Together with her two partners, Mikura is a mercenary that takes on deadly jobs. Unfortunately, her agency has been on the receiving end of bad luck, due to their jobs ending in failures. They're soon given a new task by a different client, which is the kidnapping of a baseball team owner. They're spotted during the job and attacked with lethal force, but are able to pull the job off. Afterwards, they learn that the owner is also an underworld mob boss with a very blood thirsty daughter named Momomi. Momomi seeks the identities of the kidnappers, with intentions on killing them and getting back her father.-summary
Mezzo Forte is another action oriented sleaze romp by none other than Yasuomi Umetsu himself, who also happens to be the director of Kite. Were the two films considered to be sisters, then Mezzo Forte would be the completely mindless one, who is all about the party and getting laid. Personally, I like to think of Mezzo Forte as Kite-Lite. However, it is not the least bit light when it comes down to the hardcore sex scenes. In fact, it actually blows away its sister title in that area. But for many viewers I know, that is not exactly a good thing.
Umetsu's storytelling leaves a lot to be desired. The story and the plot is incredibly flimsy and fairly predictable. Through the use of several distorted visions, Umetsu attempts to draw a connection between both Mikura and Momomi. As obvious and predictable this supposed twist may have been, it still supplied the anime with a bit of a foundation and provided a small amount of suspense. Unfortunately, instead of elaborating on this further, Umetsu took the low road and delivered hardcore sex scenes along with more action scenes, and as a result, the only interesting part of this story ended up as mere window-dressing. The story element took a back seat and wasn't even slightly developed. It was a total waste and served absolutely no purpose to the plot or the ending.
The characters are equally bland. Mikura's partners use the buddy cop gimmick, but I felt no real chemistry between them. Momomi is the only interesting character due to her mean streak. She kills for very small reasons, and she could have been the show stealer if given more screen time. The character was badly under used, and she came off as just another stock bad guy.
Mezzo Forte is pretty much blanketed with action. The action scenes consist of many hand to hand fights, and very bloody gun battles. The violence is very high with characters taking bullets in places you don't normally see, along with at least one very short torture scene. The animation is one of the strongest points, with decent character movements during the battles. I won't say that they have good choreography, but they get the job done. The sex scenes have a lot of detail. This is indeed a triple x feature, with scenes that can rival many of the hardcore titles out there. The viewer is in the front row seat for everything and nothing is left up to the imagination. There's only two scenes and they're among the most graphic I seen in anime. You get it all right here; threesomes, DP's, internal shots, just about everything. There's also quite a bit of fan service with no sex at all, and even one that features a shower scene with Momomi.
The artwork isn't on the same level as Kite at all. The character designs and backgrounds have a cartoony look. There was music present during the action scenes and such, but there was nothing that caught my ear. This also goes for the sound effects as well. The dialogue contains quite a bit of foul language, and some dirty talk during sex. The voice acting is pretty good for the dub, but it took awhile for Mikura to grow on me.
Many fans of this anime will have you believe that it's a mature title. Quite the opposite, there is nothing mature about it. The action scenes are incredibly far-fetched, with everyone possessing superhuman strength for unknown reasons. The sexual content is the stuff only teen boys will find cool, so they can get together and giggle about.
Mezzo Forte is one of those titles I came into on my quest to see every anime title ever made. It's one of those titles that I also wish I can unsee. It's also a big part of the reason along with Legend of the Overfiend and La Blue Girl why I hate this anime sub-genre to begin with. After this title, I stayed as far away from the genre as humanly possible. So I guess then I'll never see every anime title ever made.
Mezzo Forte is one of the best anime titles out there, if you want to turn someone new away from the genre. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone other than hentai (anime porn) fans. If you saw Kite and hated it despite the slight character development and story. Then you will despise this since it contains none of that. For further proof on this title, just take a look at the two sluts (on the alternate cover art) on the cover art and I rest my case. Mezzo Forte is a two episode OVA with a 60 minute run time. There's also an edited version that I have never seen, but I heard all of the sex scenes are gone and it's only five minutes shorter.
Pros:
-Visuals
-Action
-Ending plot twist
Cons:
-In your face unnecessary sex scenes
-Weak plot
-Weak music score
-Fairly predictable
