Reviewed by Peter Payne

Publisher: Take Shobo Available at: J-List Cost: $50 US Video quality: Top notch "H" factor: Very subtle and sexy in a traditional Japanese way Sex: n/a Overview: Beautiful new item for Maiko's fans

To understand the popularity of quiet, solemnly pretty girls like Maiko Kazano, it's helpful to keep in mind that the biggest consumers of adult videos and erotica in Japan are men aged 45-55 or so. They've got the money, and, it seems, a penchant for old-world Japanese beauties like Maiko Kazano, who fulfills the "Showa bijin" (a beautiful girl from the Showa Era, 1925-1989), when these men were boys. This stress on old and traditional Japanese images and places makes her works great not only for her older Japanese fans, but for gaijin as well, since we foreigners tend to be more in tune with these "classical" pictures of Japan than, say, young Japanese men (who may be more interested in American or European styles).

And old-world beauty is a good way to describe Maiko Kazano, an erotic idol who made numerous "sexy idol" appearances in magazines like Cream and then, after she turned 18, became an nude and soft-porn idol. In a world populated by "kogal" types like AV idol Kyoka Usami (see interviews and reviews of her product elsewhere on J-Mate), she is a quiet "good girl" type (called "seijo-ha" in Japanese) that fulfills a certain kind of need among her fans.

In this new soft-core release from Take Shobo (the first word is pronounced TAH-keh, and it means bamboo in case you wanted to know; this is a departure from her normal publisher, Eichi Publishing), and accordingly, it's got a slightly different style from her other releases. It starts with Maiko standing on a lonely train platform in some extremely rural train station, an incredibly Japanese image and a great one for her fans. Next we see Maiko-chan standing by an old Japanese building, looking at "you" (the camera) with love in her eyes. She lets you glimpse her white panties for a moment.

Other scenes follow. A quiet time with Maiko in a traditional tatami room, in which her clothes slowly come off as she offers herself to you. Later, you go to a Japanese hot springs with her. She wears an oh-so-skimpy bikini and teases you with sexy glimpses of her body, but don't worry, it comes off pretty quickly.

In Japan, there's an aesthetic tradition known as "wabi and sabi." which can be translated as "sober refinement and classic look" which basically says that "less is more." There's a famous scene in Japanese history when Sen-no-Rikyu, the Buddhist monk who created the Japanese tea ceremony, found a thicket of beautiful red roses; he cut down all but a single rose, saying that a single blooming rose was more beautiful for its simplicity than many roses. (I know this because I saw it on television.)

This DVD is for all who can appreciate this concept: the tantalizing image of a beautiful girl like Maiko-chan, quietly offering herself to you without words, all the while covering herself shyly, is worth more than all the kogals having "3P" sex (3P stands for "3 people," i.e. a guy and two guys at once). Stolen glimpses of her panties and a slow showing her her nude body is worth more on the eroticism in this case than having sex.

The disc is region 2. If you are seriously into Japanese import DVDs, we humbly recommend the region free players at J-List, which are reliable and cheap. You can also use your computer to view these, by setting the region to '2'.