[Review] [Manga] Akuochi Sentouin Series

"Transforming into Combatant" (Sentouin-ka) is a rather niche subsect of mind control and transformation fetishes (that I already covered on a Hentai Glossary post, by the way) around the concept of an evil organization turning innocent people into skintight suit-clad combatants like those in Sentai and Showa Kamen Rider. If you're unfamiliar with these series, think the faceless mooks the Power Rangers fight before taking on the monster of the week. There have been a few anime recently with rank-and-file combatants as protagonists as well, though they usually go with combatants as employees or born into the organization angle, as regular anime wants the protagonists to be sympathetic even if nominally evil.

It's not hard to find standalone pictures or short CG sets of female characters being turned into combatants, but full series dedicated to that are pretty rare. So when I found one that scratched the itch just right, I had to make a post about it.  

A few days ago I was looking for some stuff to read on DLSite when I came across a circle named くれーぷくれーぷ (Crepe Crepe, I guess) that specializes in tokusatsu heroine sex and corruption and happens to have an original series based around the whole combatant concept. Each chapter has its own title, but in the descriptions, they refer to the first part of the series (comprised of 8 main chapters and a few extras like an audio chapter and a two-chapter Futanari spin-off which I have not read yet and will not be covered here) as NTR Sentouin Series (NTR戦闘員シリーズ) and the second part (which has just two chapters as of now) Akuochi Sentouin Series (悪堕ち戦闘員シリーズ), which is the name DLSite is using for the page with the whole body of work, so that's what I'm going with as well.

Series Overview

The 10 main installments of the series so far

The plot is simple: a secret society called Neo Dark suddenly appeared and started trying to conquer the world with their monsters. In response, an elite team of warriors meant to fight against them was assembled by the government, the Powered Men. With the arrival of the Powered Men the war was brought to a stalemate but human society is at a disadvantage - a grave recession set in, and every attack by Neo Dark deals a blow to the morale of the population and the reputation of the Powered Men, while Neo Dark has a seemingly never-ending supply of soldiers.

Well, we know where these soldiers come from, or I wouldn't be writing this. The number of disappearances since Neo Dark showed up is steadily increasing, the reason being that they're kidnapping civilians and brainwashing them to serve as combatants. Not all combatants are kidnapped - some people join the society of their own volition, either because of their own desires or because the circumstances forced them to, like working to pay a debt. Regardless, they get brainwashed, deindividuated, don a mask and receive a serial number as their new name, becoming a part of Neo Dark's fighting forces. The series chiefly focuses on the training and brainwashing phase of women captured to become female combatants, though there are chapters with different premises dotted thorough.

And Neo Dark Combatants aren't just fodder to fight the heroes and, in the case of the females, sex relief tools for the male members. They're also in charge of proactively "scouting" new members for their ranks. Which leads to characters we've seen being corrupted returning to lure their loved ones into traps, or even just showing to train the victim of the chapter as one of Neo Dark's nameless mooks, but you the reader knows who she is (or rather, once was). This sense of interconnectivity between chapters that otherwise stand alone is something I really like. Doesn't get too heavy on continuity while still having ongoing plotlines that get brought to the forefront when it's appropriate. There's also a good sense of time progression. Over one year goes by between chapters, and the situation of the war gradually changes as a result of Neo Dark's actions (as some of the brainwashing victims aren't random people but chosen to deal blows to Powered Men's support line),

Most of the series (as in, the first part) has a focus on NTR, with pretty much all girls having a boyfriend, brother or someone dear that she gets taken away from. How hard the chapter goes into the NTR tropes varies, for a series about turning women into faceless mooks there's a surprising amount of variety here. Creator くれーぷる (Kureepuru. Creeple? Creople, as the sadpanda tag romanizes it? Fuck if I know) talks about how the second part drops the NTR from the title to not be bound to just that kind of heroine.

