Angel Guts: High School Co-ed

Angel Guts: High School Coed (1978) from Tuna

"Jokôsei: tenshi no harawata" was the first in the Angel Guts series from Nikkatsu Corporation. This series, and a brief history of Japanese soft-core porn is covered in the review of Red Porno. Having acquired a popular series of Mangas by Takashi Ishii, Nikkatsu meant this to be a big deal compared to their previous Roman Porn efforts, and went out of their way to make it shocking, and to establish a unique identity for the series, for example by having many dramatic scenes punctuated by heavy rain. The screenplay was written by Toshiharu Ikeda, and it was directed by Chusei Sone, who would later win an award for directing Angel Guts: Red Classroom.

Unlike the others in the Angel Guts series, Coed does not feature Nami as the central character. This particular story centers around three young hoodlums, who together comprise a motorcycle gang, but have only two motorcycles among them. Their chief recreation is running down cars with affluent-looking passengers, one male and one female. They then rob the man and two of them rape the woman. The third one doesn't participate in the rape. Whatever the reason for that, it is a sore subject with him. One of the three takes care of a kid sister (Megu Kawashima) who's in junior high. She is with him when he runs into his two buddies, who are about to rape Nami (Machiko Ohtani). Big bro stops the rape to keep his sister from finding out what a creep he is, which causes a huge rift in the gang. Finally, while the gang leader is having sex with his girlfriend, the brother agrees to rape Nami to make up for his previous actions. After the scheduled rape, the gang leader wants his turn, but our man develops a conscience, preventing it. The gang leader then seduces the kid sister to get even.

I will leave the final odd twists for you to discover.

DVD INFO

Available Subtitles: English
Available Audio Tracks: Japanese
High School Co-ed, Red Classroom, Nami, Red Porno, Red Vertigo
Seven exclusive director's interviews
Five feature-length commentaries
Original sleeve art
Original trailers
Bios/filmographies

NUDITY REPORT

Breasts from Megu Kawashima, Tokuko Watanabe, Machike Ohtani, and an unidentified actress

The Critics Vote ...

There are no major reviews online. Three specialty sites are linked from the IMDb page.

The People Vote ...

IMDB summary. The IMDb score is statistically meaningless (18 votes).

The meaning of the IMDb score: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence equivalent to about three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, comparable to approximately two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, equivalent to about a two star rating from the critics, or a C- from our system. Films rated below five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film - this score is roughly equivalent to one and a half stars from the critics or a D on our scale. (Possibly even less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

Our own guideline:

A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre.
B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. Any film rated B- or better is recommended for just about anyone. In order to rate at least a B-, a film should be both a critical and commercial success. Exceptions: (1) We will occasionally rate a film B- with good popular acceptance and bad reviews, if we believe the critics have severely underrated a film. (2) We may also assign a B- or better to a well-reviewed film which did not do well at the box office if we feel that the fault lay in the marketing of the film, and that the film might have been a hit if people had known about it. (Like, for example, The Waterdance.)
C+ means it has no crossover appeal, but will be considered excellent by people who enjoy this kind of movie. If this is your kind of movie, a C+ and an A are indistinguishable to you.
C means it is competent, but uninspired genre fare. People who like this kind of movie will think it satisfactory. Others probably will not.
C- indicates that it we found it to be a poor movie, but genre addicts find it watchable. Any film rated C- or better is recommended for fans of that type of film, but films with this rating should be approached with caution by mainstream audiences, who may find them incompetent or repulsive or both. If this is NOT your kind of movie, a C- and an E are indistinguishable to you.
D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. We don't score films below C- that often, because we like movies and we think that most of them have at least a solid niche audience. Now that you know that, you should have serious reservations about any movie below C-. Films rated below C- generally have both bad reviews and poor popular acceptance.
E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre.
F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well.

Based on this description, this film is a C on our scale. Of course, it's a specialty genre which mainstream audiences may find repulsive, but if you like shocking cinema, and can deal with brutal rape, you might want to give the series a try. It shouldn't bore you.