Night Shift Nurses

Night Shift Nurses (夜勤病棟) is a Japanese erotic visual novel by Mink, which has spawned a hentai anime series in 2000. The anime was released as ten censored OVAs (Original Video Animation), with two recap episodes (Episode 5.5 and Episode 10.5). The first five were released uncensored in North America in 2002, along with recap Episode 5.5. It is somewhat infamous for its very extreme depictions of sexual fetishes, including scat, bondage and torture. Several sequels of this series were made: two official ones, three OVAs and a live-action movie. However, only the first ten episodes can be considered canon.

Plot
Night Shift Nurses opens with Dr. Ryuji Hirasaka, a gynecologist, looking back on an event feature everyday objects and human wastes. In most cases, it is not until the second or third sexual encounter that the nurses are 'transformed' and succumb to whatever Hirasaka subjects them to. It is worth noting that, when compared with other hentai productions, Night Shift Nurses is somewhat different - that is, it is also a psychological drama. While Ryuji is indeed despicable, his 'victims' are unable to resist him and, later on, begin to visibly crave for his so-called experiments (aka. his infamous sexual plays).

Characters

 * Ryuji Hirasaka (比良坂 竜二)
 * The main character of the show. He is a gynecologist that, in the beginning, is employed in St. Juliana Hospital. He has a grim look, being tall, visibly lecherous and somewhat rude, but also capable of doing his profession. While being a pervert to the heart, his delusions come from a tragedy he witnessed in his university years, when he attempted to rescue a mortally wounded woman. From there, he began to think in a very twisted way, and it is unclear if this is only a compulsive love/hate of women or something else. The first scene of every episode of the first series depicts his death in a bloody mess, and this scene is later shown clear, when he is drugged and chased by a hysterical Narumi Jinguji and wounded with a scalpel, after that he falls to his apparent death. He survives, but is later killed by Ren Nanase.


 * In the second series, however, this is completely omitted as he is shown to be alive and well, albeit bound to a wheelchair.


 * Ren Nanase (七瀬 恋)
 * A nurse of St. Juliana Hospital, the first "victim" of Ryuji's depravities and the main female character. She was in love with one of his patients, a young boxer named Naoya Ohkawa, but soon fell into Ryuji's grasp and became an assistant of some sort of the doctor, sometimes providing him with information about the other nurses. A very sweet girl incapable of harming others, her change is somewhat the most tragic or dramatic at least, as she became melancholic at first, then submissive, and in the end accepted Ryuji's twisted love for her. At the climax of the series she discovered that she was pregnant with Ryuji's child. However, she was the one that killed her torturer for good, as when he was treated after Narumi's failed attempt did not kill him, she approached him, had sex with him, and just after their orgasm, stabbed his chest with a scalpel, turning the room into a grisly bloodbath.


 * Before this, it was revealed that Narumi told her a story of how she was subjected to Ryuji's "experiments" and later became pregnant, and how Ryuji killed her unborn child just for discovering it existed.


 * At the end of the series, her sanity came into question as, when arrested, she stated clearly that she truly loved Ryuji, and that she would keep their child.


 * Remi Shinjyo (新城 礼美)
 * Chief nurse in the maternity ward at St. Juliana Hospital, she is presented as extremely bossy and harsh, especially towards Ryuji, thus becoming the first nurse to experience the doctor's sadism to its extreme. She is not "clean" from the beginning, and Ryuji calls her a "killer nurse" from time to time: it is later explained that Remi is responsible for the death of a patient while under the knife, as she incorrectly administered the anesthetics. She's also the only one of the four Nurses who isn't a virgin, which is why Ryuji gives her such rude remarks as "Slut", and "Loose Whore".


 * While tortured and abused like the other nurses, she struggles to maintain her life and sanity until the very end, when she is forced to recollect everything from the beginning. This drives her mad, and her last scene depicts her laughing maniacally, her sanity completely lost while being interrogated by the police.


 * Ako Fujisawa (藤沢 亜子)
 * Extremely quiet, gentle and timid, Ako is another of the nurses that becomes a victim of Ryuji. She comes from an extremely wealthy family, something that the doctor uses at his advantage in blackmailing and tormenting his victim. During one of Ryuji's experiments, she almost dies when he electrocutes her with a defibrillator, but is saved by Ryuji. She starts to develop the same delusions towards Ryuji, mistaking and misinterpreting the torturous sexual and fetish experiments as "acts of love". She becomes a coprophile herself.


 * Alongside with Ren, she is another of the nurses that truly shows her love for Ryuji, as she is shown praying at his tomb while mourning for his death (this also shows that Ryuji died for good when Ren stabbed him).


 * Hikaru Kodama (児玉 ひかる)
 * The last of Ryuji's victims, another nurse that works in St. Juliana Hospital. Her sister Ai is also present as a patient. Ryuji uses Ai to his advantage, when he discovers that they arent blood related and that Hikaru was actually adopted. Ai never discovered this growing up, now being Hikaru's only family. Since Ai has a delicate heart condition, Hikaru feared the possibility of Ai to die in shock if this knowledge ever got to her ears. She is the last one to be approached and abused by Ryuji, but her tortures are by far the most obscene of the entire show. To further fuel the depravity in which she becomes entangled, she herself becomes addicted to coprophilia and other fetishes, such as enemas, coating herself with honey, eating her own excrements, and so on.


 * Probably she was the most addicted one to Ryuji's tortures, and she is seen glaring at Ren after she kills the doctor.


 * Narumi Jinguji (神宮寺 成美)
 * The current director of St. Juliana Hospital, and the very first victim of Ryuji's delusions when they were university students. Since then, she held a grudge against what Ryuji had done to her, but this is not showed in the beginning, as she herself provides the doctor with the information regarding the nurses that would become his victims. In the end, her desire for vengeance wins over her sanity, and she first drugs Ryuji and then tries to kill him, chasing him around the hospital with an insane grin. She is successful in stabbing him and throwing him from the roof of the hospital, and only then she turns her homicidal tendencies on herself, slicing her throat and plunging to death.


 * It was later revealed that when she told Ren that she was one of Ryuji's victims, she too was pregnant, but when she told him the news Ryuji indiscriminately tortured her to the point that she had a miscarriage and escaped into hiding for 10 years. Hearing this story lead to Ren finishing Ryuji off with a scalpel to the chest.


 * '''Akiko (明子)
 * A purple-haired nurse who is seen in almost every episode and often scorns Hirasaka for "eating in the room".


 * She is the only major nurse to not be subjected to Ryuji's sexual torture.