Art and Sexual Content

The art is serviceable for what it's trying to do and for its price. All these chapters were selling for 5 dollars at full price, and there was a 50% sale so I paid less than 3 bucks for most of them. I feel like it is a fair price and that the artist is aware of the shortcomings of their artwork. Despite through look of the linework, I think it manages to convey the softness of the bodies and from time to time the artist pulls off some great facial expressions. There's also more variety of sex positions and angles than I expected; it's not uncommon for artists doing this fetish to reuse tons of stuff (since the base suit is always the same), and that does not happen here, at least I didn't notice. The girls look distinct from one another and while there isn't much in the way of body diversity (sorry flat chads, this one is not for you), I'm all for big tits and thick thighs so it didn't bother me.

As for what kind of content is here, it's brainwashing via pleasure training, so it's more mindbreak than what might come to mind when I say brainwashing, really. This isn't uncommon in Combatant brainwashing, as often it's the suit or the fluids from the other combatants that have a corruptive element triggered by sex (in this case, semen from Combatants has a strong aphrodisiac). Some chapters do get more creative with their training approaches but for the most part, it's sex until the girl breaks. And by sex I mean oral, vaginal and anal, usually with excessive amounts of semen pouring in and out of each hole. It's to the point it may look somewhat silly with how much the girls are writhing around and having their tits pulled by the nipple, shooting semen out of their asses like a pressure hose, that kind of thing. In the more Netori-focused chapters, the girl usually severs ties with her former life by getting gleefully getting fucked in front of her husband.

I'm going to go into a bit more detail in the spoiler section, going into my thoughts on each chapter while giving a brief summary on their events as I go. If you don't care to read about it, feel free to skip to the Conclusion section.

Sex acts are hardcore and varied and sometimes cross into other fetishes like stomach deformation and breast expansion.

Spoiler Talk

Hitozuma Sentouin Atsuko (Married Woman Combatant Atsuko)

This chapter is pretty different from the others and honestly not great. Atsuko started working for Neo Dark to pay her husband's debts (his company went under due to the economic crisis brought about by the war). It's presented like it was too good an opportunity to pass up, and the chapter opens talking about how society was becoming corrupt and people were being driven to commit crimes to survive, so it fits. She's doing this behind the husband's back of course. This chapter also introduces Geroron, a frog monster and one of Neo Dark's executives and recurring character in these first few chapters. Now, in this chapter the Combatants aren't allowed to speak, meaning Atsuko only grunts (and screams the "Ooooo" that is their mindless warcry) for most of the chapter, but we are treated to her thoughts. Unlike the rest of the series that has more dynamic sex scenes with uniquely drawn pages, this one uses a base for each scene like a CG set. What should be the highest point, the scene at the end where Atsuko is fucked by Geroron in her neighborhood in front of her husband, after months of training, falls a bit flat as after her final break, we don't see her thoughts. The other chapters definitely made the right call by making the combatants able to speak. Atsuko is a really hot short haired milf, but she really shines as a returning character in future chapters, as we'll soon see.

Kareshi-mochi JK Sentouin Mitsuha (High School Girl with a Boyfriend Combatant Mitsuha)

Here's where things get started for real. Mitsuha is a member of the karate club who wants to take the exam to join the Powered Men. She has a boyfriend named Ryo, and while they aren't seeing much of each other due to her training, they promise to have a special day in a week, their anniversary. The reason Mitsuha is so motivated is that her brother's wife was kidnapped by Neo Dark, and she wants to rescue her. That wife is Atsuko. That same Atsuko just shows up before Mitsuha, and using herself as a distraction has other Combatants capture Mitsuha. She's taken to Geroron to be brainwashed. She coming to her senses only to learn Atsuko sold her for the reward of sucking Geroron's dick is my favorite moment in the chapter. Atsuko is pretty hot here teasing Mitsuha and telling her, when she's on the floor cumming miserably, that she has the face of a Neo Dark Combatant. We don't see Mitsuha's fall, instead, she reveals herself as a fully brainwashed combatant on her anniversary with Ryo. In an interesting twist, while Mitsuha breaks up with Ryo and fucks a male combatant right in front of him, Atsuko offers the boy a chance to join Neo Dark.

