Episode One-Derland: Free! Iwatoki Swim Club

Plot: Haru, Rin, Makoto and Nagisa used to swim together when they were kids. However, Nagisa went to a different school after a while and Rin moved away to a swimming school in Australia to train to be an Olympic swimmer. Haru quit competitive swimming after that, and now he’s only able to swim in summer in the ocean.

Three years later, Haru and Makoto meet up again with Nagisa, and Rin has moved back to Japan, albeit not at their school. They meet by chance in their old broken down swimming club, but Rin has changed drastically. Gone is the happy, laid back and playful Rin. He has been replaced with a cold and rude Rin with a clear animosity towards his old friends, particularly Haru.

Breakdown: Free! was always described to me as basically a gigantic load of pretty fanservice. And yes…..yes there is a lot of that.

Free! is a sports show about swimming. And friendship…And…that’s….about it.

Not much happens in this episode. I suppose they do a decent job at introducing the characters and the story, but there’s not a whole lot going on. Haru, Makoto, Nagisa and Rin, who are all known for being guys with girly names (and Rin’s sister, Gou, is likewise known as a girl with a guy name. By the way, not kidding about this. Gou points this out, and for Haru and Gou, it’s a recurring joke that they hate their names) were best friends four years ago. They swam at the local swimming club together and even won at least one competition.

Rin and Haru seemed to be particularly….not sure I’d say ‘close’ but ‘connected’ in some way. When Rin moved away to Australia to a special….swimming school – do they really have those? Because they state there are at least two of them in the world, and I can’t believe that for a second – Haru quit swimming competitively.

We never learn why, but it seems like it might have something to do with the aforementioned competition.

Three years later, Makoto and Haru are still close, but Nagisa had gone to a different school until he recently came to their high school. He tells them that their swim club is being torn down so they should go there and dig up their old trophy, which they buried because they couldn’t decide who should keep it at the time. They convince Haru to go there with the promise of being able to swim.

Let me stop right there and address two things:

1) Can you see the glaring, incredibly obvious flaw with this? Convincing Haru to go to a pool that is days away from being torn down by promising he can swim there?

If you said ‘There’s obviously not going to be any water in the pool, and, if there is, it’s probably disgusting’ you’d be right! Why it took until Haru and Rin were about to jump in to notice is anyone’s guess.

2) My only real exposure to Free! before this, outside of some AMV clips, was the abridged series, 50% Off!

In it, Haru is…an idiot, but also ridiculously obsessed with water. It’s supposed to be an exaggeration.

But it’s really not.

Haru’s not an idiot, but my god he is way too obsessed with water and swimming. How is he not constantly pruny? This guy is so obsessed with merely the feeling of water on his body that he regularly sits in his bathtub for hours on end in his swimsuit. And, as you can tell, he can easily be lured anywhere with the promise of swim time. When you mention swimming to him, he basically goes googly eyed.

Even when it’s clear he can’t just go in and swim somewhere, he’ll start undressing then and there – and he always has a swimsuit on!

Sports anime are kinda polarizing because they have a nasty habit of making the sport out like it’s the air we breathe, the blood in our veins and the light in our soul. They tend to go overboard with how great the sport is and make it seem silly. Haru and, to a degree, Free! are perfect examples of this. No one is this obsessed with swimming. It’s kinda creepy.

They meet up with Rin at the swim club, because coincidence of all coincidences that he not only recently moved back to Japan….to be in a swimming BOARDING SCHOOL – seriously, this is a thing? – but he also happened to be skulking around the old swim club at the exact same time AND dug up the trophy before them.

….Also, they recognized him because Rin used to snap his goggle strap on the back of his head before races and when he walked up to them he snapped the strap on his baseball cap….Who does that? Ever? No one. Because not only is it pointless, but it also makes you look like a douche. The goggle thing I get and have seen done. It’s just something to make them sit more comfortably. But not the hat thing.

Rin is a douche anyway, so it doesn’t matter.

