Eros School: Feels So Good

	Eros School: Feels So Good (1977)

Director:	Koretsugu Kurahara
Writers:	Akira Momoi
Starring:	Murakuni Shohei, Asami Ogawa, and Jun Aki

The Plot: Eros School: Feels So Good is the classic story of a young man who hopes to win the attention of a beautiful young woman. Our lead is a bit of a goofball though, so he spends most of his days in private writing love songs for his crush Misa (Asami Ogawa) and daydreaming about making sweet love to her. Misa, however, is a damaged young woman who may not be prepared for a relationship. Even as a highschool student, she has never began her period, which makes her feel like less of a woman in comparison to her peers. As this little love affair seems as if it is ready to crack, a new student transfers to school and with him he brings a great deal of bad news. Ryu (Murakuni Shohei), better known as Ryu the Rapist, has just transferred from a reform school. Ryu has been known to rape “beauty queens,” and it doesn’t take him long to turn his eyes toward Misa. This leads to a game of cat and mouse, with Ryu raping every girl in school while working his way towards Misa. Will our leading man manage to bed Misa and take her virginity before the dastardly Ryu manages to molest the young girl?

	The Review

Stepping back into the waters of Nikkatsu’s roman porno line is always a comfortable place for me to be. The late sixties all the way through to the early eighties were a very rich time for the world of Japanese sex films. These movies ran the gamut in terms of ridiculous areas of sexual exploitation, and Eros School is no different. Similar to the American marketplace, which was rife with campy sex titles that were thriving during the seventies and eighties, Eros School is a “sex comedy” that will boggle and confound its audience. Although it might seem as if I am being biased towards Synapse, I have to commend them for another puzzling/incredible choice to add to their growing Nikkatsu Roman Porno Collection. Eros School is perhaps one of the strangest movies that has been added to the collection so far, and it is a movie that is bound to confuse its audience for the most part. Establishing itself in one direction but quickly veering into another, Eros School is a bizarre and offensive piece of cinema that is not for the weak willed. For those who dare to go further with this title, prepare yourself for the most lighthearted view of rape that you will likely ever see.

Tonally, Eros School: Feels So Good is utterly insane. It could very well be one of the most schizophrenic feature films that has ever graced Varied Celluloid. Establishing itself as a sex comedy in the earliest moments of the movie, the plot begins to take on content that is far from suitable to laugh at. Rape is the main culprit here, and it is continually played as a fun and silly act that has no real consequence. Director Kurahara Koretsugu plays his movie for laughs, but while doing so he completely ignores all common ideas of morality or decency. As the movie progresses, it sinks further and further into a strange world of immorality. It makes the adjustment from being a lighthearted comedic tale, right into something incredibly darker, without any hesitation. From silly scenes of youths obsessing over sex, as they are prone to do, to another scene featuring a group of girls trying to molest another student in order to sexually humiliate her, the movie is rarely consistent. To go with this sense of inconsistency in tone, the movie also acts completely illogical in terms of its moral guidelines. The aforementioned “humiliation” scene is complicated even further when the lead bully is approached by a strange man who takes her on the ground and proceeds to rape her in front of her classmates. When this same man (and I stress that he appears to be a fully grown man, with a growing beard), Ryu the Rapist, takes his place in school the next day, it is made apparent that he has been released from a reform school that he was placed in due to raping a fellow classmate. Of course, he then attempts to fondle the class teacher IMMEDIATELY after this announcement, and the entire classroom erupts into applause. Rape, and the threat of rape, are apparently really “cool” within the school that our film takes place in. This is the strange moral identity that our film intends to enforce.

If ever a movie were to be put in a time capsule, in order to explain to future generations just what it was like to be Japanese within the seventies, I would hope and pray Eros School would not be that movie. A confounding title that lives outside of regular logic, rape is essentially a punchline throughout the majority of this movie. As soon as the audience begins to think that the filmmakers are going to give some weight to the gratuitous rape scenes, the carpet is once again swept out from underneath them. Rape becomes a game during Eros School. The game played between Ryu and Misa is essentially the “heart” of our story, but any sort of repercussions from the forced sex is never felt. Ultimately, the “rape” within this movie is hard to actually define technically as “rape.” It seems that every sequence revolving around Ryu the Rapist assaulting a young and pretty girl follows the same exact formula: he attacks her, she resists, but by the time he begins to molest her breasts with his tongue, the sex has become very consensual. There are so many different scary ideas at work here that I am sure it is enough to scare away anyone with the slightest inklings towards feminism. Ultimately, women show very little use outside of their ability to gratify sexual desires, and within this film “No” always disguises a very obvious “yes.” So, what kind of sick depraved individual would enjoy such a movie? Someone who loves disturbing cinema and doesn’t take themselves all that serious. With that said, it should be obvious that I loved Eros School: Feels So Good.

If there is one aspect of Eros School that should be mentioned, it is the psychotic conclusion to the film. Displaying the sad fact that nice guys finish last, and rapists make sure to always finish first, Eros School is nearly a practical joke put on film. While I would hate to spoil the movie for those who have not seen it, I would feel bad if I didn’t mention the “pig scene.” While I will give no details, Eros School builds to a crescendo of rape and terror that could only be catapulted to the “next level” by featuring a bit of bestiality. Believe me, you have to watch the film in order to fully appreciate how messed up the story inevitably becomes. A brilliant piece of horrid exploitation, Eros School manages to deliver in every way an offensive piece of cinema should.

	The Conclusion

What more is there left to say? Eros School: Feels So Good is an utterly outrageous piece of Japanese exploitation. Continuing with the wild explorations of Nikkatsu’s roman porno line, this is a title that pushes the limits of what audiences might expect from the subgenre. Entertaining in a way that many viewers may not want to admit, I can’t help but give this one a high recommendation. I give the movie a four out of five!