CAPSULE: Hentai Kamen: The Abnormal Crisis (2016, Dir. Yûichi Fukuda)

There is a film about a high school superhero who gains his power by putting used schoolgirl panties over his face, stalks about in fishnets and overpowers his enemies by shoving his mankini’ed crotch in their faces.

Now that you have this information, go forth and enjoy your life a little more.

What can I really say? Yûichi Fukuda’s film riffs cleverly off the Marvel model (even going so far as to flick through Keishû Andô’s manga images, Marvel Studios-style, in the pre-credits announcements).

Having dispensed with the origin story first time around, Hentai Kamen: The Abnormal Crisis settles quickly into its Spiderman-esque groove, with uni student Kyosuke (played again with impossibly abdominalled charisma by Ryohei Suzuki) attempting to hold down a pizza delivery job and to suppress his inner pervert. He’s doing better with the object of his affection, Aiko (Fumika Shimizu); she’s handed him control of her panties but still struggles with his pervert ways. But when panties mysteriously start to disappear, old tensions (and old nemeses) flare up.

HK’s allure isn’t in its plotting though. It’s the random, sweetly perverted premise that will rope people in and it has the (fishnetted) legs to sustain the fun throughout. No matter how repetitive Kyosuke’s angst gets (and it’s a lot more controlled here than in the previous effort), there’s always room for another shot of his balls smacking into someone’s face while he screams with delight. Even when the whole thing devolves into ‘Mighty Morphin Power Rangers’ level camp, the tongue in cheek antics elicit constant giggles.

Just plain, prettily-pantied, silliness.

★★★☆

Trailer: