body language and very wide-eyed, slightly exaggerated expressions. When Watanabe switches gears to the Puppet Training mode, her expressionless act is also flawless, only showing reactions when it's appropriate, like when Watanabe turns the character's tongue into a second clitoris and stimulates it with his fingers and later penis. The shots of Reiko with her mouth agape and drool trailing off her tongue when he takes her from behind are just great.
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| Reiko's training scene is pretty lengthy and involves more than just these 4 positions, but these get the idea across |
Then it goes to the usual song and dance of, after playing/training Reiko enough, Watanabe reawakens her consciousness just to tell her that her brainwashing will be complete when he cums inside her, much to her despair. As you might have noticed, this is all standard fare for mind control JAV, and there's nothing so far that makes the use of the titular Brainwashing Ring special or any different from countless mind control app stories or even SOD's own Sennou Drill series. This first one does play things safer, but it gets more interesting when we get to Waka. So I'll fast forward to that.
When Watanabe arrives, we see Reiko perk up (we see throughout the movie that a mindless, expressionless state is the "idle" state of the brainwashed slaves when they're not in the presence of their master, and the monotone, robotic way she was acting is how they follow instructions while idling) and go back into her "onahole Reiko" personality established when her brainwashing was concluded in the previous scene, very polite towards Watanabe, very eager and always begging for rewards and attention, but also never questioning his dismissals or orders to wait, just a slave who knows her place and fulfills her master's wishes with a smile on her face. Beautiful thing to see.
And I said that things get more interesting because, while Waka is in puppet mode, Reiko helps Watanabe "puppeteer" her around. Reiko undresses her, Reiko makes her lower herself and get up as Watanabe demands, Reiko even moves Waka's head during the blowjob scene and helps her body keep the bouncing rhythm. Reiko knows exactly how her master likes it and she's helping ingrain that in the new girl's training.
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| There's something deliciously twisted about having brainwashed slaves help train the new targets that I just can't get enough of |
Waka's consciousness is still woken up for the final stretch when Watanabe cums inside her, and awakens her new slave personality as well. Also, during this scene we learn that Watanabe's main target is Nono, and Waka was just a stepping stone, but now that he got a go with her he decided she's a pretty good woman and worth keeping as a pet too. Good for her..?
Since I gushed about Kobayakawa Reiko's acting a lot, I'd be remiss to not mention Misono Waka also does a really good job, particularly in the mindless scenes. And if this sounds like faint praise ("oh, she's good at playing an empty doll, such good acting lmao"), it's not. It's hard to actually get the mindless, "lights are on but no one's home" act well, as anyone who watched enough mind-control porn (or even mind-control scenes in regular stuff) can easily attest. So props to her. Her acting falters in that her character's slave personality lacks the maniacal devotion Reiko conveys (Waka's range seems more limited), despite being supposed to. So when they're together on the same scene trying to butter the main lead up, the gap between them becomes really apparent.
There's also a blowjob and paizuri scene in this part as Waka extracts the "sauce" to season her lunch with. She later erotically eats the cum-covered sausages in front of Nono. This JAV has these little moments I just find hilarious.
Obviously disturbed by what happened, Nono follows Waka and finds she and Reiko servicing Watanabe wearing the clothes on the movie's cover. She tries to call the police but Reiko pins her from the back while Waka snaps the Brainwashing Ring around her neck.
After rewarding his two slaves for their good work with a little kissy, it's time to work on Nono. There's the standard "your tongue is as sensitive as your clitolis" scene all the girls got, but then we get something more unique. Using the phone app that controls the collars, Watanabe transfers Nono's mind to Reiko's body so she can watch him play around with her body. Kobayakawa gets to display some more of her range by mimicking Yuuki Nono's mannerisms and voice tone, it's pretty fun. Pretty interesting scene, but also sort of goes nowhere after this, as the training resumes as normal. Keep a pin on that for the next part of the review.
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| It's still a good training scene, with both Reiko and Waka assisting Watanabe |
Brainwashing Ring does a really good job of building up Nono's character, so it's incredibly satisfying to see her finally fall and become a lowly slave along with the other two. The closing scenes of the movie aren't anything out of the ordinary - four-way kisses, triple blowjobs, body worship and "one girl gets fucked, the others kiss and lick the guy's nipples" stuff, with every girl getting her turn but the focus being Nono, of course. So while not my favorite scene of the movie by a long shot, the sense of satisfaction it left me with helps elevate it. Lots of mind control JAV like to throw shitty twists right at the end and while that doesn't sour the experience, it can be eye-rolling. So it's nice watching one just wind down with a victory lap after the main target has finally been conquered.
