Tag: female harem

Maken-ki!

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Fanservice harem series, combined with a panty-fighter plot.

Characters

Takeru, our perverted male lead. The big girls’ high school in his hometown has just turned co-ed (wait, again with that plot ?), so he enrolls thinking this is the perfect opportunity to score. The problem is that nobody told him this was actually an academy for magic fighters (cue impenetrable magibabble about “Maken” and “Elements”, whatever they are), and that things go a bit pear-shaped when he’s asked to participate in a demonstration during the entrance ceremony.

Haruko, Takeru’s childhood friend, vice-president of the student council and his dorm’s supervisor. Typical tsundere material, trying to maintain her composure and showing definite signs of jalousy when any other girl approaches Takeru.

Kodama, a girl who recognizes Takeru as her sworn enemy because he bears a weird tatoo (and not because she knows him or anything).

Inaho, another girl who rushes to save Takeru (before Haruko can intervene) and claims he’s her perfect partner. She then immediately moves into his room. Not to be left off, the other two immediately do the same. (It’s a big room.)

Production Values

Between the camera angles and the character designs, it’s physically impossible for the camera not to show any panties when it doesn’t focus on faces. Seriously, at least one shot in two features prominent panties. To say it’s gratuitous and distracting… would be completely missing the point of this series, really.

What did I think of it ?

Every season needs its terrible fanservice-fest, right ? Well this is Fall’s. The plot is stupid, the fight scenes don’t flow well because of the camera’s fixation on panties, and the characters range from the flat to the utterly loathsome (urgh, the main lead…). There’s nothing of interest whatsoever here, and the result is so contemptible it’s not even entertaining in its awfulness.

A strong contender for worst show of the season.

via [In which I review] New anime, Fall 2011 – Page 5.

I Don’t Have Many Friends (Boku ha Tomodachi ga Sukunai)

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Harem comedy, although the accent’s clearly more on the “comedy” side of the scale. Adaptation of a series of light novels (which are also known under the bizarre acronym of “Haganai“).

The premise : a group of loners decide to form a high school club together, because it’s the only way for them to get friends. Basically, think Haruhi Suzumiya without the paranormal aspect.

Characters

Kodaka, our male lead, and a transfer student since one month. Made the worst first impression EVER by arriving so late on his first day that it looked liked he was assaulting the teacher when he rushed into the classroom. It doesn’t help that he has natural halfbreed blonde hair ; everyone thinks he’s a delinquent. As a consequence, he has no friends.

Yozora, a taciturn girl with no friends. Kodaka surprises her alone in a classroom talking with her “air friend”, which is works about the same way as an air guitar (yes, it’s as pathetic as it sounds, although Kodaka doesn’t have much ground for criticism given that I’m pretty sure he did the same thing in one of his flashbacks). When she and Kodaka discuss their situation, and note that joining a club this late in the schoolyear won’t work to make friends. So she decides to create her own (with a coded message in the poster that explains exactly what the club is about), and forcefully enrolls Kodaka in it.

Sena, the first applicant, who also has no friends. This might seem surprising, considering she’s beautiful, has great grades, is super-awesomely athletic, and the daughter of the school’s owner ; the problem is that all the boys become complete sycophants around her, and all the girls hate her for exactly the reasons stated above. This includes Yozora, who does her best to try and deny her entrance into the clubroom.

Presumably, more characters are going to join shortly, if the credits sequences and the OVA are any indication.

Production Values

Wait, does this share a character designer with Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko ? *Checks* Indeed it does ; I knew I’d recognized this way of depicting girls’ arousal/sexyness/blushing/whatever-it-is. Anyway, this looks perfectly okay, but visuals aren’t really the point.

What did I think of it ?

I didn’t came into this expecting much (especially after the ultra-confusing, in-media-res OVA with inexplicable Index cameo), but this surprised me by how genuinely funny it was. The characters display actual wit, and have great chemistry together. The comedic timing is impeccable. It’s also surprisingly light on romance so far ; the focus is clearly on the characters’ psychology and their interplay. This pleases me.

A very pleasant surprise.

via [In which I review] New anime, Fall 2011 – Page 4.

Persona 4 – The Animation

(25 episodes)

What’s it about ?

The anime adaptation of a cult videogame… which I’ve never played (I don’t own a PS2).

The plot, as much as I can discern so far : a few high-schoolers living in a little town in the middle of nowhere discover they can enter TVs into a parallel world where they fight monsters (the game’s a RPG with heavy visual-novel/dating-sim overtones, from what I’ve understood).

Characters

Narukami, the player character. As such, he has no personality whatsoever and speaks as little as possible. He’s going to live in Littletown for a year with his uncle (conveniently a senior detective, thank you conservation of cast !) because his parents are busy abroad. He gets weird dreams and voices talking to him, eventually leading him to walk into a giant-screen TV in the local mall. There, a passing friendly monster helpfully gives him glasses that allow him to summon a giant avatar to fight nasty beasties. It has to be said that the glasses make him look 200% more badass.

