La Blue Girl (淫獣学園 La☆Blue Girl, Injū Gakuen La Blue Girl, roughly “Lewd Beast Academy: The Blue Girl”) is an erotic anime and manga series by Toshio Maeda. Like Maeda’s other hentai series (e.g., Urotsukidōji), La Blue Girl features a large amount of tentacle rape. It departs somewhat from its predecessors, however, by lightening the atmosphere with humor, lightly parodying the “tentacle hentai” genre.

An immensely successful series, La Blue Girl has inspired, over the years, several OVA series for a total of 14 episodes, a comic book adaptation, three live action movies, some PC games and some art books.

Story

The story involves various ninja clans in a constant state of war with one another. The female protagonist is Miko Mido, a young ninja-in-training and the next leader of the Miroku ninja clan. This clan has control over the Shikima, a perverted race of sex-hungry demons led by Miko’s father, the Shikima Lord. However, when thieves steal the magic compact that grants the clan this power, Miko has to fight the Shikima, utilizing her “sexcraft” ninjutsu in order to save the world. The Shikima live in a parallel dimension called the Shikima Realm, and one must perform specific sexual rituals in order to travel there.

Original video animation (OVA)

La Blue Girl

Injū Gakuen / La Blue Girl (four episodes, 1992–93) is an adaptation of the original manga. Miko Mido is a teenage girl who is to be the next leader of the ancestral Miroku ninja clan. But the Suzuka clan steals the treasured compact that symbolizes the truce between the Miroku and the Shikima, a race of perverted otherworldly demons, and soon Miko has to use the sexual techniques of the Miroku to survive the assaults of the demons and protect her sister. After learning the truth behind her heritage and the identity of her true parents, she embarks on a journey to become a real Miroku ninja and would have to fight an ex-mistress-turned-traitor of the Miroku clan.

New La Blue Girl

Shin Injū Gakuen / New La Blue Girl (two episodes, 1993) adapts the end of the manga, and as such is a follow-up and the conclusion to Miko’s adventures in the first series. This time the enemies are Fubuki Kai, a rogue ninja who wants to defeat Miko and claim the title of best ninja, and the cybernetized survivors of the Suzuka clan.

Lady Blue

Injuu Gakuen EX (淫獣学園EX) a.k.a. Lady Blue (four episodes, 1994). Features an original story about two ghosts, Kyoshiro and Shanahime, harboring an old grudge against the Shikima and attacking several of Miko’s friends, including her first love.

Lady Blue is about Miko’s first love. Miko meets a young man named Hidemasa outside her apartment building and falls in love at first sight. Just when Miko thinks she can finally live like a normal girl and enjoy being in love, a mysterious female phantom appears in her school, sucking the life out of Miko’s pretty young schoolmates. Fubuki reports that something is very wrong in the Shikima realm. Miko’s parents are being tortured by the sound of flutes playing and no one knows why.

Miko and Fubuki investigate and find out that there is actually a love story behind it all, for the flutes belonged to a betrothed couple (Kyoshiro and Shanahime) 400 years ago, but treachery got in the way, so their love was never realized. The flutes are now cursed and Miko’s dream guy, Hidemasa, is kidnapped by the vengeful phantom of Shanahime in order to resurrect her Kyoshiro.

Compilation episodes

The first was a 90 minute compilation video of the first 4 episodes titled ‘Climax Taizen’, a 60 minute compilation video of the ‘Shin’ series titled ‘Ecstasy Taizen’ and a 60 minute compilation video of the ‘EX’ series.

La Blue Girl Returns

Injuu Gakuen Fukkatsu-hen (淫獣学園 復活篇, Injuu Gakuen Fukkatsu-hen) a.k.a. La Blue Girl Returns (four episodes, 2001) is an anime series that continues the adventures of Miko Mido. Another original story, this time about the legendary Shikima Brain, a place rumored to bring total power over the universe. It is coveted by the insectoid ninja clan of the Mahoroba and protected by a mysterious clan, who may have a relation with Miko’s previous life.

The plot begins when a race of butterfly-like demons named the Mahoroba want to enslave Miko Mido and her sister to steal the seal case that controls the Shikima. Their ultimate goal is to conquer the Shikima Brain, a legendary place of the Shikima realm which is said to confer the power to rule the universe.