The beginning of the series doesn't look very good but can still manage to be hot through the situations and timing.

Hakoiri Reijo Sentouin Ayame ~Nerawareta Hero no Konyakusha~ (Sheltered Lady Combatant Ayame ~The Targeted Hero's Fiancée)

This chapter shows a bit more of Powered Men's inner workings. The organization needs a lot of funding to keep operating, and a lot of that comes from Tough Support Company. In order to gain the upper hand in the war, Neo Dark decides to break that pillar of support the heroes have by brainwashing Ayame, the daughter of Tough Support's CEO, so she can leak information from inside and help them destroy the company. Ayame is also engaged to Kenji, or Powered Blue, a member of the hero team. Ayame's training is very different from the previous two and I like it. She has special vibrators attached to her nipples, pussy and ass that keep her edging forever, while a monitor and speakers keep blasting propaganda about how great Neo Dark is. Straightforward brainwashing. While she's in the room the only hydration and food she can have is piss and cum from Neo Dark combatants. This is the chapter that introduces the aphrodisiac properties of Neo Dark cum. The sheltered princess who had never even masturbated before and believed her fiancee would come to rescue her loses her grip on her sanity and ends up drinking fluids with gusto and begging for sex, breaking completely when she finally gets to cum. We cut back to the heroes sometime later, receiving the news that Tough Support has gone under, and a video has surfaced of the recently missing Ayame dressed in a combatant suit saying that she was the one leaking information before filling her mask with cum and putting it on, telling Blue it's his fault she became a semen-loving sow.

Netorare Sentouin Butai ~4-nin no Mesu ga Netorare Sennou Choukyou~ (Netorare Combatant Squad ~4 Females are Stolen, Trained and Brainwashed~)

This chapter starts with Geroron dying. Not that it matters, as we're introduced to Don Darkness, the leader of Neo Dark, as he fucks the heroines of the previous 3 chapters. Powered Men got their sixth ranger, so Neo Dark needs to increase their numbers. So, the combatants are sent to brainwash more women. It reads like 4 mini-chapters showing the titular 4 females going from their daily lives to brainwashing combatants in 5 pages each. What's fun here is that 3 of them are trained by the previous heroines. There's a student council president, a "yankee" style delinquent, an idol (who, instead of a significant other, betrays her fans), and a mesugaki who, funnily enough, is "corrected" by the big boss Don Darkness himself, who goes into a wordy rant about the character archetype. Fun little chapter that just serves to introduce a bunch of girls at once, and may be hit or miss in how rushed it is.

Hitozuma Sentouin Mika (Married Woman Combatant Mika)

The target this time is Mitsuha's mother (and Atsuko's sister-in-law), tying the loose ends with that family. After Mitsuha's disappearance, Mika basically keeps her husband going, giving him hope they'll be reunited. Unbeknownst to him, she struck a deal with Ryo, now a Combatant, who she believes knows where Mitsuha is, that he'll free her if Mitsuha lets him fuck her once. Of course, it's all a ruse and after Ryo is done Atsuko shows up to gloat about being the one who kidnapped both Mitsuha and Ryo in the first place, making fun of Mika for falling for such an obvious trap. She gives Ryo a drug that enlarges his dick and the two continue Mika's pleasure training, with Ryo taking the pussy and Atsuko using a toy on milf's ass (this is a fairly anal-focused chapter, though all holes get due attention). To further shatter her hopes, Mitsuha also pops up during the training to make fun of her. After her fall, mother and daughter call the husband pretending Mitsuha has been found, only for them to reveal their true selves and have a "farewell gangbang" with male combatants in front of him, ejecting cum from her asses on his face in the end.  This is one of my favorite chapters not only because I really like mother-and-daughter stuff, but also because of how neat it is to see it all come together from previous chapters. And Atsuko is just fucking hot as a villainess, too. Every chapter with her in a big role gets a few extra points for me.

