Hyakka Ryouran: Samurai Girls

Oh man.. It's another samurai harem. What's with Japanese people and turning historical figures into high school girls? Anyways, this anime series is based on a light novel series written by Akira Suzuki. Wait a minute. I know what are you wondering.. "Hey isn't the main male lead name is Muneakira?" Yes you're right. I mean if you're writing a story about a harem, wouldn't you want to be the center of it? And let's just add "Mune" to your name and nobody would even notice. (Yes, I know Mune can also mean breasts..) I really had high expectations with this one. No kidding. It's been along time since I've watch an anime about samurais. Unfortunately, as promising as this anime looks, here comes the hundreds of unnecessary fanservice and fillers to drown out the story. Oh sure, I'll like a few fillers now and then but they're rush the entire plot buildup right to the end of the series. Now on the positive side, the reason why I sticked to this anime (No it's not because of the fanservice...) it's the astounding art this anime brings forward. It's a bit nostalgic as this reminds me of the game I used to play about a b*tch.. Umm I mean about a wolf (Ookami was it?) Anyways, rarely I've seen an anime which uses the traditional ink style for all it's censorship and transition point however it gets annoying over time. I have no complaints about the sound either. And here comes the characters. What? Only three girls in his harem?? Lame.. However, all three of them have some useful personalities to assist with their ever useless male harem lead. And Im suprised there's more tsunderes than Ive expected! As usual, as the story develops, each girl had their chance to express their feelings to Mr "Breast" Akira here. Oh boy, once again the male harem lead is there as a wallflower for every battle. Every battle when you think Muneakira is going to take charge and battle, prepare to get disappointed. Remember, this anime is aimed for people who loves fanservice so they wouldn't want to see a guy in the battle now would they? Hey, at least he isn't dense unlike some other male harem leads. And what about the villains? Twisted as usual. Nothing new here. Personally, I quite enjoyed this anime. That's because unlike others, I did not take the story seriously from the start after watching a few episodes of fillers. If you're looking for a nice samurai story with a decent plot then go look elsewhere. As entertaining as this may be, I wont be watching it again as this sort of anime is where you watch it once and you're already content. I mean, can you watch 12 whole episode about "Love", "Honor", and "Bond" all over again? Overall, it's a good time killer if you have nothing better to do. Definitely a must watch anime for all you harem lovers. Just don't let the whole ideology of "Love and Honor conquers all" get stuck with you. Remember, an anime is an anime, and real life is just like an anime, without those big eyes. Haremu Kingu, Signing off..

Hyakka Ryouran: Samurai Girls isn't a series that I expected much from so I guess in a sense it exceeded my expectations. It is not the best series out there and it's not for everyone either, but it can be a good time waster. The series does have a plot but it only significantly advances in the final episodes. So like many ecchi comedies out there, there is very little plot and when there is it's pretty weak. However not every series requires a strong plot to succeed, in fact there are many series out there that are successful with no plot. Alla series really needs to do is satisfy it's viewers and I would say it satisfied me. There were a lot of attempts at comedy in this series, some worked and some didn't and there were some moments that were just hilarious. The artwork was really stunning and beautiful. The style of art seems really unique and the detail is just amazing, even in the background. The last couple of minutes of the final episode were full black in white which was visually pleasing to me too. The battle scenes are also well animated and looked nice too. I'm amazed at the amount of detail that were put into each one of them. Then there was the censoring. The ink dots that were used to censor inappropriate body parts could really get annoying especially when characters were moving around, since the dots would have to move with them. But it really depends on the person, some may be bothered by it and some may not be. The sound department did an okay job. The opening sounded great with an intense rock song to get you pumped up for action. The voices seemed to fit each character's role. There's really nothing else to say about the sound. To be honest, the characters could have been done better. Although the protagonist, Muneakira, may be unique in some aspects (he's a samurai for crying out loud), he seems a bit generic. He's useless and usually doesn't have a clue what's going on, yet somehow almost every girl manages to fall for him. I still don't the sick magic that makes girls fall for useless protagonists. Our main heroine,Jubei, actually has two sides, her normal form and her bad-ass form. She's usually only in her bad-ass form during battle, in this form she's really strong but also pretty smart as well. In her normal form she has a really innocent personality and refers to herself in third person to be cute. I like how both personalities contrast from each other. Of course a harem would not complete without our 2 love rivals, Sen and Yukimura. They both seem bland. Yukimura is our short, flat chested character she is a bit tsundere but at least it's not overly done. Then we got Sen, at first I hated her because of her jealousy but by the end she was tolerable. Both of these characters aren't bad but they both really don't have the qualities that separate them from your typical harem characters. We also have some side characters and they sometimes do add to the jokes in the series especially Kanetsugu but there's nothing really notable about them. The series as a whole however is enjoyable. Although some of the jokes weren't well executed the others were hilarious. The story might have been lacking but I really can't complain about that since these types of series tend not to have plots. It's definitely a good time waster Hyakka Ryouran: Samurai Girls is far from being a masterpiece but it managed to pass the time. Although it's not for everyone, the series manages to entertain and at the end of the day that's all I really ask of an anime.