There’s no reason given as to why he’s a douche now, but people change.

He challenges Haru to a race, and, like I said, it takes them until they’re in their swim suits, standing on the starting platforms before they realize there’s no water in the pool and the pool’s a broken down hunk of garbage. This is played off like a joke, but you see it coming from a million miles away.

When they learn Rin’s going to this special swim school, they hitch a ride on a train and head down there, luring Haru along with another promise of swimming. They swim, Rin shows up and Haru and him face off. The end.

See? Nothing really happens. But dammit, swimming is the bees knees.

…..So………….

……………..back to the fanservice. It’s everywhere. And they’re so blatant about it, too. It’s ridiculous. Not only do you have the pretty as hell artwork and the super detailed bodies, but you also have several shots of them undressing, usually Haru, numerous panning shots of their half-naked bodies and even hair flips, sparkles and slow motion.

It’s clear that this show is aimed more towards anyone with a terrible drooling condition triggered by pretty half-naked dripping wet anime guys instead of swimming aficionados. There’s still a heavy slant towards swimming, obviously, but the hook is the eye candy.

Does that mean that Free! is bad?

No. Like I said, it does its first episode duties just fine. It’s just a bit of a boring episode. You do wonder why Rin became such a jerk and why Haru quit competitive swimming after Rin left (Also why Haru seems to know and/or is not surprised by finding out Rin’s an ass) but it’s nothing to write home about.

The good news is, I have heard positive things about this show as a whole with the worst usually amounting to ‘it’s kinda boring/it’s below average’ and the core four characters do have a good chemistry between them. I can see this being a show I’d watch on the fly just to enjoy some laid-back stories of friendship and sports.

Verdict:

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The Salty Anime Challenge Day 21: An Anime You Thought You’d Hate (Due to Genre/Tropes) But Actually Love

What has become a bit of a theme for me during this challenge?

‘You don’t like harems or fanservice?’

Mmm…I’m definitely not a fan of harems, and I can tune out fanservice. I can’t be a hypocrite and say I hate fanservice, because I, admittedly, like the fanservice meant for women.

I don’t tend to like crass humor, and humor based on fanservice or sex is not a far cry from that.

That being said – I love B Gata H Kei and 30 Sai no Hoken Taiiku.

Yamada’s First Time: B Gata H Kei is a show about a high school girl named Yamada. She has a goal of having sex with 100 guys. Problem is, she’s a virgin, and her inexperience makes her very uneasy when trying to initiate even slight romantic contact.

As a way of easing herself into the world of sex, she decides to have her first time be with a guy who is also clearly a timid virgin – a boy named Kosuda. They start a relationship, Kosuda forever unaware of Yamada’s goals and intentions, and they each go through the various trials and tribulations of trying to reach their first times.

Sounds like a stupid show, right? While I’ll admit the premise is crass and Yamada’s goal is misguided to say the least, this show is actually hilarious. The fanservice isn’t really that high in this show, which is surprising (most of what there would be is censored heavily), and while there’s obviously a lot of sexual situations, they never go that far with it. They only even get to the actual attempt of sex at the very ending, and even that is as tastefully done as a sex comedy can get.

Yamada is just so driven to achieve this goal, and it frustrates her that she can’t even get out of the gate. Poor (or lucky?) Kosuda is along for the ride (bad choice of words) and they play off of each other really well. She’s super hyped about making her journey to non-virgin-ville while he’s just confused and aroused most of the time. It’s not even like Yamada’s a pervert or anything – she gets very flustered when it comes to facing the sexual aspects of a guy. She damn near had a heart attack when she realized she gave Kosuda an erection once.

Kosuda’s not a pervert either – he gets equally freaked out, if not worse, when faced with Yamada’s body. They’re both cute little dorks, and I really liked that their relationship actually developed out of this whole ridiculous situation (at a reasonable pace, even) instead of Yamada just using him as a stepping stone to orgy city.

