Missionary
I suppose there's supposed to be some kind of in-yo thing going on with the releases of Natsume Rio's Missionary and Cow Girl DVD packages on the same day: one represents the bubbly, fun, girlish side of Rio-chan, the other is the sensual, seductive, all-woman side of Natsume-san. And, while she is a master of the former, Rio can't really pull off the latter consistently, so Missionary is a hit-or-miss affair.
Missionary is a two DVD set, disc one being the main feature and running about ninety minutes. Disc two contains a behind the scenes/making of featurette, as well as advertisements for some other gravure idol DVDs (including a couple of Hanai Miri releases). Nothing really too special on disc two: a pretty standard "making of" documentary. The director talks Rio through scenes, Rio chats with the crew members and make up people, she eats lunch and dinner, and generally seems to be a good sport about everything. It will not satisfy pervs who are just out for flesh, but for those who realise that Rio is not just a sex object, it's a nice, if uninventive look at the filming of the DVD.
Disc one is about double the length of the average running time for most gravure idol DVDs, which is a good point. Unfortunately, the DVD is uneven, with a few scenes being spectacular, and others falling flat, and most falling into the category of "Meh... its okay". There are over twenty different scenes on this disc, so I'll just go over the high points, low points, and WTF points.
High points of the DVD include Rio in some kind of leather and mesh bondage gear which she looks devastatingly sexy in -she usually can't pull off this kind of image, but nails it here. There's a nice laid back scene where Rio is in an outdoor (hot?) tub with water spilling in from a pipe on the wall. Rio proceeds to bathe herself, letting the falling water run over her impressive breasts while the camera zooms in for a close look. Another great scene is Rio indoors on a bed in an very nice bustier - as she crawls around the bed on all fours, it looks like she'll pop out of her top any second, but, of course, that never happens. More generally, I give wardrobe department a huge thumbs up - all of the bikinis, lingerie, and clothing that Rio-chan wears are very flattering and interesting. Of course, the fact they emphasize her magnificent boobs doesn't hurt either.
The main problem with this DVD stems from the awkward nature of some scenes. For example, in two scenes, Rio is called upon to wear a black cocktail dress and acts in a very sensual, sophisticated manner. Unfortunately, she looks like she trying a bit too hard in scenes like this - it comes across as a very forced. Sometimes, poor Rio looks like a deer caught in head lights! The other downfall of this particular package is the very slow, almost lackadaisical pace at which the scenes progress. Generally, it's a lot of still shots of Rio with very little movement - not playing to Rio's strength of being very energetic. Finally, they make up artist goes a little crazy sometimes, and masks Rio's natural good looks with too much make up. Fortunately, this isn't too much of an issue most of the time.
Finally, there are few strange scenes going on in here - one has Rio tied up by what appears to be clear, plastic tubing. While you do get some nice shots of her chest bulging outward through her restraints, the entire thing is just odd. The next is a scene where Rio paints her body with what looks like acrylic paint. Though she keeps her gold bikini on the entire time, she paints pretty much every inch of exposed skin except her face with multiple colours. Then, for the finale, she paints her name in romaji across her belly. I guess this is supposed to appeal to some kind of fetish, but I just couldn't understand what the point was: it wasn't really that sexy, and didn't appear to be that much fun.
The bulk of the DVD is pretty typical for a gravure idol video: lots of shots at the beach at various times of day, with different bikinis. They're nice, and Rio always looks good, but it's nothing overly inventive or clever, or anything you haven't seen before. While Missionary is a solid DVD, and Rio fans will like it, it's definitely not among her better works. I'd pick up the companion set, Cow Girl, first. Then, if you've got some cash left over, invest in Missionary.