Atsuko and Mitsuha wait for the right moment to push Mika past the point of no return.

Fujinkeikan Sentouin Ryouko ~Aru Oushu-hin no DVD no Kiroku~ (Policewoman Combatant Ryouko ~Records from a Certain Confiscated DVD~)

The author commented in the afterword that since the last chapter was heavy on continuity, they wanted to make a standalone one. As a result, I really don't have much to comment on, as it also isn't much to my taste. The chapter is narrated by an unseen cop protagonist who admires his senpai Ryouko, a young but fierce policewoman who impresses even her superiors with her skills and courage. However, she vanished when investigating Neo Dark. Sometime later, the protagonist confiscated a DVD from a Neo Dark... Colaborator..? Location..? I don't remember, honestly. Anyway, it had Ryoko's name on it, so he took it with him instead of leaving it with evidence. It's a video record of her training. Ryouko is turned into a meat toilet combatant, responsible not only for sex relief duty like all other female combatants but also specifically for drinking semen. This chapter is oral-focused and while there are some good blowjob scenes and there's a nice juxtaposition between Ryouko talking about her duty as a Policewoman and Combatant Nº6222 talking about her duty as a toilet, it's missing something to me. It's too short, there's not enough going on in her training, and there's too much of the cuck's perspective for my taste, leaning more toward the Netorare side of things than other chapters.

Hero ni Akogareru Shounen ga Aku no Sentouin no Onee-san ni Kawaigararete Akuochi Sennou (A Boy who Admires Heroes is Pampered by Evil Older Women Combatants and Brainwashed to Evil)

And now for something completely different. This is a straight shota chapter. The brainwashing victim is a young boy part of the Powered Squad, a group that supports the Powered men. Sidekicks, I assume (it's not elaborated much). He's been captured so he can be brainwashed and then corrupt the rest of his squad. What's special about this chapter is that the Combatants in charge of his brainwashing are Atsuko and Mika, and every other female combatant introduced so far (including the 4 from the anthology chapter) make an appearance tormenting the little boy with all kinds of teasing (he is not allowed to cum, or to have vaginal intercourse at all), until he's driven mad. It's just so twisted, I love it. There's only so many times I can say I like seeing the previous victims being evil, but this chapter is all about that. Seeing Mika in particular is nice as she retains her motherly personality only it's completely twisted by her newfound loyalty to Neo Dark, and she weaponized it against the young boy.

Hitozuma Heroine Sentouin Momoko - Seigi no Heroine Haiboku Sennou Akuochi NTR (Married Heroine Combatant Momoko - Heroine of Justice is Defeated, Brainwashed, Corrupted and Stolen)

This is the final installment of the "NTR Sentouin" part of the series. And as such, it's the final confrontation with the Powered Men. They have been dealt blow after blow during the series - losing their funding, losing their support squad, more and more people getting brainwashed because they fail. The entry blurb of each chapter which talks about the war between the two groups has slowly but steadily gone from describing a stalemate to a losing scenario for the heroes. Despite that, or rather, because they need hope in a moment like that, Powered Red has married Momoko, Powered Pink. Their happiness is soon shattered as the Powered Men, now reduced to just the two of them, are defeated by Don Darkness and Atsuko. This is one of the best chapters and I'd get caught up describing most of it if I allowed myself to. Basically, Don Darkness mindbreaks Momoko right in front of Red, and even at the start when she's talking about how their love will keep her strong Darkness cuts in to laugh and tell Red "by the way before you woke up she already came twice". It's utterly hopeless all the way through. Momoko makes some great faces as she struggles and loses. Heroine corruption is my jam and this chapter hits all the right notes. There are a few things that make this chapter good besides the sex stuff, like the way Momoko reflects her sin of trying to be happy even as the Powered Men failed their mission is being met with the punishment of being brainwashed by combatants/people they failed, and as a whole the conflict wraps up well, with Momoko being turned into Combatant N°10.000 and torturing Red herself weeks after their defeat.

