Unpolished Netsuzo Trap Review
If this series had a different title, would its reception be different? The -NTR- in the title seems inflammatory. In some ways, this fortwrightness about its central themes may be appreciated. However, this Yuri Ecchi romance does have a little more to it going on than just Infidelity.
However, maybe a title change wouldn't salvage much. The production quality is notably low quality and stilted, with a limited ost. The shortform nature of the series, 12 9 minute episodes is also complicating, though with 2 minutes of each of those being relegated to OP/ED, it is even less. I feel its difficult to be too hard on something of its nature, since most anyone can see these things going in. At its most interesting, this format exacerbates the repetition of the first half and little else.
Worst foot forward, the first six episodes are largely directionless and somewhat of a bore. Yuma is an unfortunate mix of passive and oblivious for a protagonist, and her boyfriend, Takeda, is presenceless and seems to exist perfunctorly to be someone to cheat on. The narrative is firmly driven solely by Hotaru's advances. Hotaru's sexual desire for Yuma is obvious to the audience from the start, making her excuses of "pranking her gal friend" and "kissing her for experience with her real boyfriend" all the more unbelievable, and Yuma all the more passive for believing them. This set of episodes involve double dates with Hotaru kissing Yuma at every opportunity out in the open. Yuma's lack of pushback or much of any reaction to Hotaru's advances renders any escalation in explicitness inert. Yuma reacts with the same dazed confusion to being kissed by her best friend to having her massage her naked body. Even for an ecchi series it seems oddly detached.
However, the second half of the series is less dull. Her own perfunctory relationship with Boyfriend Character over, Yuma becomes a more active character in pursuit of the "side of Hotaru she doesn't know", while Hotaru's own relationship leads her to withdraw her advances. This inversion brings the longing and repression the first half was missing shrper into focus. As an active seductress, Hotaru was free to toy with Yuma however she wanted, the main barrier being their Underdeveloped Heterosexual Commitments. With her relationship with Takeda basically shelved, the degree to which the series is directly aiming for the NTR label as its driving force becomes less assured.
Yuma's growing fascination with Hotaru's Darkness drives the narrative now. The intial incident of working at a catgirl cafe, while vaguely skeevey, is left largely unconclused. More interestingly, Hotaru's own insecurities take center stage. Her advances at Yuma mostly coming from jealously and a desire for attention. Hotaru's Boyfriend Fujiwara has been present throughout the series, but is central to understanding this. An openly misogynistic playboy, he takes photos of them, propositions threesomes, and attempts blackmail. It is impplied that Hotaru largely withdrew from Yuma to keep her safe from him to some extent. Hotaru's cavalier attitude towards sexuality seems largely influenced by how she's been treated as a sex object by her boyfriend and the perverts at her job, an idea the series unfortunately does not commit fully to exploring.
Unfortunately, Fujiwara can also be seen as a conveinent antagonist in this sense. Him repeatedly physically assaulting Hotaru really stamps out any guilt for these girl's infidelity, and yuma discovering it in the penultimate episode (by coincidence) leaves the Good Ending quite apparent. Likewise, while Takeda becoming Yuma's wingman is somewhat cute, his dating advice to her leading to a sudden Brain Blast realization that her feelings ARE romantic for her Girl Friend feels notably abrupt and unearned. It's only in the last half an episode where what is truly interesting about the premise really takes center stage.
Hotaru rejects Yuma's open confession because "girls dating would cause problems." in a large part, the netorare aspect of the series plays second fiddle to being a series about compulsory heterosexuality. Neither girl truly loves the boy they're dating, nor can they reconcile the line between what is romantic and what is sexual for them. Fujiwara's general misogyny and homophobic attempts to "make them like men" also adds to this. While the girls finally confess and kiss, the credits roll immediately after, and theres no true sense of conclusion to this narrative.
This series failure may not ultimately be in its failure to appeal to general audiences, a task it was never going to achieve, but in being too tame to engage in its most interesting elements. Too often does it pull back from the elements of its story, even of its title, that would make it a fully fledged "toxic" yuri. That the lead is too unobservant as to ask the girl who has repeatedly fondled her who she's cheating with is ultimately indicative of the series as a whole- repression and denial can only take a story so far if the authenticity that lies beneath is so minimum.
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