Heavy Metal (1981) Is The Cesium of True Hentai Art

By Benjamin Chrollin | September, 2022

Fans of animation, anime, hentai, and any other Japanese motion film art, steer clear of this train wreck.

After a long week of traveling, film reviews, lectures, and parenting, I decided to explore the world from the comfort of home. I sought to challenge my understanding of the motion arts by looking at other mediums foreign to me. I began watching anime. More specifically, I began watching a post-customary form. A hyper-sexualized sub-genre to batter my senses. I began to explore Japan’s “Hentai” (pronounced ‘hen-tai’) for the first time.

From genre classics such as Taimanin Asagi to more niche, noir examples such as Aku no Onna Kanbu: Full Moon Light, I loved them all.

The blend of contemporary Japanese motion art techniques blended with ancient Japanese customs and traditions had me hooked right in. As every hour passed, I began to do more and more research until I came across one helpful comment below one of the videos. According to this hentai scholar of sorts, Fa660tron, America made it’s own hentai well before some of the more better-known Japanese earlier works! I was shocked but not surprised. Stealing of culture is so passé for this country at this point but none the less, I was intrigued.

After a bit of Googling, I found it. Heavy Metal (1981).

Unlike Japanese hentai, these 90 minutes were full of vulgarities, violence, and unabashed exploitation of women. Luckily, Heavy Metal is and probably was arguably the last outing for the over-sexualized ‘70s. This absurd anthology is peak faux-film art and barely constitutes a coherent film let alone a genuine hentai experience as many connoisseurs of Japanese culture would be familiar with.

The first story revolves around a generic white man, sex pest who manipulates and forces a young, scantily-clad, buxom woman into sleeping with him just after she witnesses her father dying. But not before entering a police station as a literal green alien, pleads for his life to the post-apocalyptic racist regime that is eerily reminiscent of ICE agents today. Of course the white man, Harry, looks on with intense white hatred at the hate crime and quips, “goddamn illegal aliens.” Yawn.

As disgusted as I was, I did find myself, rather distracted during aforementioned sex scene however. I couldn’t understand why seeing as it’s simply art yet I just couldn’t help feel dirty as the animated sex scene unfolded. That, and I had a massive erection from the cartoon woman’s supple breasts.

The following segment was quick to relieve the intense pressure in my pants as it opens with a skinny white kid. Cobbling together some high school project or something, not sure why, what or how, but he is thrust through a portal into a divergent dimension.

Waking up, he finds that he is living every white man’s dream! Being tall, bald, handsome, muscular and most importantly, black. Upon wrapping himself in a cloth to hide his massive penis from the envious glares of the filthy-footed white men around him, we the audience see yet another naked white woman in distress for whom he promptly saves and has sex with.

I found that scene eerily reminiscent of Usuf and I with Sherri. In college, year after year of courting her, helping her pick outfits before dates, and buying her Plan B pills, she finally saw me for who I was; a proper gentleman, gendered-race studies major, and employee of the month. She and I were smitten with one another. She held me in the same high regard then as she does today. But, where I was her bedrock of emotional support then, I am now her lover and life partner.

But our fairytale marriage does have some bleak aspects. Seeing as she’s a virgo and myself, a scorpio, we are just incompatible emotionally at times. That’s why it’s so important for us to have Usuf to fulfill the role that was me so many years ago.

That’s why I was so stunned at the sight of this tall and handsome black gentleman and white woman so enamored with one another in the film. It reminded me of the close, friendly bond between Sherri and Usuf. The genuine care and courtesy he lends to her is unbridled.

He once, and I don’t mean to get too graphic or personal with this, but I once mistakenly and frankly, rudely, walked into our bedroom as my dear wife lied on the bed as Usuf knelt on the floor between her legs. He looked to me, smiled and said, “don’t worry, Ben! I’m taking care of her needs now.” He promptly pulled his fingers out from of her “cha-cha,” walked over to me and swept the four of them under my nose. Sherri’s fluids left a “milk mustache” of sorts on my face as she stared on shocked and stunned.

I grew angry and frustrated as the weight of reality pressed upon me. Usuf was also a gynecologist.

I hated myself for so long after feeling jealous when this brave man weathered the tides of war in Africa, survived multiple coup attempts as the last Nigerian prince, and now investing his time in America to supporting women. As I sat in the living room as Sherri’s groans of pain and discomfort echoed down the hall, I grew so resentful of myself for being jealous as he’s done so much for our family.

Usuf’s diligence to protect and support white women as a black man epitomizes what a strong man should be and why Usuf is such a valued member of our family. Minus the couple’s sexual acts though. Unlike theirs, Sherri and Usuf’s relationship is strictly plutonic and based on respect and humanitarianism. Unlike this film.

Either way, Heavy Metal had some high peaks with engaging dialog. Some of the segments were less appealing. More so the “comical” ones but I’d say it was a mediocre hentai experience over all. From Papa Johns’ bastardization of pizza to the bastardization of hentai by Heavy Metal, America’s sense of culture and art is derivative of others from abroad and this film is yet another example.

If you’re a film student reading this and looking to expand your appreciation of the motion cinema film arts, here’s a rule of thumb:

Heavy Metal (1981) Review Score

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