Ranked #2848

Kämpfer

I really love all of the crazy implausible story concepts anime is capable of delivering us. Kämpfer is no exception, as it combines many time honored and tested themes of mahou shoujo-esque transformations, girls fighting each other, gender confusion, and lesbianism. Mix in plenty of service and a clichéd harem of the usual personality types and you have an anime that basically been made a hundred times before. And a lot better too. Even though, I still found myself inexorability drawn to this title because of its fabulous seiyuu cast.

The premise for Kämpfer is a bit unique. While it shares many of the same themes as shows like Ikkitousen and Sekirei, Kämpfer deviates by essentially making the male lead one of his own harem by forcing him to transform into a girl in order to participate in the battles. The girls are divided into factions, red and blue, and must battle each other to the death (apparently) at the behest of a mysterious and sinister sounding faction known as the Moderators. From the start we seem to be set for a series chalk full of exciting action and ecchi gender bending comedy. By mid series we have our completed harem all vying for the affections of our clueless nondescript leading man (more on him later). Initially I found Kämpfer had a lot of potential for delivering some interesting action and some really entertaining comedy. Unfortunately it doesn't take too long for things to start to unravel. Mainly because the series makes the mistakes many others have made before, trying to be and do too many things instead of just keeping things simple. It was also a bit creepy the matter-of-fact way the lead accepted his fate of becoming a girl and his constantly flip flopping back and forth between masculinity and femininity. This element always tends to bother me a bit in gender bending stories and its rare that it actually really works.

For a show that appeared to be about action and fighting there is a shocking lack of any real fighting in it. Very little about why the girls are fighting is even explained adequately and the ending to the series is in a word: pathetic. Additionally even the ecchi is inadequate with even the supposed "uncensored" version of the show lacking anything all that arousing. The comedy which at times is pretty good is not good enough, enough of the time to really be very pleasing in that aspect either. While normally I would scoff at the mention of any kind of serious romance or drama coming out of a harem anime, the series does try to deliver some of this as well. Some of it works but the characters are so uninteresting and lifeless that the impact is really lost.

Because of the mediocre nature of all of the shows elements it’s unlikely to appeal to fans of any of these genres. Those who like action or romance will not be satisfied and neither will fans of ecchi since all of the service is pretty tame and pedestrian by current standards. Combining that with the terrible ending that fails to resolve neither the main plot or any of it's subplots and we have almost total across the board fail.

The characters really bare the blunt of the blame for Kämpfer being so uninspired. This is nowhere more evident than with our harems leading man, er woman, Natsuru. Now this is nothing new to anyone who has watched any harems. Typically it’s the girls who always shine brightest in these sorts of shows with the guy being a typically plain and indecisive proxy for the fantasies of the intended, mostly male audience. The only difference here is that the guy is in fact one of the girls too. Though other than being hot and combined the stereotypical guy in a girls body humor there is absolutely nothing interesting about "her" either. Maybe the most memorable thing about Natsuru though is he is without a doubt the most clueless and colossally stupid man in the history of the universe. Really dude, buy a fucking clue! I wanted to reach through the TV and slap him myself. I actually almost felt sorry for those girls.

Speaking of the girls they unfortunately don’t fair much better. They meet all the usual harem standards by combining a tomboyish childhood friend, moe oujosama, tsundere meganekko, and cool aloof student council president. They are about as exciting as their descriptions too. Perhaps the only exception is Akane, the bespectacled tsundere. Though this may only have been because of my affinity for the character type and that she was voiced by Yue Horie then out of any real quality. The supporting cast is equally as clichéd and unmemorable. So much so that I doubt I could even remember any of their names without looking at the cast list first.

The best thing to come out of the cast is clearly the talking stuffed "Entrails Animals" that serve as companions for each of the Kämpfer. The fact that they were all voiced by very well known seiyuu was a big part of it but they were really the only characters who were actually funny. You know a series is in a lot of trouble when the highlight of the show is the preview of the next episode and the summary before the episode starts (all coincidently voiced by these characters). I felt that a huge opportunity was missed in not making these characters more involved in the episodes dialogue and comedy bits. I felt there was a lot of untapped potential left behind.

Artistically Kämpfer is solid but unspectacular. The girls are cute and have nice figures and our leading man is at least somewhat manly in at least appearance. I thought the breasts were pretty silly looking though, a bit too torpedoish looking. Kind of a peeve of mine that if you’re going to show me these girls tits all the time that they don’t even look natural. Even if they are usually obscured by the usual convenient steam and light beams. The action scenes are also not that spectacular either, which is even more disappointing considering how few their actually are.

The voice acting is the best and only real bright spot of the anime. A real all star lineup of acting talent is on display but unfortunately they all had very little to work with. The musical performances were fair. I was a little disappointed at who they actually had perform the OP/ED songs considering the talent they had available.

Overall there is nothing for me to recommend about this anime. It fails as a action, harem, or even ecchi comedy. While it does have its moments at times there is not enough of any one thing to really appeal to fans of any of these genres. Stay clear, you can do a lot better than this one.
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Ah, Kampfer. The Anime with big-breasted girls fighting for no reason. Here's what I think after completing Kampfer. I will not write spoilers so don't worry.

Story: 7/10
Story? Hmm. Kampfer actually has no story. It's basically just a guy turning into a girl that goes to a school in which boys and girls are separated. Just throw a few random fights out there, and ta-dah, you get Kampfer. They basically don't know why they're fighting until the very end, in which came out as a sci-fi thing.

Art: 9/10
I loved the art of Kampfer. It was outstanding. The details are very well drawn and animated, and ofcourse, the breasts. Perfect 32 dds are perfect. It looked clean, and the fight scenes were also good.

Sound: 7/10
Didn't really stand out that much, but it was still good. You get your typical sound in Kampfer. Nothing really stood out in this one, althought the OP song was very good.

Character: 7/10
Typical harem show. Everyone likes the main protagonist. You also get different types of characters, like tsundere, moe, etc, in this show, which is typical. Although you will notice right away who the enemy is going to be, the characters were all good. I mean, a guy turning into a girl? Good, isn't it?

Enjoyment: 7/10
Sure, there were few good episodes in Kampfer, but some were bad, and some were so-so. I did enjoy watching it. Had some good laughs in it.

Overall: 7/10
Althought it was kind of predictable, cliche, and the ending was a turn off, it was still good. If you like Harem, Ecchi, with a little bit of action, then Kampfer is for you! read more