The moment she realized no amount of love was going to save her.

In a random-ass sequel hook, by analyzing the technology of the Powered Men, Neo Dark cracks the secret to interdimensional travel. This world is already theirs. On to the next one.

Onna Sentouin Seishori Ninmu Kiroku (Female Combatant Sex Relief Duty Diary)

This is just an extra chapter taking place after the end of the series showing Atsuko, Ryouko, Sayaka (the delinquent from the 4 girls chapter) and Momoko performing their sexual relief duties for the male combatants. In other words, this chapter is just sex scenes. Nothing wrong with that. The Atsuko and Sayaka scenes are kind of whatever, Ryouko has one hilarious moment where she gets "all the holes in her face cummed inside", meaning not only her mouth but her nostrils and ear holes, but it's Sayaka who steals the show here as her section features her begging for forgiveness for what she did as a heroine while she gets spanked, stomped, kicked, all the while having orgasms from the rough treatment. Reading it right after the chapter where she's corrupted was a nice treat.

Hitozuma Sentouin Yukie (Married Woman Combatant Yukie)

So after deliberately removing the constraints of having to do NTR stories, the mangaka goes and does... A NTR story. Granted, it's again framed differently from the previous ones, but still, it's funny. And honestly, this might be the best execution of the NTR song and dance in the series. After honing the craft during the previous series they open the sequel with the definitive version.

This one takes place in a new world, Neo Dark is unknown and is being treated as a terrorist group. It's also funny that the "other world" hyped at the end of the previous series is another normal world, feeling almost like a reset button, and the author does say they considered more fantasy settings but felt more comfortable returning to basics. And they return to basics with style. First, we see glimpses of Atsuko now in a new white and black Combatant uniform leading Combatants around. Later we'll know that the previous series girls are now "Captain Class" Combatants.

This chapter features Yukie, a mother of two who has been having strange dreams of being dressed like these Neo Dark terrorists and performing depraved sexual acts with a man from her husband's company. Of course, it turns out the man is an undercover Neo Dark Combatant, having joined the organization out of jealousy towards her husband for "stealing" his career. He's been brainwashing Yukie for a few weeks and this chapter is the final session, with her trying to fight the training her body remembers. Eventually, her memories come back and she becomes his eager slut while Yukie's old self struggles and disappears the more sex they have. At her breaking point, she apologizes for her husband's foolish behavior while getting fucked in dogeza. Afterwards Neo Dark attacks her husband's company and "Combatant C0043" does the old routine of cutting ties with her old life by fucking in front of him.

Battle Heroine Sentouin Kanon (Battle Heroine Combatant Kanon)

The most recent chapter, and easily the most unique. Just like in the previous world, an organization was formed to stop Neo Dark. Funded by the UN, its name is Exion and instead of being Sentai-like the two girls shown have technological battle suits called Accelerators. The two members we meet, Accelerator Sword and Accelerator Buster, are Yukie's daughters Shizuki and Kanon. They believe Yukie to be dead (the father told them Neo Dark killed her in front of him, instead of what really happened) and are fighting to avenge her. During a fight with Mika, she reveals that Yukie is alive, which Shizuki doesn't believe but Kanon is visibly shaken by. As Shizuki attacks Yukie, falling for her bait, Mitsuha kidnaps Kanon. This chapter is Kanon's brainwashing process, and it initially doesn't go well because, unlike those idiots at Powered Men, Exion actually trained their heroes to resist their techniques. Even after making her orgasm a lot and pumping her with aphrodisiacs, Kanon is still sane. 

Ever since Momoko's chapter, the series has started showing more action scenes as well, with the main goal of showing the heroines in pain.

