tl;dr: An anime that has a plot that isn’t particularly deep or well told, but that is still pretty enjoyable due to good comedy and action.
This anime is centered in a strange world that’s kind of like Japan in the late Edo era, but with modern and even futuristic technology. So you get steam locomotives and cell phones, katanas and flash grenades, hacking supercomputers to uncover masterplans and chopping firewood for the bath, etc. The architecture is also consistent with this dichotomy, wherein it’s either Edo style or futuristic. It’s a bizarre mix, but one that I’ve seen a few times in a couple other ... places, mainly in JRPGs, and one that I’ve grown fond of. As is generally the case with such settings, there’s a very strong emphasis on samurai, at least at a superficial level, wherein the protagonist, Muneakira, is a skilled samurai that was called in to take over the Yagyuu dojo at the base of Mount Fuji. It is stated at the beginning that he was called in by the student council of a certain high school and is expected to attend said high school but that’s never really brought up again and he never actually goes to school.
Rather, the anime becomes one that for the most part is set essentially entirely in the Yagyuu dojo where a bunch of girls end up surrounding Muneakira after it is discovered that kissing him results in the kisser gaining the abilities of a Master Samurai. The first main heroine is Juubei, who has a split personality of being a weak airhead in her sealed form, but incredibly powerful and somewhat cold in her Master Samurai form. The other two main heroines would be Sanada Yukimura and Tokugawa Sen both of whom are sharp tongued, prideful, and somewhat tsundere. In addition to that there’s Sanada’s servant Matabei and Sen’s servant, Hanzou, both of whom are incredibly loyal, though that loyalty manifests in different ways, as well as Kanetsugu who is basically just dumb and is there for the purpose of getting picked on. You may have noticed that all of these heroines are based on actual historical figures, or at least legends of them, though the connections are mostly just window dressing.
The first seven episodes are solely dedicates to introducing these characters and establishing the relationships they have with one another as they all fight each other. There’s some hints of a larger plot beyond that here and there, but for the most part its character focused and only on those six characters. The presence of characters outside of those few is incredibly minimal. It’s overall not too bad in concept, albeit the implementation is pretty generic with character’s feeling somewhat flat. The bigger problem is that it felt overtly slow. It being somewhat slow in plot isn’t too much of an issue if things were picked up in other areas, but it also felt pretty slow in terms of action and comedy. The action and comedy were both really solid, but it just felt like there wasn’t enough. Thus, it really did feel like it was dragging on a lot.
This changes in the final four episodes where the plot gets moving and more characters play a prominent role. Though at this point another issue pops up. The plot and character motivations for characters outside the main six flow pretty badly, with most explanations for things occurring after the fact with no build up. Furthermore, beyond the issues with how it was conveyed, the plot is still only decent, and though it feels character’s have a bit more to them they’re still not particularly deep. Still, in this portion, and to a degree before this, character’s are best when they’re just being amusing or cheesy cool, and this combined with the action getting a lot more intense and well implemented manages to be enough to make the anime pretty solid overall.
This anime also felt pretty well produced. The art style is pretty unique in that it has very bold edges and the use of color somewhat resembles Edo paintings, though with the designs themselves being pretty standard for anime from about a decade ago. There’s also the use of lots of ink effects for transitions and during battles, with different colors for the ink for different factions. It’s mainly black vs white, and that focus on black and white is used really well in the final battle. The animation overall is decent, but really manages to shine during certain action scenes, especially the final battle. The soundtrack was better than I expected, especially the tracks used during key scenes during the final few episodes, and overall I found pretty great. The OP and ED are both solid enough in terms of audio and visuals.
 Alternative Titles Synonyms: Hyakka Ryouran: Samurai Girls Japanese: 百花繚乱 サムライガールズ Information Type: TV Episodes: 12 Status: Finished Airing Aired: Sep 4, 2010 to Dec 20, 2010 Premiered: Fall 2010 Broadcast: Saturdays at 00:30 (JST) Licensors: Sentai Filmworks Studios: Arms Source: Light novel Duration: 24 min. per ep. Rating: R+ - Mild Nudity Statistics Score: 6.771 (scored by 78,938 users) 1 indicates a . Ranked: #58172 2 based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded. Popularity: #1310 Members: 182,955 Favorites: 307 Available AtResources |
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