And don’t worry, Yamada never achieves her goal in this series, I think she even gave it up in the end, and she appears to be knowledgeable on safe sex.

30 Sai No Hoken Taiiku is a similar beast, but on a goofier level.

The show is based on a novel titled Health and Physical Education for 30 Year Olds, which sounds boring, but more to the point, the show itself is about a 30 year old virgin named Imagawa. Being a virgin at 30 is deemed unacceptable by the gods (no, I’m not kidding), so the sex gods Daigorou and Macaron devote themselves to helping Imagawa pop his cherry.

On the female side, another 30 year old virgin named Andou is put in the same situation by the sex goddesses, Kuu and Pii. They lead the virgins to each other in hopes of killing two birds with one romp in the sheets.

I thought I would deplore this series when I first watched it. Like B Gata H Kei, this premise also sounds stupid and misguided, but the show itself is actually pretty damn crazy and funny while simultaneously providing us with a fairly realistic and likable romance. Even the relationships between the gods and the humans was heartwarming and nice to watch.

Like B Gata H Kei, it’s also a sex-based comedy where nearly all of the even slightly sexual stuff is censored – even French kissing…that is being depicted on fake faces.

There’s still plenty of fanservice, sexual discussions and some crass humor but they do it in a surprisingly tame manner…most of the time….One time, they parody DBZ and make the Spirit Bomb a Virgin Bomb that only draws energy from virgins and the bomb itself takes the shape of a giant sperm…..Yup.

It can be stupid and a tiny bit offensive sometimes, but I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Colorful (The Series) Review

Plot: None.

Breakdown: This is a series of 6 minute shorts about……guys being perverts and women being treated as sex objects.

I am in no way exaggerating or kidding. If there were a show called ‘Fanservice: The Anime’ it’d be Colorful. I watched two episodes of this and both episodes were about the same thing – pervy guys saying nothing but constantly perving on what women were doing. They were mostly getting insanely entranced by the panty shots or looking at their cleavage, but episode one did showcase two students getting all drooly over their hot teacher constantly repeating the differences between L and R (Watching her mouth and tongue and whatnot.)

It’s sexist to both men and women, really. It shows men as nothing but perverted braindead idiots who are always trying to get a look at women’s panties, bras and cleavage. It shows women as being nothing but objects for sexual desire. Besides the few times that randomness pops up, there’s no humor to it. I was going to actually watch the rest since the episodes are just six minutes long, counting the OP, and there’s only 16 episodes, but there’s no plot. I wasn’t saying ‘none’ in the plot section to be funny. Two episodes in and no plot whatsoever. Just lots of guys being pervs.

The art is very bad. Sometimes they’ll have a fairly nice shot, but you can tell that, if they did have a budget, all of it was spent to make the women look as attractive as possible. The animation for the OP has cut outs flying across the screen and everything looks poorly drawn and mostly poorly animated.

The music in the BG is…okay, but the OP is like a chipmunk with rabies gnawing on your brain. The lyrics are asinine (They repeat something like “my temperature is (something) come rise it with me”) and the melody is catchy, but it’s coupled with a singer SCREECHING the lyrics to the song. It’s a god-awful song but also the kind of song that would easily get stuck in your head.

Bottom Line: Pass on this, unless you’re really pervy. Even then, go watch a better ecchi or harem or even hentai if you want your fanservice fill. This is just low-grade.

Additional Information and Notes: Colorful the Series was directed by….Ryutaro Nakamura…Wait….The guy who directed Serial Experiments Lain?!….I…uh….

It was…uh…produced by Triangle Staff, who also produced–What the hell? Boogiepop Phantom, A Chinese Ghost Story and Junkers Come Here?!…AND Serial Experiments Lain?!

*sigh* I don’t even…*cough* It is currently licensed in the US by AEsir Holdings who also have the licenses to–Oh let me guess. A bunch of good things? Neon Genesis Evangelion, Princess Tutu and Saiyuki….

