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[Spaceship Agga Ruter box art]
AKA: Space Opera Agga Ruter
Genre: Sci-fi parody hentai
Length: OAV series, 4 episodes, 30 minutes each
Distributor: R1 DVD from Anime 18 out of print.
Content Rating: NC-17 (explicit sex, violence)
Related Series: N/A
Also Recommended: El Hazard the Magnificent World, Tenchi Muyo
Notes: From AIC and Kajishima Masaki, the company and mind behind (you guessed it) Tenchi Muyo.
Rating:

Spaceship Agga Ruter

Synopsis

Nice guy Taiyou (can we just call him Tenchi and be done with it?) is traveling through space with his "mom" Kei, who has been busily training him in "communication techniques" (read: sex) so that he can become some sort of diplomat when he grows up. (At least that's my best guess.) Their ship, the Agga Ruter, is captured by the space pirate Jannis (again, can we just call him Ryoko and be done with it?), who is pacified when Ten-, I mean, Taiyou solves her sexual problems. Taiyou's harem grows as he "communicates" with more and more women throughout the galaxy.


Review

You know all those places that Tenchi Muyo hinted at? Spaceship Agga Ruter goes there.

No, really. No other series could possibly inspire a raunchy opening sex scene in a spaceship where a teenage boy is being serviced and cries out, "Mom! Mom! Mom!" It's all a very obvious pastiche, and it's worse when the space pirate Jannis (okay, a cross between Ryoko and Mihoshi, but STILL!) ends up in bed with Taiyou "fixing" her sexual habit (which is to kill any partner who doesn't bring her all the way to orgasm) by, you guessed it, *making her orgasm*.

There's a lot of strange hijinks going on, and a lot of visual gags (Jannis's "gift wrap" tractor beam, for example), and it's all very silly. The second episode, in which Kei turns into a clone of a female ship captain in order to impersonate her, then co-seduce her with Taiyou (while Jannis busily steals an artifact called, improbably, "Virginia"), is just hysterical.

Technically, it's all pretty decent. AIC doesn't tend to skimp on budget with series like this, and it shows. While the sex isn't as explicit as other hentai (that is, no mosaic because you really don't see genitalia), it's still obvious what everyone is doing. Character designs are appealing, and the animation is reasonable.

The problems, therefore, are two-fold. One: Agga Ruter (Agga *Rutter*, really) is at best a guilty pleasure, because the writing for the comedy is occasionally just not as funny as it should be. Secondly, it was never finished - Kajishima got roped back into doing the other Tenchi Muyo series, so he never got to finish this project up. Why is Shiunk after Taiyou? What is Virginia? How many women is Taiyou going to bang? None of these questions are resolved, which is kind of a shame.

The end result is a parody that has a few good moments, but never quite makes it to the positive side of mediocre, even for the genre. It's still worth a rental, though.

Lightweight parody of AIC shows that doesn't quite get good enough to be recommended, but still raises a laugh here and there.Carlos/Giancarla Ross

Recommended Audience: ADULTS ONLY. Explicit sex. Also, there is some violence in this series, not all of it played for laughs - Jannis's first sex scene is actually pretty creepy.



Version(s) Viewed: R1 DVD
Review Status: Partial (2/4)
Spaceship Agga Ruter © 1998 AIC / Beam Entertainment
 
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