Hentai Kamen: The Abnormal Crisis
Japan 2016
Written by Yûichi Fukuda
Directed by Yûichi Fukuda
Watched on 24.09.2016

In my review of the first one, I stated my hope that they will come up with some fresh ideas for the sequel, since I already felt the first one a little lacking in that department, with the same gags repeated over and over again, making it a little stale after a while. Fortunately, that is exactly what they did, which is why overall, I had even more fun with “The Abnormal Crisis” than with the first one.

Like with its predecessor, as a huge fan of superhero movies, my favorite parts where the ones where they straight-out parodied “Spider-Man 2”. Take the credits sequence, for example, that features drawings of the first one that, together with Kyosuke’s narration, recount the events of the first one. Sounds familiar? There are many more allusions to Sam Raimi’s second Spider-Man film, however, I really don’t want to give any of them away. Let’s just say, if you recall said movie really well, quite a few scenes should feel familiar. Those parodistic elements, for me, get even better by the fact how absurd and far out the “Hentai Kamen”-movies are. The Spider-Man films are as mainstream, inoffensive and family friendly as they can get, while this is… not (even though I guess that depends on the family). Which, to me, made it all the more hilarious. But even apart from that, there again is a lot to enjoy about “The Abnormal Crisis”. The basic idea works quite well even the second time around, which is mostly due to the fact that they really came up with a lot of new ideas, new movies for Hentai Kamen, new opponents, et cetera, which made this one a lot more rich in variety, and thus entertaining. Also, the plot twist this time around worked way better than in the first one. I also enjoyed that, unlike the first one, Aiko gets a little bit to do, instead of just being a simple damsel in distress. And once again, there were many truly hilarious scenes. My only complaint is the prolonged stay with the hermit. While, of course, an essential part of many superhero journeys (which is also the one part of the movie where this feels less like “Spider-Man 2” and more like “Batman Begins”, which was quite an interesting combination), and again with a couple of nice ideas and funny moments, it brought the movie to a complete stop, and went on a little bit too long for my taste. All in all, though, “The Abnormal Crisis” was even more funny and entertaining than the first one. Thus, I’ll gladly watch Hentai Kamen hand out justice for as long as they keep making them.
8/10

IMDB