NO. NO. You don’t get to have all of these insanely great connections, Colorful. You just don’t. When these people signed up for this project, they must’ve thought they’d be working on Colorful the movie. Either that or they all desperately needed a paycheck.

Episodes: 16

Year: 1999

Recommended Audience: Obviously lots of fanservice, but I don’t think they ever got to full-on nudity from what I saw. Close, though. 13+

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Eiken Episode 1 Review

Plot: Boing, boing, boing, banana, boing.

Breakdown: Warning – This review contains screencaps and language that is not suitable for younger audiences. Reader discretion is advised.

I’ve been wanting to review this series for some time now mostly because I see this as the pinnacle of pandering in terms of fetish anime…….except maybe Seikon no Qwazer, but one brain aneurysm at a time.

There are a lot of ecchi shows out there that bank on fanservice alone, but this is basically Fanservice: The Series. It’s not even like regular fanservice – it’s specifically nothing but fanservice aimed at people who have a thing for ridiculously huge breasts. Not just anime ridiculous breasts, but like ‘How are they not dead by now?’ breasts.

Because I think it would be redundant and/or short to just write off this series based on that, I decided I would be kind enough to walk you through both episodes of Eiken. Ready your bras.

Episode 1: The first shot of the first episode is of a banana peel on the floor. See, bananas are phallic symbols…..That’s all I got.

We get narration from our main character, Densuke, as he explains facts about his school, Zashono Academy – the building of which is also a big ol’ phallic symbol.

Also, it’s Den-Skay. Little to no emphasis on the ‘su’ part. Not Den-Su-kay, dub. He’s basically every male protagonist in every harem ever. Modest, bland character design, practically no personality and he’s completely forgettable.

As we see our first shot of Densuke, we also see a good chunk of the female student body, and not one of them has a cup size below DD.

Also, what the crap is up with those uniforms? This is like Kaichou wa Maid-sama levels of ugly. The boys have normal dark clothing yet the girls get fugly yellow, green and purple garbage. At least it doesn’t involve plaid, but that sweater vest isn’t helping any.

A girl runs into him, and they both fall over due to the banana peel from earlier (Damn kids and their banana peels. Haven’t they ever seen a comedy sketch!?) And somehow someway this causes her to fall on her back and him to fall on top of her. Physics, what’s that? They even show the fall in slow motion, because we really needed to see her teddy bear panties, and he’s clearly falling backwards on his back and she’s falling forward on her front, making the mistake even more obvious.

Apparently he’s a kid that a lot of people are gossiping about because he scored highest on the entrance exams to this supposedly prestigious academy because that’s what they yell when they see him fall over. That will never matter, but enjoy that information.

He realizes that he’s not just on top of the girl, he’s squeezing her shirt balloons. Her tatas are also so big and squishy that his hands are practically melting into them. I don’t have a chest quite so comically large, but I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t happen.

The others are getting on his case for groping the girl, Chiharu, and, even though it was an accident, I actually find it justified because even after he realizes what he’s touching he still squeezes them twice.

A mech comes flying out of nowhere with a girl, Kirika, riding on the side with a shot of her bra weights literally flapping in the wind. She has ridiculously long purple hair and seems to have the biggest bazongas thusfar.

You’ll also note that they had to get Phallic Symbol High in a better shot in the background with her too.

She tells Densuke that he’s been selected to join their club, the Eiken club, or as the dub likes to call it the Ai-ken club. Because why learn proper Japanese pronunciation when dubbing a Japanese show? That’s just silly.

She kidnaps him and tries to force him to sign up I guess because he literally is the perfect description of a Gary Stu character, and most importantly, not joking, because he touched another club member, Chiharu’s, ‘extra F-cup boobies’. I’ve been trying to avoid that word for comedic effect and moderate censoring (because I really don’t want the SEO of this blog post to be 80% keyword – boobies) but that is a direct quote from the show.

She eventually forces him to sign with his thumb print by forcing him down on the paper and sitting on his head. And she wears no underwear. You can’t see anything, but you can plainly tell.