Censorship issues

Censorship is practiced differently both in Japan and in the U.S. due to their different laws: Japanese law technically discourages showing of genital hair or explicit genitalia, while the United States is more concerned about forbidding the display of sexual acts involving people under 18. Hence, there are censoring mosaics in Japan and scene removals and different ages of characters in the U.S.

While not featuring the censoring mosaics of the original Japanese version, the U.S. release of La Blue Girl was edited during the initial VHS release and all scenes featuring Miko’s companion Nin-Nin engaged in a sexual act were removed, probably to avoid the charge of hebephilia.

For similar reasons, the age of the heroine was also altered: initially stated to be a 16-year-old high-schooler in the original Japanese version, she is an 18-year-old college student in the U.S. version. The various U.S. DVD releases contain this edited version.

In the U.K., the British Board of Film Classification famously refused to give it a certificate; meaning it was banned from release in the region.

Live action movies

• Injū Gakuen: Shikima-kai no gyakushū (Revenge of the Sex Demon King) (1994)
• Injū Gakuen 2: Mashō no hime tanjō jissha-hen (Birth of the Demon Child) (1996)
• Injū Gakuen 3: Kunoichi-gari (Lady Ninja) (1996)

Printed material

• La Blue Girl, Toshio Maeda’s manga of six volumes.
• La Blue Girl, a U.S. comic book by Matt Lunsford and José Calderon. It has the distinction of retelling the two distinctly separate story arcs of the first four episodes of the first anime series by merging them together, albeit with story changes to the plots of episodes 2 to 4. Whereas Toshio Maeda’s manga established him to be a young Shikima demon able to transform into an adult form, the U.S. series reveals that he is a product of his human mother’s rape by a Shikima, that she died giving birth to him, and that his dual heritage resulted in his deformed face, which is shown unmasked.
• The Graffiti book, a compilation of screenshots from episodes 1 to 4.
• The In no Shou and You no Shou art books contain screenshots and illustrations from La Blue Girl and Lady Blue.
• The Art Book of Injuu Gakuen / Youjuu Kyoushitu contains CG illustrations from the PC98 game.
• Rin Shin‘s art book contains illustrations used for the promotion of the series.
• A novelization of the OVA series (two volumes for episodes 1–5, and two volumes for the EX series) features a completely different plot, different characters (most notably the Ranmaru-Bosatsu duo) and a more sexualized and violent tone than the original.

Video games

• La Blue Girl for NEC PC-9801 and FM-Towns, featuring a different character design from the manga and the anime. The story is an adaptation of both the first volume of the manga and OVA: Miko’s friends at school are assaulted by demons and her professor is kidnapped and sent to their infernal dimension; Miko travels there and saves her; everyone goes back to Earth, where a final showdown is awaiting Miko at school. Gameplay-wise, it is a “digital comics” adventure game with some shooting phases (in a Snatcher fashion, and with shuriken instead of a pistol).
• La Blue Girl for Windows 95. The art is more faithful to the anime character design, while the story is an adaptation of the La Blue Girl EX OVA.

La Blue Girl
Title card
淫獣学園 La☆Blue Girl (Injū Gakuen La Blue Girl)
Genre	Hentai
Manga
Written by	Toshio Maeda
Published by	Leed-sha
English publisher	NA Manga 18
Demographic	Seinen
Original run	1989 – 1992
Volumes	6
Original video animation
Directed by	Kan Fukumoto
Written by	Toshio Maeda
Music by	Teruo Takahama
Studio	Dandelion
Licensed by	NA Critical Mass Video
Released	June 26, 1992 – July 9, 1993
Episodes	4
Original video animation
New La Blue Girl
Directed by	Kan Fukumoto
Written by	Toshio Maeda
Music by	Teruo Takahama
Studio	Dandelion
Licensed by	NA Critical Mass Video
Released	January 28, 1994 – March 25, 1994
Episodes	2
Original video animation
Lady Blue
Directed by	Kan Fukumoto
Written by	Megumi Ichiryu
Studio	Dandelion
Released	July 26, 1996 – November 8, 1996
Episodes	4
Original video animation
La Blue Girl Returns
Directed by	Hiroshi Ogawa, Kan Fukumoto
Written by	Megumi Hitosuyanagi
Studio	ARMS
Licensed by	NA Kitty Media
Released	May 25, 2001 – May 25, 2002
Episodes	4