Hanamura, the token perverted best friend. Son of the mall’s owner, and only here for six months. Part of the initial party, although all he’s done so far is freak out and piss himself.

Chie, the tomboy. You can tell she’s important because she wears a bright green sweater instead of the dull grey school uniforms of nearly everyone else in the class. Also part of the initial party.

Konishi, a quiet girl who seems as the center of things : she discovered the corpse of a gory murder, and the “girl in the haunted TV channel” urban legend looks a lot like her.

Production Values

This series has one of the best opening sequences of the year… despite having spent no budget on it whatsoever (it’s just geometrical shapes intercut with snippets of the prologue -our protagonist coming to Littletown in train). But the tune is very catchy indeed. (Same deal with the ED.)

I’d love to say that the same sense of style permeates the episode… but alas, no. The soundtrack alternates between the quite good and the ill-timed ; and there’s something slightly off with the rhythm of most scenes. It feels… very visual-novelly, for lack of better term ; characters exchange dialogue in a slightly disjointed fashion that makes it look like a direct adaptation of the original game’s VN scenes (although I have no clue whether the game was actually like that).

I love a lot of the stylistic quirks here (such as the calendar shots to mark the passage of time), but it doesn’t quite click.

What did I think of it ?

Well, it’s more than a bit rough, but I can’t quite fault a show for trying to be a bit stylish and falling slightly short of the mark. It’s certainly got atmosphere, and I’m interested in where the dating-sim-meets-dungeon-crawl story is going.

We’ll see how it goes from here.

via [In which I review] New anime, Fall 2011 – Page 4.

Pure White Symphony ~ the color of lovers ~ (Mashiro-iro Symphony)

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Yet another date-sim adaptation. The hook here, if you can call it that, is that a previously all-girls high school is starting to let boys enroll.

Characters

Shingo, our generic male lead. As blandly nice as you’d expect.

Sakuno, his sister. She’s more than a bit mentally-challenged, and easily gets lost. Or distracted. I hope she doesn’t have a route, but considering how she’s unaware that they may be a bit too old to bathe together…

Airi, daughter of the principal, and vehemently against boys enrolling. We also get to see her nice side when she helps Sakuno get unlost.

We don’t get to see much of the rest of the cast. The obligatory pervert best friend isn’t actually that perverted, there’s a girl that spends her whole screentime sitting in the grass cuddling a bizarre cat-thing, and somehow the high-school’s got a maid.

Production Values

Perfectly okay, but the character designs are typical date-sim fare : colorful and immediately forgettable.

What did I think of it ?

A pretentious opening prologue about the color of love. Half the episode spent on Sakuno being lost. A dramatic cliffhanger where Airi announces she’s against dudes in the school. This is a joke, right ? A parody of how bland and devoid of stakes the genre has become ? But alas, no, this is played entirely straight throughout, and the show really expects us to care about its hackneyed premise.

I don’t care, and neither should you.

via [In which I review] New anime, Fall 2011 – Page 4.

Maji de Watashi ni Koi Shinasai!

What’s it about ?

Darned if I know. The story focuses on a school where quarrels between classes are solved through massive martial art battles – this episode’s campaign between classes S and F involves more than 500 combatants on each side. But somehow, despite this episode being an extended fight scene, it looks like we’re heading for a harem setup. Sigh.

Characters

The cast is absolutely massive : discounting the red shirts, there’s at least 10 apparently important characters on each side. Very few of them get any depth, obviously.

Yamato, our de-facto protagonist, is the tactical coordinator for class F. He’s quite good at it (with assistance from the geek squad), but completely crap in an actual fight. He’s been harbouring for years a love for…

Momoyo, whom supplementary material assure me is NOT his sister, despite him addressing her as such throughout. But they’ve been childhood friends for so long that she simply cannot see him that way. She’s a superb martial artist, one of the “Great Four” (whatever that means), and decided to side with class S just because. Frankly, they do need her.

Hideo is the leader of class S, and as such the main target. He’s an arrogant moron, and you won’t be surprised when he’s defeated because of terrible tactical choices made through overconfidence. (There’s a limit to how much his underlings can cover for).

Class F’s top fighters include a set of four elite female champions who all seem to pine for Yamato ; as well as Hideo’s sister, for some reason. Their “leader” is a completely inept girl who needs permanent care.

Class S also has a set of sub-commanders who do all the work… and an entire squad of girls dressed as maids, for some reason.

There are two weird women (one of them covered in bandages) hovering on the sides of the fight and apparently looking for Momoyo. They’re our only clue of a wider plot being around.

Production Values

Mostly okay. I’ve never been been fond of the “still shot after a martial art move” cost-cutting device, but it’s not used too much as to be grating.