As the deal is sealed we get our opening theme song. The song itself is completely generic and forgettable. The background animation is blah, but the main character runs through a generic background as he bumps into the various members of Eiken. Oh, they’re giant versions of the members and he always bumps into their hot air balloons.

After that, we see Chiharu standing behind the same background as the wind gently blows both her hair and her chimmichangas around. Okay, look, I gave a pass to the whole Kirika thing on the mech because the wind was likely really intense as she flew around and I would suppose something like that might be possible with winds that strong (I sincerely doubt it, but I don’t think Mythbusters would tackle this one), but come on. There’s not understanding milk balloon physics and being concerned that the people behind this have never seen or felt real ones before. They’re not made of the same material as flags!

Blah blah panty shots, blah blah random girl crotching Densuke to the face, blah blah random hula hoop session for all the characters to make their watermelons bounce around some more while simultaneously giving us plenty of panty shots. Also, Densuke looks ridiculous during this whole thing.

Blah blah making the credits bounce on one of the girl’s oingo boingos. Can we end now? Thank you.

Densuke’s alone in some building with some woman, and the dialogue is making it seem like like they’re about to do the bedroom tango. What they’re really doing is some insanely dumb form of fortune telling where they crawl around on the floor and try to pass a rose between their lips. If it falls or something, she can then tell his fortune. Yeah, I don’t get it either. Anyway, he doesn’t put the rose in her mouth and she says from the way the rose fell that he’s going to suffer misfortune, be beaten up and some opposing character will cause him grief.

Cut to later, oh and there’s a double balloon blimp in the sky. Guess why. Because they look like boo–

Densuke gets called over by his friends to look in a window and we see the female student body having their physicals with all of them being topless and/or braless talking about how big Chiharu’s chichis are.

He gets caught. and Kirika’s practically impressed that he’s a peeping tom….Kirika’s weird.

I’m gonna take a time out here to say the art is awful. I won’t go so far as to say it’s some of the worst I’ve seen but ew. If you’re going to get into the business of ecchi, at least be skilled enough in art to make things visually appealing. Between the stupid designs only blown up to ludicrous due to their chest sizes and the gross color schemes, no wonder even people who like even the stupidest of ecchi hate this show.

Now’s as good a time as any to get the intros to the other club members out of the way.

The person behind the mech and a lot of other weird tech things around, like what looks like a nuke and a….giant bear thing…Don’t ask questions, just move on – is a girl named Kyoko who is actually flatchested (Alert the media.) I would say that this is due to her age as she’s the second youngest of the group, but there’s another girl named Komoe who is actually younger than Kyoko and she has the same case of ‘parachuteforabra-itis’ that the other girls have. I guess we needed two loli characters – one for the ones with a chest fetish, the other for those who don’t.

I will also mention that the Wiki page was kind enough to actually provide the worryingly precise chest measurements of all of the girls in the series…..Just in case you needed to know that vital information.

The fortune teller from earlier is named Grace and she also doesn’t have particularly huge human utters.

And then there’s Sensei, who doesn’t have any name beyond ‘Sensei’ or in the dub ‘Teacher’. Her shtick is that she’s a whiny basketcase.

Finally we have the characters we’ve already met, Kirika, the psycho who apparently loves perversion, and Chiharu the shy one.

These characters are so paint-by-numbers that they’re friggin color coded. Not kidding at all. Chiharu has red hair, Kirika has purple, Kyoko has light blue, Grace has blond, Komoe has bright pink and Sensei has green.

Densuke tries to help Komoe get something in a high cabinet (Geez, those cabinets are like 7 feet off the ground, who built this place?) As they try something new, Kirika walks by….sucking on a banana.

