Toshokan Sensou

I had a lot of hope for this anime, but after watching it I felt very disappointed. The premise of the story was very interesting and unusual, so it was a little amazing how they still managed to fit so many cliches and predictable moments into the plotline.
What I disliked the most about this anime was the main character, Kasahara. As the first female member of the pseudo-military library task force, she had the potential to be a really strong, interesting character. Instead she is incompetent, impulsive, naive, uneducated, disrespected, and frequently ends up in ... situations where she has to be rescued by her male counterparts. Around episode 11 or 12 her character starts to become more mature and capable, but that is when the anime ends. If they were going to write her character the way they did, I would have liked to at least had more episodes occur after her character begins to develop.

Likeable characters, lulzy concept and excellent animation.

PLOT: I watched Toshokan Sensou back when it was airing and remember being very entertained by it. It’s all very light and fluffy as the series focuses on the characters rather than dwelling on the whole censorship war that is the setting. Basically the premise is that this is a world were censorship of books and the media is a big issue and two factions are perfectly willing to spill blood over books and freedom of the press. Its in this climate that Kasahara Iku decides to join the Library Task Force to follow in the footsteps of ... her ‘Prince’ who saves her and her favourite book when she was younger…..yeah I know it sounds rubbish, but believe me Toshokan Sensou is really entertaining!

I got major Full Metal Panic vibes from the series – mainly due to the military setting and the emphasis on romcom rather than combat. Not that there isn’t any action, there is plenty, but its not the main focus. The characters are the driving force for this anime, Iku and her relationship with her superior Atsushi is deeply amusing in a Lovely Complex way and the supporting cast is also lots of fun. The only bad thing about the show is its too short. We’ve just got to know the characters and started to be interested in the background plot and then its over – with this kind of pacing it would have been better off being a 26 episode series rather than 12.

ANIMATION: Excellent animation as one would expect from Production IG. I really liked the thick black outlines for the characters and the use of chibi’s to enhance the comedy. The action set pieces were really well put together and the backgrounds showed fabulous attention to detail. Unremarkable, but well drawn character design too. No complaints about the production quality at all.

MUSIC & VOICE ACTING: I loved the ED in particular; the OP is pretty decent too. Background music is also good. Voice acting is excellent – everyone is very well cast, especially loved Iku’s voice.

So yeah at 1st glance the concept seem a bit on the odd side, but Toshokan Sensou turned out to be a fun if forgetable show with an enjoyable script and nice character interactions.

Yet another case where a show tries to lure you with its intriguing premise, only to offer you a more than simple presentation and a basic shoujo story. 90% of the people who decided to watch the show was because of the description.
“Many books are banned and libraries now have armies in order to protect them.”
Don’t you just want to find out what this is all about? Doesn’t it sound familiar to Fahrenheit 451? Isn’t it relevant to the recent Act Japan voted in order to censor several works of fiction? Isn’t this a social-political heavy story around law-given liberties?

And the answer is no, it ... isn’t; it is just an excuse to place the main characters in a situation where they need to team together for the same goal. The whole premise is handled very lightly, it is hardly exploited beyond the obvious, and it is usually thrown aside for comedy and romance. In effect, it is just a lure to watch a romance with a pretext. And before you think of anything else YES IT WORKS! Romances work fine as long as they have something other than high schools (gah, how I hate those) and the characters have some sort of goal or objective that keeps them together (other than being forced to go to the same school every day that is and study hard to pass in the same college). So there you go, this time it is in libraries, and they are armed and trained to defend the bookshelves from opposing oppressors of free thought or something.

As I said, it is just a cool premise; nothing too violent or important ever happens and it is mostly stereotypical comedy and romance. Which is just fine if you realize the target audience is GIRLS and not BOYS and thus there is very little violence and lots of romance. There is action too, but it is cartoony and aimed at destroying books and not at killing or injuring people. For the same reason, you must love books or be a strong supporter of liberties, or even the premise won’t work and the whole thing will backfire as being completely stupid. A WAR FOR BOOKS? And since it never tries to be serious or delves deep into politics and morals, it is a hit or miss if it works.

Besides that the characters are you standard shoujo fair, the dynamic female protagonist who is otherwise frail and in constant need of her super handsome commander… and some others. Yup, it is basically a two-character show with the rest flavouring it with silly action and goofy comedy. It works to place everything in a context (other that goddamn schools) and to have a theme while everything unfolds predictably but also nicely and end rather satisfactory after 12 episodes. It is still very basic as a whole, and all secondary characters are left undeveloped and always easily acknowledged as either good (supporters of books) or bad (trashers of the former). It would be really cool to see some reasoning behind the baddies and some actual political implications but NAH nothing of the sort happens.