If I have to point out a fault in the last third of the movie is that Nono's crush on Waka should have been brought to the forefront at some point to really twist the knife. I feel more could have been done to both drive in her despair and to further accentuate her change once she gives in. There is an attempt at that, as Nono keeps crying out for Waka when she's conscious in her training scene (and Waka is the one to collar her and later, at Watanabe's request, the one to use the collar's control to briefly give Nono's her mind back before it's gone forever), but that just reinforces my opinion that they could have done more with it. Still, in the greater scope of the picture, it doesn't really matter, as the focus is on Nono's fall.
All in all a really good mind-control movie that I appreciate even more after a rewatch. I'll say right now this is the better of the two, both in quality of content and, at least in my opinion, choice of actresses. If you're looking for a recommendation of a good mind-control JAV to watch, this is it.
Pros:
- Tight script with setups and payoffs, the girls' respective training scenes feel consistent without feeling repetitive.
- Good sex scenes all around, but especially good group sex scenes
- Good acting from all 3 actresses helps sell all stages of the brainwashing proccess
- Excellent use of costume, makeup and acting to make sure the characters give a different impression before and after their brainwashing
Cons:
- Lighting and camera placement can make some of said excellent costumes harder to appreciate before they come off. The "corrupted OL" looks in particular suffer from this. And yes this is horribly biased.
- They could have done more with Nono's feelings for Waka
- The step-by-step of the training is pretty standard SOD mind control fare, and that can be a turn off to some.
Score: 9/10
Sennou Ring no Shinshokusareteiku Uta no Onee-san-tachi! Saa. Minna. Onee-san-tachi to Issho ni Ochinpo no Taisou no Jikan Dayo~
The Young TV Singers Corrupted by the Brainwashing Ring! Come On, Everyone. It's Time for a Dick Workout with Big Sis~
Production Number/"JAV code": SDDE-699
Release date: 2023/06/27
Maker: SOD Create
Label: SENZ
Director: Dazai Chinpo (太宰珍歩)
Actresses: Miyazawa Chiharu (宮沢ちはる), Yuuki Rino (結城りの), Sunohara Miki (春原未来)
Runtime: 127 minutes
My habit of coming up with an impromptu translation for the titles of things I review really came back to bite me with this one. The "Uta no Onee-san" in the title refers to a type of children's entertainer who sings and dances on TV shows, usually for children at home to sing and dance along. Had no idea how to convey that idea because it's something self-evident but also doesn't have a name in English as far as I can tell. Even the "workout" (taisou) part of the title is a common title for songs this kind of professional sings. The NHK has had an official Uta no Onee-san (and a Uta no Onii-san as well) for their Sunday programming for decades, with new ones debuting and graduating every few years.
Two of the targets this time around are Uta no Onee-sans, Chiharu and Rino. While Sunohara Miki's character is a newscaster working for the same network. The protagonist is Takeda, a young backstage assistant who is terrible at his job, getting chewed up by the producer all the time. Miki shows him some sympathy, but Rino is really dismissive of him, saying that he's selfish and lazy, and doesn't deserve that kindness.
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| Chiharu (left), Miki (center) and Rino (right) |
After another day of fucking up at his job, Takeda complains out loud that it would be convenient to have some tool that just made others act the way he wants, so he wouldn't have room for error, without knowing his laptop's mic was picking it up and ends up searching "convenient tool to make others act the way I want", which leads him to a page selling the Brainwashing ring. In the first movie we never learn how its protagonist got the Rings, but he's a CEO, the rich have their ways, here we learn it's apparently sold.
Takeda tests it on Chiharu first, getting into her dressing room by saying he needed to pass some instructions from the producer. Of course, the instruction is that she has to wear the collar for the next performance.