Okay, look, I’m not dumb, I get the joke. Haha. But I always found that joke to be dumb, and my reasoning’s going to be just as stupid…..Who sucks on a banana? It’s not a damn lollipop – it’s a banana! It’s one of the most fragile fruits in existence. Babies can eat them whole before their teeth come in! It’s not like it’s even tempting to try. Bananas aren’t particularly sweet, especially not enough to want to suck on. An apple, maybe. A plum, sure. But not a damned banana.

They get the idea to hold Komoe up to let her reach the cabinet, but, surprise, Densuke is being suffocated by her boom booms. It’s not even like this is an ecchi shot either because despite them being in the shot, they show it from the back so you can’t even see what’s going on.

Teacher walks up to them after that plan fails to suddenly bawl about how she’s been teaching at the school for over 12 years and not one student ever remembers her name. Also, she actually pronounces Eiken correctly…..Well…I guess she IS the teacher.

Densuke tries to cheer her up by saying, as the club’s adviser, only she can can help them out of this problem….Grab a goddamn step stool you lazy sons of bitches…..

She freaks out in delight that one of her students actually respects her and needs her help, so she does the logical thing and hug-humps Densuke….

She says two heads are better than one, and I bring this up because there are THREE of them, so that saying doesn’t work, and we see Kirika walk by….sucking on a hotdog.

1) Who sucks on a hotdog?!

2) Really? You’re going to do one of the oldest ecchi-esque jokes in existence twice in a minute and a half? Comedy legends you lot are.

3) Who follows up eating a banana by eating a hotdog? Those tastes do not belong together at all.

4) Way to recycle animation.

So what was Teacher’s solution? To have both her AND Komoe climb up on Densuke’s shoulders to reach the cabinet….that they still can’t reach. But don’t worry. This time you can see Teacher’s thong. I have a hard time believing someone as insecure as her would wear a thong but whatever.

Also, uhm, question. How did you guys put the stuff into the cabinet? Use that method to REACH THE CABINETS NOW YOU DUMB SACKS OF DUMB.

They eventually reach what they need and eat lunch. Kirika asks Densuke how it was when he saw Chiharu’s bare flesh pillows. They talk about boring crap involving food for a while until Komoe decides to freak out and dance which makes her sweater meat flop all over the place. While dancing, she falls on another banana peel which leads to an intense discussion about politics.

Pbbthahahaha, just kidding. It’s more slow motion fanservice.

This fall takes forever and they cover practically every angle they can to show Komoe’s flopping bouncy houses, her panties, as well as Densuke reaching for said bouncy houses to catch her, and Teacher’s panties in several angles. Somehow this fall causes them to defy the laws of physics again and fall backwards, making Teacher’s dress go all the way up to her shoulders to display her in her bra and showing that Densuke is grabbing one of both of their orbs of power.

Oh yeah and because Teacher was trying to make more noodles, they got covered in noodles too….Long white wet stringy noodles. I guess I can at least be happy they weren’t eating anything with mayonnaise.…

I feel like I need to censor almost all of these screencaps.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 2

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30DAC – Day 5: Anime You’re Ashamed You Enjoy

This prompt was interesting. I’m not really ‘ashamed’ to like any anime. Embarrassed? Sometimes, mostly when talking to people who aren’t really anime fans and sometimes with hardcore anime fans who will chew you out for liking things you’re not ‘supposed’ to like, but I’d never try to hide that I like those shows. Though you will see me joking about denying this, I have even watched hentai before, and I even indulge in the super over the top drama that is most yaoi and shounen ai.

However, there is one anime that I feel silly and little hypocritical for liking, and that’s Queen’s Blade.

Queen’s Blade is about a tournament, the Queen’s Blade tournament, that is held between all of the great female warriors in the world for the title of Queen of the Queen’s Blade. This tournament was set up by God himself in order to quell the severe violence that plagued the world (solve violence with violence. Truly there was no better logic) and is refereed by angels. However, the main hook of this show is the outrageous amounts of fanservice, and I mean it’s just friggin’ everywhere.

