Cow Girl
Natsume Rio is a busy girl. She had two DVD packages released on the same day, Cow Girl and Missionary, and each set contains about two hours of footage. Given that most current releases from the big name gravure idols rarely top fifty minutes, it would be hard not to recommend Cow Girl based on length alone. But this is also one of Rio-chan's better DVDs - the director wisely plays to Rio's strengths, which are acting as cute as possible and a lot of bouncing.
Cow Girl is a 2-DVD set, the first DVD being about ninety minutes long and is the main attraction. The second DVD is about thirty minutes long, and is behind the scenes footage of the making of the main DVD. There are also several advertisements on the second DVD for other idols (including a couple of Hanai Miri releases). The behind the scenes stuff is pretty much what you'd expect: Rio chatting with the crew, waiting around on the set, a few shots of her having lunch/dinner. Not too different than any other behind the scenes chapter from any other idol DVD. Still, Rio seems to be in relatively good spirits which is always nice.
There's too much on the main DVD to go over every scene, but this is one of Rio's best. She gets quite a work out in this one - not much standing around posing. Rio jogs (and seemed on the verge of collapse in the opening scene where she's running along a beach), uses a hula hoop, a jump rope, a pogo stick, jumps around on a bed, rides a bike, and goes swimming. That is a whole lot of jiggling and couldn't have been comfortable - well done Rio! Rio is almost exclusively clothed in bikinis throughout the DVD, and generally speaking, they're flattering although somewhat conservative (for a gravure idol). A couple of other scenes worth mentioning include two different scenes in bathtubs, one which involves Rio eating ice cream, drinking milk, and various other foodstuffs. Suffice it to say, most of the food ends up on Rio's ample bosom rather than in her mouth. The second scene is starts out strangely with Rio running in a field with a couple of scrub brushes, then gets into a tub full of soapy water (in the middle of a field?!?) and proceeds to wash herself down, and the camera is not shy about getting in nice and close. A wet, soapy Rio is always good.
You also get a few generic beach scenes, the requisite cooking scene (I don't think anyone has told the director that cooking bacon in a bikini could be potentially quite painful), and a odd little bit where Rio is playing baseball with herself - she's the batter and the pitcher. Wacky.
There are a few bad points. Rio-chan is the queen of cute, but she hasn't learned to pull off the sensual or aggressively sexy look which comes easily to some of the other idols. In the few scenes where she is asked to do this come across as very forced and seem a little out of place with the flow of with the rest of the DVD. She is also wearing far too much make up in a few scenes which really detracts from her natural beauty. A couple of other minor quibbles include some really bad lighting in a few scenes, and the generic feel of the background scenery. Granted, most of the time you'll be transfixed on the lovely Natsume-san, but if you were just glancing through the DVD looking for your favourite scene, it can get a little confusing.
These minor problems don't detract from Cow Girl as a whole though... the DVD is well worth the price of admission for Rio fans, old or new. And you will be a fan of Rio-chan after viewing this DVD!