This is surprisingly low on fanservice, despite most females wearing bloomers and some clothing damage being implied half-way through. Indeed, the only character who spends most of the episode half-naked is Hideo.

What did I think of it ?

What. The. Heck ?

I’m really not sure what to make of this. The school battles are decently executed, but don’t feel like they can sustain a whole series (cf. also BakaTest). The sheer number of named characters makes it hard to care about most of them. The romance stuff makes me roll my eyes. And I have no clue what the deal with the two women is.

I’m tentatively giving it one more episode to see whether a coherent direction emerges, but this seems like a mess.

via [In which I review] New anime, Fall 2011.

C³ (Cube x Cursed x Curious)

What’s it about ?

Generic harem show where the male lead receives a big box with a weird girl in it.

Characters

Haruaki, said male lead. As generic as you could expect. His (offscreen) father is a collector of weird stuff and apparently built the house so that it’d be flooded with positive vibes. I’m not quite seeing it.

Fear, the girl in the box. Completely unfamiliar with modern civilization, she claims to be the personification of negative emotions or whatever. In practice, think the destructive potential of Squid-Girl, but without any of the charm. She’s really, really annoying, and the corny ending to the episode where Haruaki learns she’s not that bad rings horribly false to me.

Konoha, Haruaki’s childhood friend who happens to live in another part of the house (it’s more than hinted that she used to be somewhat like Fear way back when they first met). She fits the archetype perfectly.

The ED (or the OP played at the end, who knows) suggests that there’s a third girl involved (of course !), but she’s yet to show up.

Production Values

This is a Silver Link production, aka the people who did BakaTest. It certainly shows, with tons of little showy effects to liven things up visually in a SHAFT-lite style. It doesn’t help, especially given how much they focus on Fear’s panties (to say nothing of her way too long nude scene).

What did I think of it ?

This is rubbish. I’m not entirely averse to harem shows, but they live and die on their charm (see Asobi ni Iku yo! for a good example). This has no charm whatsoever, and is just painful to watch (especially any scene with Fear… which is about 90% of the episode).

Avoid like the plague.

via [In which I review] New anime, Fall 2011.

R-15

What’s it about ?

The Academy of Inspiration, where teenage geniuses from every possible field are gathered to cultivate their talent. Also, smut.

Characters

Taketo, our protagonist. He’s the best at what he does, and what he does is… writing porn novels. Since middle school. No, really, that’s the plot. Obviously, all his female classmates tend to view him with disgust… which isn’t unwarranted, considering how whenever he looks at one of them, he starts imagining them in porn scenarios and writing it in his notebook (when he’s not dreaming aloud). From what we can see of it, his output is cliché-ridden purple prose that sounds more laughable than arousing.

Ritsu, genius mathematician, his best friend, aka the Gay Option. He’s very defensive of Taketo, despite the guy not deserving it at all.

Raika, genius photographer, seems to be the only girl who genuinely likes Taketo and his perversion. They’re both in the Newspaper Club, and as such are tasked with interviewing…

Fukune, genius clarinette player. You’d think she’d be perfect fodder Taketo’s writing, but he’s actually somehow unable to write anything smutty about her (although he can still write cliché-ridden magical girl stories about her). Of course, his attempts at getting close to her are a complete disaster, given his (well-deserved) reputation.

The campus is filled with geniuses in every possible field. We’ve got a genius inventor (whose rockets coincidentally always seem to target Taketo…), a genius idol singer… and even a genius narrator who delivers a complete summary of Taketo’s life story. Which is admittedly the one genuinely funny joke in the whole episode.

Production Values

Average, and of course with tons of fanservice. We get to see a good number of Taketo’s fantasies, and it’s no wonder some of them are heavily censored.

Overall Impression

Dear gods, that was painful. Setting aside the repulsive premise and the bland characters, it commits the worst sin possible for a comedy : it’s not funny in the slightest.

I’d say this was easily the worst show in the season (yes, worse than pedo-bait Ro-Kyu-Bu), but there’s still three to go and at least one of them looks like a strong contender. But it’s certainly down there with the worst things I’ve ever watched.

via [In which I review] New anime, Summer 2011 – Page 7.

Mayo Chiki!

What’s it about ?

Ordinary high school dude discovers that the butler of his very rich classmate is actually a girl in drag. Hilarity ensues.

Characters

Jirou, our protagonist. His mother has left the country in search of something that’d challenge her in a fight, and his little sister’s routine to wake him up involves beating him to a pulp, so he has no problem taking a punch ; an ability that is sure to come handy. He’s afflicted with a bizarre allergy that makes him nosebleed when touched by a girl (and pass out on prolonged contact), so of course his repeated avoidance of anything female makes everyone think he’s gay.

