Hyakka Ryouran: Samurai Girls (Samurai Girls)

With its gorgeous landscape and prosperous people, Great Japan is the envy of all other nations. But a serious threat hovers over the country. Mysterious guardians known as Master Samurai are Great Japan's only defense.

At the behest of the student council, young samurai Muneakira Yagyuu arrives at Buou Academic School. Run by the Tokugawa Shogunate, here children of warriors are given aristocratic education required to run the country. The school is led by the student council president Yoshihiko Tokugawa and his sister Sen, who also happens to be Muneakira's childhood friend.

Upon arriving at the academy, Muneakira finds himself in the midst of a terrible fight. During the chaos, the sky fills with a peculiar white light and a mysterious girl named Juubei Yagyuu appears and suddenly kisses Muneakira. With his kiss, she awakens an unknown power that protects them.

Just who is this girl, and where did she come from? Muneakira finds himself entangled in the fate of the country and a threat that will shake Great Japan to its core. He must learn the secret behind the Master Samurai and the kiss that awakened Juubei's power in order to protect his country.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Background

A preview of the first episode aired on Tokyo MX on September 4, 2010, prior to the official airing. The series serves as an alternate telling of the light novels, having a completely different storyline.

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Related Anime

Adaptation:	Hyakka Ryouran: Samurai Girls
Side story:	Hyakka Ryouran: Samurai Girls Specials
Sequel:	Hyakka Ryouran: Samurai Bride

Sakurai, Takahiro
Japanese

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Staff

Tanaka, Shinsaku

Producer

Usui, Hisato

Producer

Hatakeyama, Takurou

Producer

Sekine, Ryuuji

Producer

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Opening Theme

"Last vision for last" by Faylan

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Ending Theme

"Koi ni Sesse Tooryanse (恋にせっせ通りゃんせ)" by Aoi Yuuki, Minako Kotobuki & Rie Kugimiya

Reviews

Jul 19, 2021

hexashadow13

Recommended

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.

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Oct 15, 2013

ArtimesGamer

Mixed Feelings

At the beginning, Hyakka Ryouran: Samurai Girls almost seems to know where it's going in terms of plot. Almost. A fascinating introduction informs us that this show will combine historical elements with fantasy and science fiction elements. Somehow, in this world of Zeppelins, DragonBall-style scouters, and bio genetic mutations, the Tokugawan Shogunate is in charge. And this re-imaged version of the Tokugawan Shogunate maintains its grip of power by utilizing attractive female super-warriors that it calls "Master Samurai". Now, this is all pretty far out there, but its also kind of cool, and after the first episode I was eager to see where they were ...

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Nov 6, 2015

Luquillo

Not Recommended

Taking place in an alternate 21st century where the Tokugawa Shogunate still rules Great Japan, the generals of the country relied on Master Samurai's; very powerful women with special powers to fight their battles. As time passed, this breed of warrior has become more scarce. Muneakira Yagyu heads to the Buou Academy to meet with his long time friend Princess Sen, but he ends up in the middle of a battle taking place between students of the academy, and their rival Yukimara and her assistant who both represent Toyotomi. During the battle a girl falls from the sky claiming to be Jubei Yagyu before she ... passes out after the fight. Who is this girl? And what was that display of power? These are only some questions leading to the coming events. -summary

I really wish that I stuck with my gut and avoided this atrocious anime title like AIDS. I've just about had it with Sentai Filmworks and their ridiculous line of anime titles. At this point in time, I've completely seen four of their titles and every last one of them rank amongst the worst anime I have ever seen including Samurai Girls. Despite not getting into the trailer at all, I came into this completely from a level-headed perspective. I gave this anime the benefit of the doubt and it made me literally cringe during the entire duration. Samurai Girls is almost completely devoid of all imagination, and it heavily relies on those same tired old harem comedy clichés. It features the same old mousy loser who's completely afraid of pussy, and is surrounded by a host of women for the flimsiest of reasons. The tired old love triangles, the girls who berate him for things that's not his fault, it just goes on and on. I am so sick and tired of this weak shit.

In all honesty, and I'm not trying to come off offensive or like some type of elitist, but Samurai Girls is for that type of anime fan who either has no standards at all, or are completely new and really haven't experienced the absolute best titles the genre has to after. The only positives I can think of lies in the visuals and music score. The anime is indeed stylish with a heavy manga influence filled with dark lines, and very nice looking backgrounds that reminds me of Super Street Fighter IV. Visually, there's just nothing bad to look at here and the character designs are very sexy for the women. There's some great detail in the loads of fan service provided. In addition, black ink blotches frequently drop down to the screen, and later on in the series, they feature different colored blotches that really does look cool. The action scenes contain many flashes and light shows reminiscent of Bleach and Dragonball Z. The BGM which is provided by Tatsuya Katou complements the anime well, when working for the action and comedy. Unfortunately, although these things stand out, they really didn't make getting through this anime any easier.

Samurai Girls was a chore for me. The visuals tend to overshadow the characters, plot, action, and story, because none of those things are anything special. The plot spins its wheels very early with little to no progression at all. The characters soon learn that the female samurai's can be transformed into Master Samurai's by kissing Muneakira, this pits at least three of them in this unoriginal, by the numbers love triangle that grows boring and annoying very quick with lots of bickering. To add to the lack of originality and completely insipid, the main character Jubei goes through a Lucy/Nyu-esque of Elfen Lied fame transformation, from powerful samurai warrior to an infantile retard that is nowhere near as annoying as Nyu, but is annoying as hell in her own right. None of the characters were the least bit interesting to me. If it wasn't for the fact that they were named after real samurai's of the Sengoku and Edo periods, I would have never even known their names.

This anime features one comic relief after the other, and even though I chuckled here and there to the characters antics. I felt the writers were trying way too hard to be funny, and more than half of the time the jokes were completely flat. They get even worse due to the constant rehashing. Later on around the ninth episode, something of a plot develops when the heroes learn they will have to face a demonic threat that could wipe them all out. Unfortunately, it's too badly paced and thanks to all of the filler before it everything feels too tacked on and very rushed. The action, which should be a stand out, is made up of flashes of action and falling bodies, with way too many high energy attacks. The writers cut way too many corners as there aren't any choreographed sword on sword exchanges, which is completely ridiculous for a show with a samurai setting.

There's no doubt that I personally believe I sat through a certified shitcapade, but what keeps these DVD's from being certified coasters, is that the anime never attempts to take itself too seriously. There are no tonal shifts, it's a straight forward light hearted ride meant to be fun; but the problem is that it doesn't accomplish any of its goals in the areas it set out to excel in as far as I'm concerned. This anime is an ant amongst giants when compared to series close to its type such as Excel Saga and Slayers.

Samurai Girls is a very poor excuse of a samurai/harem show. The only area it really stands out in is the prodution values; character designs, flashy action moments, fan service, music score, and for me, this just isn't enough. I hated the characters, their played out interactions, non choreographed action scenes, that troll final episode. It was just a bad experience for me. I only recommend this to the very easy to please. If you enjoyed Needless and High School of the Dead, then you'll love this.

Highs: Production values

Lows: Plot, characters, comedy, etc.

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Hyakka Ryouran: Samurai Girls

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Yagyuu, Juubei

Sanada, Yukimura

Tokugawa, Sen

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Naoe, Kanetsugu

Yagyuu, Gisen

Gotou, Matabei

D'Artagnan, Charles

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Hyakka Ryouran: Samurai Girls

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Information

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Available At

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Streaming Platforms

Synopsis

Background

Visit MALxJapan MALxJapan -More than just anime-

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Characters & Voice Actors

Staff

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Reviews

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