Now I pretty much try to ignore fanservice. It’s turned into a necessary evil in a lot of anime. I hate, hate, hate when it’s plastered everywhere in an otherwise serious show or when they have the most obvious fanservice shots in the world (girl’s talking? Let’s focus the camera on her panties.), but I’m not going to be a hypocrite and say I don’t enjoy fanservice with guy characters. It’s just that the female fanservice is flooding the market so much that it gets downright infuriating and just plain stupid. That being said, why would I actually like an anime chockful with female fanservice and exactly zero male fanservice? Because it is just so hilariously over the top and stupid.

This show has a bunny girl with her main attack being acid milk that she shoots from her boobs.

This show has a woman with such comically huge bazongas that she can use them comfortably as pillows.

This show has some of the most ridiculous and blatant fanservice setups in history (oh gee, Nanael has a vial of milk that she absolutely can’t spill no matter what. Hope it’s not a gooey consistency and that she makes a habit out of spilling it all over herself.)

This show knows what it is and makes fun of itself so much and so well most of the time that I enjoy the crap out of it. And some of the more serious moments are actually kinda interesting. There are still some times when the fanservice is obviously meant to be legit fanservice with nothing funny about it, which is disappointing, but I still just laugh my ass off at just how ridiculous this show can be with its fanservice a lot of the time.

BTW, given the content of the show at hand, I don’t really want to post pictures, but here’s a cat playing piano.

Cat + Internet = Yay

Maburaho Review

Plot: Shikimori goes to a school filled with magicians where your worth as a magician is measured by how many times you’re allowed to use it. You see, a magician only has so many times they can use magic in their lifetime. If they use it all up, they instantly die.

Shikimori’s worth is pitiful as he can only use his magic a handful of times. Thus, he’s known throughout the school as a loser. However, one day, three girls suddenly appear and lust after him wanting to marry him. They don’t want him – however, they want his genes. Shikimori’s bloodline is incredibly powerful, but it ends with him. Girls all over the school now want to bear his child so they can claim the power of his bloodline.

Breakdown: Geez, this sounds like every guy’s dream. The underdog suddenly has every girl after him, but they only want to sleep with him no strings attached. And, hey, if you want more to your relationships, there are also several who want to marry him.

Maburaho is just bland. It’s not even really good at fanservice. I only watched two episodes and I can basically predict what’s going to happen. There will be a ton of episodes focusing on just the girls lusting after Shikimori and the Three’s Company moments stemming from it. We’ll delve a bit more into the character’s backstories, but none of it will matter much. Shikimori will probably use up his magic on stupid stuff, verge on dying, big moment happens and he ends up with Yuna because obviously she’s the main love interest and it would be dumb to have him go with the girl who 100% wants nothing more to do with him than sex and the monotone samurai girl who wants the same thing.

Shikimori’s boring, the girls are boring, the side characters are boring, the art’s boring, it’s just blah.

I will admit that this series actually has somewhat of new premise with the whole limited amount of times they can use magic and if they use those shots up they die thing, but that’s not much to cheer about.

Then there’s the fact that I have to, yet again, ask the audience to switch the genders to see how creepy this really is. Imagine a bunch of guys viciously pursuing a girl just because they want her genes to bear a child for them.

Then they wag their fingers at him for blowing up at them because none of them really care about him, they only want his baby juice, but Yuna really does like him. Sure it may not be what every teenage boy would do right then, but he has every right to feel that way. No matter what gender you are, getting attention for the sheer sake of obtaining your genes must seem somewhat insulting.

It’s also pretty sexist to the girls. I know that Japanese history is littered with marriages and arrangements that are made purely for the benefit of the family name, but these girls don’t want to marry him or honor their family, they just want to bonk him so they can mother magical nukes.

Bottom Line: Unless predictable and boring harems are your forte, avoid this one.

Additional Information and Notes: Maburaho was directed by Shinichiro Kimura and was produced by JC Staff.

Episodes: 24

Year: 2003-2004

Recommended Audience: Typical harem fare. 13+

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