I leave for last the production values which are nothing much in terms of background details or cinematics. To the most part everything looks ok and even crossfire scenes lack overall tragedy or excitement. There are also no exceptional music pieces or memorable voice action and the comedy is almost ever-present to make things appear even more simplistic with deformity and cartoony violence.

So as a whole it is not a great show but if you get past the stupid logic of WAR FOR BOOKS then you get a nice time waster. But nothing more. I prefer my wars with blood spilling, lives lost, and people screaming.

Set in the near-future, Library War is focused on the members of the Library Team Defense Force, a military organization created by local governments in defiance of a censorship bill where the country's military has authority to confiscate and destroy books considered "harmful" to Japanese society. The title's main focus is on new recruit Iku Kasahara, who learns of the challenges that go into the fight against censorship with the defense force and putting up with the rigid training of her instructor Atsushi Dojo.

To a good extent, Library War is focused on the regular operations of the Library Team Defense Force as they handle different ... censorship cases against government military forces and supporters of the censorship policies they enforce. The premise of the series will seem quite similar to the dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 in the censorship of books enforced between both works. However, Library War has a somewhat more lighter mood in comparison as it balances social commentary on issues related to censorship with the camaraderie taking place with Library Defense Force members. Episodes of the series mix around focus on exploring characters within the Defense Force, while also looking into the cases they take on when protecting libraries and anti-censorship public figures from government agents trying to enforce the censorship bill. Many of the characters get fleshing out and the series does quite well at showing off the challenges faced by the Defense Force with fending off censorship efforts and public opinion on the issue.

In spite of its somewhat unique premise though, Library War does have its faults. Some characters like Dojo and Iku's roommate don't get much in the way of fleshing out and there are points where Iku's idealistic and impulsive character can be grating with her "rush first, think later" mentality to action. Also for a series dabbling into action, the visuals to Library War are average and the animation occasionally suffers from inconsistencies, poor clashing with the subpar CG renderings of vehicles and degraded details during more intense moments within the series.

Still in spite of its issues, Library War is a solid series exploring anime's own spin of Fahrenheit 451's premise with a lighter mood and having more focus on those resisting the efforts of censorship being instituted by the government.

Looking for military-themed anime I found this one, and it caught my attention; It was anything but what I expected, and I'm glad it turned out just the way it was. The best way to compare this anime is with the famous book Fahrenheit 451, but Japan style and I must say it works. The story is entertaining, it has dramatic moments, some comedy, the characters are deep enough to understand why they act and think the way they do. So I recommend it, I just have to add that it is better to watch it for the anti-censorship plot than for the romance, since ... although the romance is there, it is the least important and is not as present as other themes.

As a bonus, I suggest that for it to feel like a satisfying conclusion, you'll really have to see the movie, a sequel that delivers what one as a viewer wants.

WARNING THE FOLLOWING REVIEW IS BASED SOLELY OF THE OPINION OF ONE PERSON. PLEASE DO NOT LET THIS PERSON'S OPINION EFFECT WHETHER OR NOT YOU WOULD VIEW THIS ANIME.
Toshokan Sensou or Library Wars in English is a Japanese anime rated PG-13.It aired in the spring of 2008 and is mainly a genre of action and comedy. Library Wars may make you think about boring, but this anime is far from it.
The story takes place in 2019 where the Media Enhancement Act censor all forms of media they feel is corrupt. To protect the libraries ... and people a second organization called the Library Corps was formed with military Task Force. The story revolves around Kasahara, Lt. Doujou, Shibaski, and the rest of the people in the Kantou Base Library Corp. The story is one of the most original as I have never read nor watch a story quite like it. Props to the author who though of such a brilliant story. The story is fast paced, but gives you vital information so the viewers would not be confused. Sometimes the Library Corps are on the verge of losing and you could feel yourself rooting for them. As a story it brings out emotions and is relate able to people of all ages. The message is freedom and how even in this society sometimes we do not have it. I love the message and I feel other people would like it as well.
The art is not like your typical anime characters and even though I am not an artist myself you can see the perfect outlines on some of the settings. The creator must have spent great time in the creation of the art because it looks
outstanding.
The sound is great. I feel the VA(Voice Actors) in this anime did a superb job. You do not feel like they are reading off a script, but as if they are the characters themselves. I did not listen to the whole theme songs off this anime, but based off what I heard the theme songs seem catchy and fit the mood of the anime. Some theme songs are opposite to what they anime is about. As for OST'S I felt it gave the anime the extra edge to make the mood understandable.
The characters were the only thing I was skeptical about. Not that the characters were bad, but I felt they were cliche. Kasahara was the naive girl who inspires people even though she is horrible at book work. Lt. Doujou was the commander that often fought and teased Kasahara, but always tried to protect her. I could go on, but there are too many cliche characters. Still even though they were a little cliche you would fall in love with the characters because they had characteristics that we all possess.
Overall, I did enjoy the anime and finished it in two days. The anime is short and I wish it was longer, but I still loved the anime.