'Hyakka Ryouran SAMURAI GIRLS' is the 40th anniversary media-mix project by Hobby Japan, a plastic model / video game magazine publisher. This series is an interesting watch because it's not only a "media-mix" as in franchise with products in multiple media platforms, it also feels like many popular anime series are mixed together. However, it represents everything that went wrong with today's anime industry. ART: Series like 'Gankutsuou', 'Mononoke', 'xxxHOLIC', 'Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei', and 'Yojouhan' have such distinctive and unconventional art style or character designs that you'll never forget once you've seen it. Sounds pretty cool, we should do it too! And there we have it, sumi-e (washpainting) style backgrounds, ink drops and brush strokes for censorship and scene transitions. I have to admit that the style was unique, background is visually pleasing, and there were couple of breathtaking scenes. However, this art style was executed very poorly in many aspects. For one, the character designs were rather ordinary and they looked out of place in the picture even with the thick outlines as a buffer. The presence of modern day gadgets and use of CG made it seem awkward at times because it did not conform to the era or the style. The censoring technique was fine in still pictures, but it was unsightly and annoying when character is moving because the way ink dots follow and disappear screams of "look at me! I'm different!" The action is cool, and labeling of people and attack move's names were done rather well though. The animation in this series will certainly be remembered, but it simply did not work for the most part. SOUND: Yagyuu Juubee's voice is really cool when she's transformed into Master Samurai, but sounded way too cute/loli despite her appearance in normal form. Muneakira sounds too girly for the macho hero who's supposed to be all about samurai honor. Otherwise, the side characters' voices were done pretty well and sound like they should. BGM was pretty generic. OP is a really good intense rock song, not only is it very catchy, it also had the Japanese flavor, and the vocal was amazing. STORY/CHARACTER: The title "Hyakka Ryouran" has two meanings. The first, more literal meaning is "Profusion of Flowers Blooming in Chaos", as in girls (flowers) of various (profusion) backgrounds are unlocked (blooming) into master samurai and wreak havoc (chaos). The second meaning is "Appearance of Abundant Talent in a Short Period", which describes the resurgence of Master Samurai after a considerable draught in awakening. This series has a great naming sense in its own title, and also the names of signature moves for each character. For example in Sen's "DenKouSekka", a lightning attack which reads "Lightning Fast" in Japanese, "Kou" is deliberately written in wrong kanji that has same pronunciation that means "Royalty". D'Artagnan's ice attack that seals enemy movement "Zettai Reido" means "Absolute Zero", but written "Absolute Slavery(Imprisonment)". A lot of moves have such creative names like that. However, the originality ends there. The setting is really, really bad. Sure, it's an alternate universe where the Shogunate rule survives, and there's zero Western influence in Japan, but then you have all the advanced technology (from the West) like air planes, cameras, and computers. It got so bad at one point that commando units holding guns were guarding ninjas and samurais. Talk about awkward. The premise is basically Evangelion ripoff, you have a chosen hero who unlocks the power of super-powerful beings to fight ones that want to end the world, and an organization trying to prevent that. The secretive organization functions through unethical practices (human experiments/sacrifices vs child labor), and yes, there was mass production of the super-beings to build up the force. Then all the characters were for manufactured harem. All the girl fighters except Sen have names of MALE historical figures or fictional characters of major literature with similar attributes. It's not even 'Sora no Otoshimono', and girls literally fall from the sky, and yes, one of the them is a cyborg. The initial villain is identical to Vegeta, he thinks he's above all others (emperors and kings), he does have a good purpose but uses any means to achieve his goals, he even wears a Power Level Scanner, and of course, he joins the hero and heroines in the end. There were many other similarities to DBZ, from "Her power level is over half a million!" to "They are far beyond our capabilities, we can only watch". The girls basically power up like Super-Sayan, and then a heroine even flies like one, before getting spirit bomb-like power recovery from allies. The whole action is like 'DBZ' meets 'Sengoku BASARA' with ridiculous power and constant yelling about love, honor, and justice. While this could've been quite funny if it was parody, there was nothing in this series to suggest that was the case. And there's these random fan-services with explosion ripping off girl's clothes, a girl wearing thongs all the time (historically some men did, but still...), dumb activation of power (kiss), and 'Sailor Moon' ripoff naked transformation. Character behavior in general made no sense, and things happen just to advance the plot. ENJOYMENT/OVERALL It's nearly impossible to create a completely original story or characters in this day and age. For example, one of the villains in this series also had a magical eye like Alpha Stigma, a ripoff of Geass, which is a modified Sharingan, which is a souped up version of Hiei's evil eye, and then you can trace that all the way back to Medusa. However, good storywriting can camouflage similarities well enough that they won`t be easily noticeable and bother us. On the other hand, the mix of themes and reference in this show is blatant and shameless. They are so poorly executed that the apparent lack of originality is obvious to the viewer. And then you have excessive moe and ecchi fan service, failed art style innovation, and manufactured harem environment to distract us from the flaws in story and production. Like many similar harem anime today, 'Hyakka Ryouran' was a very poorly produced and forgettable series. That said, the story is shallow and cliché, but it does have a good pace and some of the tried and true formula do work, and the action scenes are exciting. The show is a true mix of previous anime and lacks originality, but it does offer quick entertainment.

