Huh.  I kinda wanted to do something special for the end of the year, but if I just do Cream Lemon reviews for the next two weeks, I’ll have 20 of 40 done!

This week’s episode is something a bit more original and interesting.  First off, take a look at our heroine’s design:

I don’t know about you, but for me there’s absolutely no mistaking it: that’s the work of Satoshi Urushihara, character designer of such… things that existed… as Plastic Little and Legend of Lemnear.

Okay, that’s not entirely fair.  I own both of those titles and don’t exactly regret my decision.  Plus the Legend of Lemnear manga is fairly decent.  Chirality was godawful though.  Anyway, on to the review.

Our gymnast heroine is Mami.  She has two male friends named Shouta and Ichirou.  On her way home, Shouta gives her an ancient necklace as a gift.

Then he leans in for a kiss.

Hey, so far so good.

Then he pushes his luck.

Mami of course responds by pushing him away and running off.  This also seems to change Shouta’s hair from brown to dark blue (Ichirou’s hair color).  Or, it’s an animation error.  You can never really tell with this studio in this time period.

That night, Mami has a creepy dream about being invited to a bizarre public orgy.  Huh.  Didn’t think I’d have to use that phrase twice in a row.

The next day, she invites ol’ gropey to a stranger’s car for some F-U-N.

So it doesn’t take long before we realize Mami has become some sort of succubus-like being, and she sucks the life out of poor Shouta.

Succubus Mami and real Mami have a conversation with each other where Succubus Mami pretty much shuts Real Mami down and proclaims she’ll go after Ichirou next.  Y’know, tomorrow.  But first, masturbating time.

Anyway, it takes very little time and effort to lure Ichirou to her bed.

Strangely, this sex scene is animated much more poorly than the first sex scene.  It’s like they put all the budget into the first half of this episode.

While Ichirou is completely giving in, he notices Real Mami’s reflection in a mirror and realizes something strange is going on.  He confronts “Mami,” who counters with her ultimate weapon: sucking dick.  This temporarily gives “Mami” the upper hand, but Ichirou tears the necklace away, apparently breaking the curse or whatever.

Then we cut to the two walking out of school on what seems to be a completely different day… or season… and we have what seems to be the signature pointlessly abrupt Cream Lemon ending.

Could have benefited from being a bit longer, which is the primary flaw of ALL Cream Lemon episodes, but overall, this is probably one of my more favorite ones.  The animation is one of the best of the series (for half of the episode, anyway), and Urushihara’s character designs, even in his early stages, are arousing as always.  He seems to have a genuine talent for drawing girls that you really want to see naked.  And perhaps even more impressive, he has a talent for making them look even more captivating when nude.  I’ve seen A LOT of hentai, and I’ve found that this is a fairly rare talent.  It’s a real shame that he didn’t do much more for the hentai world after this.  After churning out beautifully-designed series with horrible, horrible plots, he returned to hentai with Another Lady Innocent, a downright gorgeous title set in the fucking AMERICAN CIVIL WAR.  Only one episode was ever made 10 years ago, despite it ending with a preview for the next episode.  I hate the world sometimes.