Interspecies Reviewers Vol 1

Interspecies Reviewers had promise. As the title infers (though not entirely clearly!) the series is set in a world where a number of humanoid species co-exist. There is a legalised red-light district where prostitution and promiscuity is rampant. 

There seems no legal, biological or moral constraints to prevent sex between any of the inhabiting species, and our "heroes" discover early on that writing personal reviews of the different brothels gives them a wage that they can spend on food and trying out the other establishments. A perpetual motion machine of inter-species intercourse if you will.

So this is a bawdy sex comedy that I expected to have Ecchi/raunchy art in abundance to titillate the reader. From the outset you are thrown into a land where Elves, Angels and Humans interrelate. You soon meet the main leads, a human who goes by the name of Stunk and his friend, Zel the elf. Their main intent is to try out as many of the land's brothels as possible. They have discovered that each of them judges other species differently - for instance, given elves age differently, Stunk is not concerned that the elf he has slept with is several hundred years old. This is something Zel finds a turn-off... Inversely Stunk has no interest in a 50 year old human woman whereas Zel is interested in her level of sexual knowledge and experience - and it goes on.

The pair are accompanied by Crimveal the angel. Crim is secretly a hermaphrodite, which he continuously tries to hide, a running gag which is an interesting idea and actually well set up.

I enjoy Ecchi and I don’t mind innuendo or a dirty joke, and I had high hopes for this. The book did improve in places, but unfortunately it was never the bawdy sex comedy romp I had hoped for.

The art is adequate, with panels easy to follow, but there is nothing original or inspiring going on here. Given the nature of the content I expected to see more Ecchi or titillating imagery, but all sex is off-panel, and whilst fan service is present it isn’t arousing. Perhaps even more peculiar, there was no nudity at all until a lot later where it was present unabashedly. It just feels uneven.

The biggest letdown is the humour itself. The setup gives plenty of opportunities for amusement, but the majority of the writing is base and bordering on vulgar. It's usually based far more on the size of assets than witty banter and intelligent observation. The writing marginally improves as it hits its stride but the style doesn't evolve or improve.

This has little depth and will only appeal to those who want to read a lot of descriptions of sexual acts with very little imagery accompanying it. If you want clever sexual comedy with sexy artwork, then I would opt for the far superior Prison School or Sundome.