Mitsuha however isn't impressed and injects her with a drug meant for creating Milking Slaves (whose milk is used for feeding Combatants and gives the aphrodisiac effect to their fluids), which makes her flat tits become comically huge, and start shooting milk with pleasure "comparable to male ejaculation". It's really fun how since she's still in her Accelerator suit, the milk shoots out but just stretches the suit instead of pouring out. Makes for a really interesting scene, if you're into more extreme body modification. Anyway, the milking torture works but of course what really breaks Kanon is seeing her mom, who drives the girl insane with a warm smile simple phrase: "Welcome to Neo Dark". Kanon's deranged rant about how everything she did was for nothing while shooting milk from her tits is great. She covers the whole glass wall of her cell in milk to the point the interior can't be seen anymore while Yukie stands and watches, proud of what her daughter has become. Another good moment is the smash cut between Shizuki saying to her superiors (who consider Kanon dead) that she believes her sister will never yield to brainwashing and "Combatant C1066" doing Neo Dark's salute. The chapter ends with Shizuki determined to save her sister and mother while the two slaves are hooked to milking machines.

After this she gets a full cow costume and when she breaks she even starts mooing, but there's only so much I can cover

Conclusion

This isn't the best drawn and definitely not the best-executed mindbreak/corruption series out there. But damn if it didn't find a special place in my mind. It's a consistent yet not stale series of a fetish I struggle to find good content for, and that already makes it precious to me. Despite reading the whole thing in basically one sitting, I very rarely felt it was retreading old material, which is again a big plus as it's very common for mangaka doing a specific fetish to just recycle the same formula down to the sex poses. It isn't the case here.

Of course, the concept of Transforming into Combatant in itself is restrictive to an extent, so take that into account. When I say it didn't feel like it was retreading old material, I don't mean for example it didn't end the same way (almost) every time, it did, it's part of the fetish seeing the girls reduced to a nameless combatant with most of their personality rewritten to be an evil pervert. What changes, besides what kind of sex scenes they are featured in, is how they interact with other characters before and after their corruption and how some of their personality traits come through, like the tomboyish girl still being aggressive or her mother still being an ara ara type. Others are twisted into being unrecognizable, like the sheltered rich girl who goes from an innocent young lady to a complete sadist. Striking a balance between the "deindividuation" part of the fetish and keeping the characters just distinct enough to be recognizable in a multi-chapter series is not an easy feat and I think this does it well.

It's tough giving a score to a manga like this. On one hand, its technical side leaves to be desired and it can be repetitive, on the other hand, it's very true to the fetish it's doing and satisfying to read through. For fans of this kind of corruption, I think the pros far outweigh the cons and it's worth digging into even if you find the art shaky, and I do think fans of mindbreak also have a lot to like here but I'd say to proceed with more caution, look at the pics (both here and on the DLSite page) and read my pros and cons. For NTR people I recommend specifically Momoko, Ryouko and Yukie's chapters.

Pros

• Good execution of the Transforming into Combatant fetish.
• Builds a sense of continuity with the corrupted characters returning to help convert new ones, and the background story getting organically developed as the chapters go.
• Good variety of sex scenes
• Atsuko

Mixed

• The fact most of the series is saddled with NTR. When its well done its really well done (and no sympathy for the cuck either except for one shitty chapter), but in other chapters it feels tacked on
• There's a nice variety of setups and the training scenes are varied but the payoff is always similar. That is the point but still something that should be pointed out.

Cons

• Art quality can be very rough at times. It improves as the series goes on but it's still decidedly amateurish.
• Chapter 1 is pretty weak and stands as an oddity compared to the rest of the series. Not a good representation of what it will be like (I happened to see a later chapter first)
• While I understand the constraints of page economy and self-publishing, I should mention there is a lot of tell don't show when it comes to most things outside the sex itself. This also seems to be getting better in newer chapters, however.

Score: 6.5/10

This post was long and self-indulgent, I didn't expect to write this much about it. But I couldn't help myself. This series doesn't even have raws on the usual hentai sites. It's that niche. However small my audience is, I want to shine some light on this neat thing I found. I'm sure the three of you who share this overly specific fascination with women being turned into spandex-clad soldiers can relate. For everyone else, thanks again for indulging my ramblings.