Fetish Grab Bag
Fetishes make Joji Manabe’s world go round.
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Joji Manabe
Translation/Adaptation: Steven Lecrory
What They Say
Reach into the Fetish Grab Bag and you’ll find: girls in tight swimsuits, girls in tight bunny suits, girls in sexy maid outfits, girls in sexy naked aprons. In this collection of juicy shorts, you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll fantasize! So, do yourself a favor and reach into this Fetish Grab Bag!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
I come from the generation that got a decent bit of exposure to anime and manga through the works of Joji Manabe. His Outlander series was one that got an early pickup from Dark Horse Comics and we saw the anime adaptation OVA land as well, which gave some fun space fantasy fanservice material with a simple approach. That all got followed up by Caravan Kidd, which gained a good following as well, but the time was one where fandom felt smaller and being into a title made it bigger. Sadly, Manabe’s works never really reached critical mass as there were no big TV adaptations and a lot of his manga has simply been out of print or never brought over to begin with. Which is unfortunate, since he has a very good sense of style and design about him. Unfortunately for me, one of his adult works that came over is the five volume Ring x Mama series and that didn’t click for me at all. Which left me with hope that Fetish Grab Bag could hit the sweet spot.
And oh boy did it.
Fetishes are always fun to watch when it comes to hentai manga, less so with hentai, especially when there’s a playfulness about it. And Manabe totally has that playful nature down with his material and that makes this book a whole lot of fun, even if it is largely focused on outfit fetishes. Thankfully, most of it is out of the usual high school arena and deals with characters a bit older, such as the first story of a young woman who was into the hot and cocky guy from the college swim team that she could never get the time of day from. Now they both work in the same gym for their regular job and he finally finds out about it, though it’s tied a bit more to her swimsuit that she’s always wearing. It has some decent character material here with what it wants to do but it also provides for some really fun sex scenes due to the pool, the fantasy aspect of it at times and the way that it’s apparently her first time and she’s totally smitten with him but uncertain about the reality of it.
Another fun one involves a cheerleader, Azusa, who is the childhood friend of the star player, Shun. There’s a lot of girls on the squad that are interested in him, but she starts putting things into motion in order to get closer to him. That ends up involving her really taking care of him – after causing a nosebleed in the middle of the game no less – and he finally realizes that this childhood friend that he hadn’t paid much attention to is really into him. It’s got a fun vibe about it as Azusa gets her little jealousies in early on and wants something more from him but is unsure of how to do it until she just goes blunt with him. The combination of the ballplayer outfit and the cheerleader uniform works well to hit those fetishes, but they’re not overdone or given the kind of attention that would turn it into something distracting.
The one that surprised me with how well it worked is the one that involves the whole maid outfit as we get the class doing a maid cafe and everyone dresses up. Saki’s not keen on it since she’s like six feet tall and feels very uncomfortable in all of it, but not as uncomfortable as Haruka probably feels at five foot two – and being a boy in a standard maid outfit. The two end up spending time alone for a bit and there’s some amusing comparing of issues that they face as each has their own problems. But then things turn sexual and it’s really fun to watch, especially as Saki gets totally caught up in it and flips up his skirt and goes down on him, not quite realizing what she’s doing but enjoying it until it sinks in. It’s not quite playing up a lesbian kind of gig here since obviously one of them is a guy, but it has a very cute guy with a cocky attitude in a maid outfit that makes for a weird but surprisingly fun dynamic as they completely go at it.
In Summary
There’s eight stories to this collection and for the most part, they’re really a lot of fun. Manabe’s style is very energetic and filled with intense action stylings that can make it feel busier than it should, but a lot of hentai manga is like that. The mix of stories is rather good and I think there are maybe two that didn’t quite click for me, which is pretty good for a collection like this where there’s so many different things. What helps is that when a story does click, it clicks very well and is just very fun to watch unfold. And it’s not just about the sex itself here as we get a lot of character pieces. It’s not a story driven series of stories but we do get to know some of those involved and who they actually are and that gives it more meaning overall. IT’s definitely a solid collection overall and one worth checking out for fans of the genre and Manabe in particular.
Content Grade: B+
Art Grade: B
Packaging Grade: B-
Text/Translation Grade: B+
Age Rating: 18+
Released By: Project-H Books
Release Date: November 26th, 2013
MSRP: $17.95