Interspecies Reviewers
異種族レビュアーズ
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
Adventurers review fantasy brothels; Tokyo MX and Sun TV dropped it mid-run, as did Funimation and Amazon Prime Video.
In a fantasy world where humans, elves, beastfolk, fairies and demons live side by side, the brothels are staffed by 'succu-girls', women of every species with some succubus blood. Stunk, a human adventurer, and Zel, an elf more than two hundred years old, fall out over which is better, a five-hundred-year-old elf or a fifty-year-old human, and settle it by asking friends of other species to try both. Out of the argument come the Interspecies Reviewers, who visit a different house in each episode and post scored reviews at the Ale & Eats tavern. The joke that drives the series is that each species rates the same woman very differently.
They take in Crimvael, an angel stranded on earth by a broken halo, who waits tables at the tavern until it can be mended. Crim is intersex and lets the others believe Crim is male. Meidri, the winged waitress, disapproves of their articles and answers Stunk's advances by beating him. Their visits include a fairy house where size decides who may book whom, an inn where a potion turns the men into women for a night, a back-alley house of pure-blooded succubi that leaves them half dead, a golem shop where every one of them builds a copy of Meidri and is punished by the real one, and three days in the Magic Metropolis with copies of the archmage Demia, which they award a perfect score. The reviews grow so popular that rival reviewers appear, and an incubus who gives every house full marks is stabbed by a jealous lover.
There is no larger plot. After a drunken night in which they spend all their earnings, the reviewers have to take real adventuring work to pay their way. In the last episode they finally review the demons' brothel they had promised to visit during an election, and, finding their favourite houses booked for the New Year, end the series inside a dream-eater's house, where each of them can meet a favourite again in sleep.
Starring
Junji Majimaas Stunk
A skilled human adventurer who spends what the reviews earn on trying yet another species, and never stops propositioning Meidri.
Stunk’s story
Stunk is a first-rate human adventurer who, as Zel tells Crim, beat grown knights at a tournament as a boy and left a well-born family after falling out with his father. What he wants is a night with every species there is. His quarrel with Zel over a five-hundred-year-old elf and a fifty-year-old human becomes the Interspecies Reviewers, and he spends every coin the reviews bring in on the next house. He keeps propositioning Meidri and being beaten for it, and is punished again when every reviewer's golem, his included, turns out to be modelled on her. When a drunken night costs the group all its money, he takes honest adventuring work. At New Year, with every favourite booked, he ends up in a dream-eater's house, meeting one again in his sleep.
Yusuke Kobayashias Zel
An elf over two hundred years old, the eldest reviewer, who signs the reviews and values a partner's mana over her looks.
Zel’s story
Zel is an elf of more than two hundred years who lives at the pace of short-lived humans and, as the eldest, signs the reviews as the one responsible. Where Stunk looks at a face, Zel measures mana, which is why he rates a fifty-year-old human above a young one and favours Mitsue, an elderly human succu-girl. His argument with Stunk over an old elf and an old human is what starts the reviews. He covers the group in a fight with arrows and spells, talks of Stunk's father as if he had known the family, and goes on every excursion, from the back-alley succubi to the Magic Metropolis. He loses his share on the same drunken night as the others, goes back to adventuring for money, and sees in the New Year in the dream-eater's house.
Miyu Tomitaas Crimvael
An intersex angel stranded by a broken halo, who waits tables at the tavern and is drawn into the reviewing.
Crimvael’s story
Crimvael is an angel who has fallen to earth with a broken halo and cannot go back to Heaven until it is mended. Stunk and Zel rescue the angel and celebrate with a trip to a catgirl house; Crim then waits tables at the Ale & Eats, with the two as guarantors, and, being intersex, lets them believe Crim is male to avoid their attention. Unworldly and easily embarrassed, Crim protests at the reviewers' excesses yet reviews alongside them: choosing a hyena girl at the gender-swap inn, the only one able to bear the salamander house's heat, later visiting a slime house alone. In the Magic Metropolis the archmage Demia takes a close interest in the angel. When the series ends, Crim is still at the tavern with the others, the halo still broken.
M.A.Oas Meidri
The winged waitress at the Ale & Eats, who scolds the reviewers and meets Stunk's advances with force.
Kenji Hamadaas Bruise
A dog-man reviewer with a taste for plump succu-girls, who grades every house through his sensitive nose.
Why it matters
Interspecies Reviewers treats commercial sex as a consumer service, cheerful and without consequence, and its running joke is also its most interesting idea: the same woman scores a ten from one species and a two from another, because what a body finds desirable depends on the body doing the finding. Age is the first test case, a five-hundred-year-old elf against a fifty-year-old human. The whole series is told from the customers' side of the counter. It also became a test of how explicit television anime could be. Funimation dropped it after three episodes, saying it fell outside its standards; Tokyo MX and Sun TV stopped broadcasting it mid-run; and in 2021 Australia refused classification to the uncensored episodes, because sex scenes involving halfling characters appeared to depict people under eighteen.