Hyakka Ryouran: Samurai Girls. “Oooooooooh, lookie-lookie! Another harem series rated with mild nudity!” --- Me I’ve been a fan of harem series as long as I can remember. I don’t know; maybe part of it was because it won’t happen for me in real life. I know I’m not the only one who projects themselves as the protagonist, and that’s why, maybe, I don’t watch shoujo series at all. Enough about me spouting nonsense. Let us proceed further into my review of Hyakka Ryouran: Samurai Girls. Story: 7 Hyakka Ryouran’s story isn’t that great. But the setting will pique a bit of your interest. Why? It’s because ofthe odd setting of the story. If you think that the story happened in the samurai era, which was in the past. You are wrong, mister. The story happens in the early 21st century, in an alternate reality where the Tokugawa Shogunate has remained in power. 21st century, meaning computers (in fact they’re using Microsoft OS on their computers), airplanes, trains, etc. exist. So don’t get confused. I like the fact of mixing modern and feudal-era in the story. The setting is unique in its own way. As for the story, a girl mysteriously appears in front of him descending from the sky and steals his first kiss. And voilà, he gained one of the girls he’ll be adding into his arsenal of samurai babes! There’s more to it than that of course. Buuuuuuuuuuut! You halfta’ watch the series yourself to understand it more. Considering that Hyakka Ryouran has only 12 episodes, (second season not included) it is in fact very short. The story’s really easy to grasp so you don’t have to worry about it. You can say I’m lazy for not telling you the plot. Half of its true, half of it is I just don’t want to spoil you. Art: 9 Hyakka Ryouran’s art is great. Or it’s just a biased opinion of silly self. Either way, Hyakka Ryouran’s art is very appealing to me. Everything that was drawn was surrounded by these heavily inked borders around them. And the fight scenes weren’t half bad, too. In short, everything was bloody messed up with ink. But it comes with colours, too! Like black, purple, white. INK, INK, INK!!! Even sword slashes were inks. Characters: 8 Considering Hyakka Ryouran’s a harem series, we should have a lot of bishoujous surrounding our MC. Oh and yes, did they deliver. An air-head; a loli (who is voiced by Rie Kugimiya); and a jealous-type girl. The supporting characters were decent, too. The lack of male characters in the story is quite disturbing. I’ve only seen two guys in the story. Oh whelp, who cares about males. What am I even saying? This show’s for guys anyway. Sound: 7 I don’t know why, but the background songs in the fights scenes seem really familiar to me. For the OP theme and ED theme; I did like the ED theme which was done by Rie Kugimiya! The OP theme’s made by Faylan. They also made songs for Seikon no Qwaser, which, incidentally, is like Hyakka Ryouran. Although it’s a lot more mature than Hyakka Ryouran. Enjoyment: 7 Did I enjoy it? Of course, my inner male did. But my inner plot-centred-self isn’t quite as happy as my inner male did. Why? It’s the lack of legitimate plot. What I irked me the most was the progress of the story. The first few episodes were good, explaining some things how this and that happened. But continuing to the middle episodes it got boring. What I mean is, the plot of the story doesn’t progress that much until the last few episodes. Nevertheless, the simple punches and sword swings that could tear the girls’ clothes really made me happy. Overall: 7 Hyakka Ryouran’s far off from being called a masterpiece. It lacks a lot of essentials on how to be a great series. Looking at the fan service it provides, especially to adolescent boys, it’ll be a decent show, or better, a great show (for them). Let’s all face it, boobies and panties aren’t enough to wow viewers these days, or even make them watch the series. My verdict: Hyakka Ryouran’s a good watch, not a “must-watch” series. But it’ll definitely entertain you.

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