I am reviewing this anime after watching it twice and reading the manga about 10+ times. So, I started with the anime. I was looking for a good anime with a tsundere type character and a decent romance line. This caught my eye mainly by the reviews on myanimelist. So I watched it and it began to intrigue me. It never pulled me fully in but it did introduce me to the manga which made me OBSESSED!

I get it, manga will always usually reign supreme as it doesn't have the restrictions anime do. However, there were some ... key elements from the manga that were really ignored in the anime. In the manga there are certain actions that pull the main two characters together and really get you rooting for them. This anime had that but not in the same way. Some bits felt a bit rushed and the whole relationship building the two main characters have was merely gone in the anime, to a point that you couldn't feel as invested in their relationship as you would in the manga.

Either way give it a try and definitely...DEFINITELY go read the manga! It's amazing and still continuing on! We need a bigger fanbase as currently it is a pretty small group of fans for what is a wonderful story.

everything else about the show is palpable. the context of the library wars, the conflicting ideologies producing this type of war to begin with and the consequences of a society full of literary censorship. the BIGGEST problem I see in this show is the persona of the MC and how it devalues the nature of the story going on around here. while library wars is meant to encapsulate the circumstances surrounding a society fighting over censorship of texts, all this gets completely lost upon us when the motivating factor for the MC's decision to join the defense force is a romantic one and a self ... centered one rather than a noble one. she wants the officer who saved her and her book to notice her. more so than protecting the value of books, this MC is only interested in garnering the attention of her supervising officer. how am i supposed to take the plot seriously when the author forcefully injects a teen romance into all of this? the MC has nothing endearing about her. she is incredibly cocky about her physical ability all because she used to run track and field. she refuses to acknowledge why the instructor is going hard on her. she lacks the objective ego to realize her own shortcomings and turns into a watered down asuka type character when trying to confront these shortcomings. this story would have been a million times better if the MC was a mature woman and not a literal middle schooling fawning over an adult man. this reads like a sick romantic fantasy devised by an author who has no understanding of conflict and narrative tension.

If Ray Bradbury had an anime.

The concept is fun, pitting two sides against each other on the side of censorship or preservation, hence a "Library War". To think that books would cause a war, right? With shooting and bullets and guns and boot camp. Even with "war", it keeps a semi-light hearted tone, it's kind of hard to describe but to me "stringy" sounds good. It doesn't get gritty or bloody and it's not a rom-com, but it has slapstick moments, an in-betweener, I suppose.

It's been said before with a handful of anime (I know Kuroko's Basketball had this problem) but it applies ... here as well. Every episode starts with a recap of the synopsis (basically what I already told you) and then the OP and then a recap of the episode before it, which in this day and age we can just skip it but it's still annoying for it to take up the first 2-3 minutes.

In just that first episode, you're introduced to the motivation, the key players, the goal and the opportunity to achieve that goal but also opportunity for learning. This series is based around Kasaharu, who falls victim to the Media Cleansing Act while going to the book store to retrieve the new issue of her favorite book series. Come to find out, that book is being banned so she protects it. It'd be interesting to see her sneak out with it but no, someone comes by as a part of the Library Defense Force and claims the book/shop in the name of the great library.

The story kind of continues from there and episodes do build off of each other by including plot threads but it's not a deep storyline or anything, it's light. The idea is that there are all these events that sort of give Kasahara reason to grow and change so that she may approach a certain situation in the last episode differently than what she would have at the beginning of the series, which is cool and all for that pay off but I feel like it could've been a bit smoother and engaged in its narrative.

Because other than Kasahara, the characters don't get a whole lot. As I said, the filler type episodes can have Kasahara team up with someone such as Shibasaki or Tezuka and they might get their own little thing here or there but that's about it. They introduce who seems to be a promising major villain that isn't even associated with the Cleansing Force but he doesn't show up until (I'm pretty sure it was Episode 8) out of 12 and shows up very sparingly after that one ep. Now this could've been taken farther with a S2, except there isn't one, this is just part of the story, both the manga and light novels go farther but honestly, I wasn't interested in it enough for an S2 anyway.

In the end, it doesn't innovate the concept a whole lot, leaving it to feel pretty bland and shallow with its content, same with its visual style. It could've had a message like "love blooms on a battlefield" or "find beauty in a battlefield" anything that could've been built but it takes as broad strokes as it can. I like the challenging rules standpoint but it needs more. From what I see, people who read the manga and novels don't like it anyway so maybe it's better there. What I can imagine happened is that there are two different mangas (Love is War and Spitfire) which take two different tones and they figured why not combine the two for an anime since ran along side them but I honestly don't know since I haven't read them, that's just a theory.