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| Even if it's obviously just water, the idea alone is just so hot. |
Later, she wakes up at home, thinking it was all a weird dream, but not only she has the collar on but she also got some makeup and a racy dress on her desk, none of which she remembers being there. Looking at the small mirror set up on the desk, she notices the collar and tries taking it away, which triggers a response that not only puts her in doll mode, but makes her pussy start gushing out love juices nonstop while her brainwashing process accelerates and a sluttier personality takes over, putting on the "cute" dress and makeup before going to work.
This is the key difference between the two entries. While the first had the body getting trained while their minds were erased and then replaced by a slave personality, in this second one the Rings program a second personality, presumably tailored to the owner's taste (since the ring is ultimately controlled by the phone app). From this point on a lot of the training scenes will have an undercurrent of finding a way to merge the slave personality and the main personality without causing the target's mind to break. There is however an issue with how the movie wraps up this plot point that I will discuss later.
Chiharu is going to have a guest appearance on Miki's news program, so while her look turns some heads, they assume she's nervous and trying to change her image for something more mature. Of course, while they're getting ready Takeda barges in and takes the opportunity to gloat to Miki (after Chiharu already tricked her into wearing the collar, but before activating it), saying that he's calling her by her given name (something she gets upset about) because she'll soon be his slave, and there's nothing wrong with a master calling a slave by name. Miki being the only one of the trio who showed some degree of genuine kindness for Takeda makes his power tripping all the more satisfying in my opinion, as I believe no good deed should go unpunished in a mind control story, and soon enough, she's handing him her underwear and listening to his instructions: every time Chiharu says the word "smile" during the broadcast, she'll feel like there's a cock entering her pussy (in actuality, she squirts every time she hears the word, but that's what Takeda says). The script happens to have several instances of that word because it's playing up Chiharu's Uta no Onee-san persona.
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| Lots of "water squirting" effects in this JAV. I know some people are bothered by it but personality I don't mind it. |
It's a bit weird no one comments on Miki cumming her brains out and soiling the floor during shooting, and while it's silly to nitpick a porn movie like this, it's also the kind of thing the previous entry would have thought through more...
Anyway, per Takeda's instruction, Miki returns at night and he questions her about who she is. Turns out her original personality has been shattered by the orgasms and only the "human onahole" persona remains. Takeda doesn't mind and makes her dress the part, states her purpose of "brainwashing Rino and making sure Chiharu's personality merger goes well", and calls Rino for a supposed meeting. She wastes no time collaring her.
After teasing Rino a bit while her body is unable to move (including Miki very enthusiastically pressing a button on the controller app that makes Rino cum until Takeda stops her before "she becomes broken like you"). Takeda also refers to them as "Onahole model 1" and "Onahole model 2" instead of their proper names, further dehumanizing them.
Takeda has both slaves blow him (with Rino still fully aware and disgusted), and then things get more interesting with him using the Rings to link Miki and Rino's sensations. This is why I asked to put a pin on the mind transfer scene in the first movie. Here, while it's not a full consciousness transfer, the two are connected in a way Rino feels the same pleasure Miki feels, but is unable to cum like she does. And over the course of the scene, Takeda multiplies the intensity of the pleasure Rino feels, first by three times, then by thirty, and by the end of the scene she's feeling 300 times the pleasure Miki feels getting railed and her scornful remarks that he can't make a woman's mind yield with sexual pleasure alone have turned into desperate begging for being allowed to cum.
After Takeda allows, Miki, or rather, Onahole 1 instructs Onahole 2 about her true nature as a tool of her master's pleasure, and from there on Rino embraces her new role, riding Takeda's dick of her own volition while Miki masturbates as a reward.
Miki keeps furthering Chiharu's brainwashing by talking about how happy Rino is, and that letting go of their sense of self and following their master's orders is what brings true happiness and fulfillment to human onaholes like them. This is when Takeda enters and lies on the floor, Chiharu mounting him as instructed to complete her transformation into an onahole.
Rino steals the show in this scene tho. The almost animalistic way she works that dildo really gives the impression that she really became a madwoman who completely lost her sense of self and only exists for pleasure. Looking back as I write I wonder if it was uncomfortable for the actress, but you would never think that during the scene itself because she looks like she's loving every second of it. Chiharu's timid bouncing and more restrained moans pale in comparison.
There are some other positions and some other orders Takeda gives to the two slaves who are stuck masturbating while he fucks Chiharu, and Chiharu having been gradually brainwashed throughout the movie doesn't have a "break" moment, she's a slave from the start, barring some hesitation when first inserting his dick.