Kanade, the super-rich girl whose Daddy owns the school. She looks like the perfect girl, but her demure exterior hides a grade-A sadist with no shame whatsoever.

Subaru, Kanade’s butler. Who’s secretly a girl, as part of those weird contrived family traditions that come up all the time in anime. Jirou stumbles on her in the male bathroom and accidentally learns his secret, which is only the beginning of his troubles. She wants to “get rid of the evidence”, of course, but Kanade eventually makes a deal between the three of them to keep all this a secret.

We catch a glimpse of various other side-characters, such as the mandatory lecherous best friend or the random cat-eared girl, but they don’t matter much yet.

Production Values

Average, and with a hefty dose of fanservice through convenient clothing damage. Nothing to write home about, although I quite like the soundtrack.

Overall Impression

I was all set to hate this, as the premise is unoriginal crap replete with clichés. But it surprised me by being actually quite funny : the jokes are well-timed, Kanade gets all the best lines (“The nurse left after I slapped her repeatedly with a bundle of cash”), and Jirou gets some decent sarcastic one-liners. Even Subaru’s not as irritating as her archetype (“supposedly strong girl who melts when the protagonist touches her”) would suggest.

Don’t mistake me, this is still crap. But it’s entertaining crap, and I’m perfectly willing to give it at least one other episode (although the next-episode-preview seems designed to make me reconsider by foreshadowing even more contrived stupidity).

via [In which I review] New anime, Summer 2011 – Page 5.

Aria the Scarlet Ammo (Hidan no Aria)

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

In the near future, random terrorism has become such a problem that there’s now an academy devoted to training mercenaries from elementary school onwards.

Characters

Kinji, our high school boy protagonist. While he spends most of the episode whining about wanting to quit the mercenary school, he suffers from a bizarre medical condition that alters his behaviour to one of a cliché action hero when he gets to excited. Anyway, on his way to school he discovers someone planted a bomb on his bicycle, and he’s stalked by killer Segways. He’s saved at the last minute by…

Aria, aka the standard Rie Kugimiya-voiced tsundere loli. The variation here is that, like nearly every character in this setting, she’s armed to the teeth. (How does she hide those katanas behind her back ? They’re taller than her torso !) She makes her entrance by parachuting off a skyscraper in a scene that was probably meant to look cool but just ends up making no sense whatsoever.

Shirayuki, Kinji’s “friend” who does all his domestic chores for him, in the hopes he’ll take the hint. (He doesn’t.)

We get to see a few more characters at school, but none of them rise above the usual stereotypes for now. There’s even a teacher who spends all his screentime delivering a lecture describing the setting to students who presumably already know all this stuff.

Production Values

Some decent action sequences, but the most striking thing here is the rampant fanservice, with every single girl being heavily sexualized and our protagonist landing into more chests than reasonable.

Also, gun porn. Lots of gun porn.

Overall Impression

What the heck is this shit ?

The writers probably find it clever to have the protagonist complain at length about the premise. It’s not ; it’s just bloody irritating and makes me loathe him. His plot-convenient MPD and the harem hijinks don’t help one bit.

Some people might get some entertainment from crazy shit such as the killer Segways, but this kind of manufactured zaniness just rubs me the wrong way. Avoid.

via [In which I review] New anime, Spring 2011 – Page 12.

Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko (“Electromagnetic Wave Woman and Adolescent Man”)

(12 episodes ?)

What’s it about ?

A standard harem protagonist who did not get the memo that he was in a SHAFT production.

Characters

Makoto Niwa, our protagonist. In a reversal from the usual cliché set-up, he moves from the countryside to the city, which he hopes’ll allow him access to more than the few girls at his former school. Fortunately he keeps being sidetracked by the weirdness around him, so he’s not too annoying.

Meme Touwa, his aunt, with whom he moves in at the start of the episode. She seems to purposefully cultivate her looks and childish personnality to look younger ; and it works, as I wouldn’t have pegged her as 39. Her more bizarre trait, though, is how she deliberately ignores…

Erio Touwa, apparently Meme’s daughter. Or an alien, if one believes the nonsense she keeps babbling. She spends most of the episode wrapped inside a mattress, looking like a sushi roll. Which somehow doesn’t prevent her from ordering and eating pizza.

Production Values

This is actually remarkably free of SHAFT-isms, aside from Makoto often tilting his head backwards. As a result, it’s quite bland-looking.

Overall Impression

Meh. It’s far less weird than I’d been given to think, which is quite disappointing. While there’s some good comedic timing here and there, a lot of jokes are just lost in translation, and it’s just not very funny. The romance angle’s not very interesting either.

I’ll probably persevere with it for a couple more episodes because I’ve discovered myself to be a huge SHAFT-whore (see also : me sticking with Maria Holic Alive despite loathing it), but this isn’t a very promising first episode.

via [In which I review] New anime, Spring 2011 – Page 11.