Every porn aficionado knows of the porn parody. Since the 1970s, porn studios have taken heavy inspiration from mainstream works and produced their own X-rated takes on the setting, characters and plot. The genre has its own Wikipedia article, and was a large focus of 2008's Zack and Miri Make a Porno. At the JAV Museum, we have previously reviewed a few such videos.
In contrast to porn parodies, MIRD-144 is an example of a far rarer kind of porn video – the result of an official collaboration between Moodyz Real and a browser-based online game called Guardian Mistress. Released in 2014, it's the product of one of my favourite directors, Kitorune Kawaguchi, so I had high expectations for this video.
We start off in the dead of night as a salaryman is on his walk home. He passes a mysterious woman (Nishino Show), and they exchange furtive glances. Suddenly, a couple of gansters start harassing the woman. What does the salaryman do? Does he come to Nishino's rescue? No, he just continues on his merry way. Fortunately, Nishino is far from defenceless. Releasing a fireball from her hand, she incinerates her tormentor.
To be honest, I can sympathise with her retailiating in self-defence, however this is evidently not universally accepted reaction. In swoops a "Guardian" dressed in pink (Hatsumi Saki), firing off a few magic spells from her fingers in Nishino's direction. Hatsumi grabs the one surviving gangster and rescues him by teleporting them both away, but not before spotting the salaryman cowering away in the shadows.
The next morning, Hatsumi finds her way into the salaryman's home and, finding him asleep, figures that the best way to wake him is to plonk herself on his dick and start fucking him. I didn't expect this to be a rape video!
An intense 20 minutes later, the two exchange pleasantaries and Hatsumi explains her mission to fight Nishino who is trying to rid the world of men. Hatsumi starts calling the salaryman "Darling", which I can't believe wasn't inspired by Lum the Invader Girl.
I won't spoil the rest of the story, but suffice to say, Darling gets lots of action with both Hatsumi and Nishino, in-between fight scenes in which the two women battle it out.
Aside from the Lum reference, it did not escape my attention that Hatsumi's pose when preparing a spell seems to have been inspired by Mega Man. It makes me wonder if this video contains other pop culture references I have missed.
When analysing the video closely, I notice that Darling spends a lot of time in his underwear. A kind of blocky filter appears on the gaps in his underwear. Could this be solely to spare the viewer's eyes, or could this be a reference to Japanese Adult Videos, which are required to use a mosaic effect to censor obscene content?
The special effects are relatively basic yet functional. The costumes are reasonably well designed. I think the casting choices were on point. Hatsumi, whom you may recognise from the video game Yakuza 0, does a great job of conveying her character's mischievous temperament. Nishino, meanwhile, is a very versatile actor who has a lot of experience in heroine videos and portrays a wealth of emotions as befits her character.
Unfortunately, at some point this video was delisted from retailers' websites, making it extremely difficult to legally purchase. Usually this is because one of the performers requested their entire videography to be pulled. But in this case, retailers are selling other videos starring both of the lead performers. The only reason I can think of why this video is no longer for sale is because the online game this ties-in with shut down in 2018. This is pure speculation, but perhaps some rights issues meant that the video can no longer be sold.
It's a shame because this is actually a well produced video with an interesting story and characters. If you can find a copy of it, I recommend giving it a watch.
Rating: 8/10