After the sex scene we cut to some time later, the three girls now have womb tattoos representing their numbers, and they're in the dressing room putting on sexy lingerie and calling friends and family to tell them to make sure to watch that day's program. This is an aspect I like, having the enslaved women ruin their own lives. The broadcast is "a sex-education class to make males happy" where they ride on dildos glued on the ground and then sing a silly song about being sex slaves.
Then it comes the problem I have with this JAV. I find the last half an hour really weird and disconnected from everything else. The whole movie was about Takeda enslaving the girls. There was an undercurrent about how insatiable they were, always begging for sex, especially Miki (given she is "defective" as a human onahole), but the point was to experiment with various ways to merge their personalities so they're his perfect slaves. Paradise, as he puts it after finishing up Chiharu. Then in a very sudden turn, the girls are out-of-control sex maniacs, still very single-mindedly obsessed with him, but not only do they fuck him disregarding any orders to stop, they are now in a dominant position. They laugh, they do some more demeaning teasing such as caressing his nipples with their feet, they drag him around when he tries to crawl away and even mock him (with Chiharu, who was supposed to be the perfectly crafted onahole, saying that he moans like a girl).
I find this turn of events baffling because it comes out of nowhere and flies in the face of the rest of the movie. It isn't unheard of for SOD mind control stuff to have some kind of turn-of-the-tables scenario, but they're usually built up or foreshadowed properly.
It is a good scene, don't get me wrong, it just... Confounds me. Domination loss isn't a trope I particularly like to begin with and when it's done like that, it can sour the whole movie for me. It isn't that bad in this case because it was always apparent that Tanaka was playing with a power he never fully understood - to the point he broke his first subject, but still, there was not anything establishing he also failed the other two. I mean, sure, Rino did not act any different from Miki so I guess one could infer that from her behavior...? But the script should have pointed so. Still not sure how they flipped from absolute obedience taking precedence over their boundless horniness to the other way around though, or how Chiharu's more gradual process also ended in failure. And it is confirmed this is what happened, during the scene when Tanaka gets a word out Rino answers "It was you who made us like this, right?".
One aspect I do like is that it builds on the aforementioned undercurrent of the human onaholes being completely sex-crazed and unsatiable. While I said that they have a dominant position in this last sex scene, they lick, suck, and rub themselves on any part of Tanaka they can get a hold of, much of the actions are still submissive in nature, and it can be pretty hot to watch if the sudden flip didn't ruin the whole mood for you. I'm ambivalent in that I do like the scenes, I just wish the context they were happening wasn't so out of left field.
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| The mix of dominant and submissive actions gives a Yandere feel to this scene that I personally appreciate, as someone who likes that archetype. I just don't know what possessed the director to think this movie had a place for that. |
The end is also bleak as it implies that the girls will fuck Takeda to death. Good. If this kind of domination loss is to happen at all, I do prefer when it's due to the user fucking up so bad he will now pay with his life. Fuck around and find out and all that. Plus death by snu snu is always a good way to go.
So that's the second Sennou Ring, a more varied and unique movie than the first, definitely stands out more in SOD's mind control catalog, but those words are both praise and criticism. I like Rino's training and the idea of linking the slaves' sensations, I like orgasm denial, and I like how insane the girls get, but I do not like how the turn-the-tables aspect was handled at all, and for all the talk about how Takeda was going to try a different approach for each girl, that falls completely flat, just disappears from the movie entirely like the writer forgot it was a thing set up in the first third.
I end up valuing cohesion and focus over variety for the sake of variety, which is why I said earlier that the first movie is better for me. But I think this one has much stronger sex scenes, particularly due to the actresses' ability to sell the enthusiasm and primal lust aspects. That's especially true for Yuuki Rino, but the other two do a great job too, especially in the last scene.
The sex scenes clicking with me, alongside the interesting usage of mind control in the first 2/3rds of the movie earns this JAV an above-average score from me despite its last half an hour really annoying me.
Pros:
- Variety in mind control scenarios
- Very primal and intense sex scenes
- Rino's corruption is very satisfying to watch
Mixed:
- The nature of the twist itself.
Cons:
- The plot has glaring holes and things that don't add up
- Earlier plot threads lead to nothing
- The handling of the twist is not to my liking and leads to the two problems above.
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