Guardian Hearts

I was in the mood for some light comedy so I picked up this anime Guardian Hearts. Some words of warning for you if you’re considering watching this as well, if you’re expecting something that makes sense or don’t like over the top echiiness and unrealistically huge breasts then stay away. If none of these things bother you at all, by all means read on! The story is incredibly confusing and nonsensical. The first five minutes are likely to have you staring at the screen trying to keep up while scratching your head saying "Huh?". I haven’t read any of the mangaso I don’t have any point of reference beyond what is presented in the anime. But basically they try to cram in all the back story and character introductions that might normally take a couple episodes in the space of a couple minutes. Thus you are left wondering what is really going on. Eventually you start to catch up and things begin to make at least a little sense, sometimes. The plot is standard harem echii fare, a guy suddenly finds himself living a bunch of really cute girls with various magical powers and who are all madly in love with him, and constantly fighting each other over him. The humor is completely random and silly and quite funny at times and really not at others. This is mostly due to the state of confusion you are in during most of the show. The anime also tends to try to do too many things as well. Its parody, romance, action, slice of life kind of all rolled up into one. The romance is really shallow but there are a few touching moments. Characters are about as stereotypical as you will find. This is not to say a lot of them don’t have some charm still but none of them are particularly deep or memorable and I can’t say you haven’t already seen these characters in other anime before. The biggest problem with Guardian Hearts is there are just way too many of them. The episodes are about 12 minutes in length and while they all basically just run together as one larger story, the total series is not long enough to be fair with the dozen or so characters it has. The animation and art is pretty much a mixed bag. Mostly it is just really inconsistent. The characters are all cute clothed, but when we start talking about all the echii shots, boobs, and other nudity they look silly. Apparently nobody wears bras that supports anything but boobs don’t move like that. They also don’t look like that either, trust me guys I have them and even if I strip naked and jump up and down on a trampoline they won’t move like that. I’ve got no problem with nudity but at least try to make it realistically possible. The action and magical battles on the other hand are nicely drawn though. The voice acting and music is solid though not spectacular. In the end I can’t really say I enjoyed Guardian Hearts that much. While it did make me laugh a number of times and it had a few romantic touches it was overall a below average anime. If you simply must watch every echii comedy out there or you’re a fan of the manga then there is likely to be something for you to enjoy here.