Toshokan Sensou (Library Wars)

In the year 1989, the Japanese government passed the Media Betterment Act, allowing a group of soldiers known as the Media Betterment Committee (MBC) to destroy and censor any "problematic" media under the guise of protecting public morals. As a response, regional governments established the Library Defense Force (LDF), whose members take up arms and put their lives on the line to protect freedom of expression. At the top of the Kanto branch of the LDF stands the Library Task Force (LTF): an elite squad consisting of only the most exceptional fighters.

As a high schooler, Iku Kasahara experienced the terror of censorship first-hand when she refused to surrender the newest volume of her favorite series to MBC agents. She only came out unscathed thanks to a lone member of the LDF, who protected her and her beloved book. Now in her 20s and still unable to forget the man who saved her, Kasahara joins the LDF in the hope of becoming just like her prince.

But LDF training turns out to be far more rigorous than she could have imagined, and her instructor, LTF member Atsushi Doujou, seems fixated on making her life a living hell. Given her struggles, Kasahara is shocked when she is selected as one of the two new LTF recruits as a result of Doujou's recommendation. As Kasahara does all she can to become worthy of the LTF and unravel her enigmatic superior's motivations, she wages war—both on the battlefield and in her personal life.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Edit

Background

No background information has been added to this title. Help improve our database by adding background information here.

Episode Videos

Edit

Related Anime

Adaptation:	Toshokan Sensou
Side story:	Toshokan Sensou: Koi no Shougai
Sequel:	Toshokan Sensou: Kakumei no Tsubasa

More characters

Characters & Voice Actors

Doujou, Atsushi

Main

Maeno, Tomoaki
Japanese

Kasahara, Iku

Main

Inoue, Marina
Japanese

Shibasaki, Asako

Supporting

Sawashiro, Miyuki
Japanese

Komaki, Mikihisa

Supporting

Ishida, Akira
Japanese

Tezuka, Hikaru

Supporting

Suzuki, Tatsuhisa
Japanese

Asahina, Hikaru

Supporting

Ono, Daisuke
Japanese

Tezuka, Satoshi

Supporting

Yoshino, Hiroyuki
Japanese

Inamine, Kazuichi

Supporting

Satou, Haruo
Japanese

Nonomiya, Shizuka

Supporting

Nazuka, Kaori
Japanese

Orikuchi, Maki

Supporting

Tanaka, Rie
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Nishimura, Tomoyasu

Producer

Hosokai, Kousuke

Producer

Hamana, Takayuki

Director, Episode Director, Storyboard

Hiramitsu, Takuya

Sound Director

Edit

Opening Theme

"Atashi no Machi, Asu no Machi (あたしの街、明日の街)" by Hitomi Takahashi

Edit

Ending Theme

"changes" by Base Ball Bear

Reviews

Jul 10, 2008

Archaeon

Recommended

Toshokan Sensou (or The Library Wars), is another one of those odd anime that I seem to end up reviewing. The show has a nice premise which is reminiscent of Orwell's 1984 and Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 all rolled into one.

The anime is based on a series of four light novels by Arikawa Hiro (entitled Toshokan Sensou, Nairan, Kiki, and Kakumei respectively), which were published from 2006 to 2007. The novels were later serialized in two mangas. The first manga was made by Yumi Kiiro, and published in Lala magazine from September 2007. The second was made by Furudori Yayoi, and was published Dengeki Daioh magazine ...

Open

Gift

Sep 9, 2019

ArakakiLaurant

Mixed Feelings

Toshokan Sensou seems like the kind of anime you want to watch just because of the premise: the story of the first woman to join a military force specialized in fighting against censorship. Sounds incredible, right? Well, sadly it fails to justify the idiosyncratic politics that frames the whole setting, as well to present any meaningful insight of such complex themes. Does that mean the show sucks? Not exactly. While the simplistic nature of the setting can be underwhelming, it's a completely functional field for the true crop of the story grows: the characters.

Ultimately, Toshokan Sensou is a coming of age. Kasahara Iku must not ... only overcome her immaturity towards her professional stance, but also with matters of the heart - as well a little plot involving her parents disapproval of her dangerous job. The narrative does an excellent job at progressing her character in a satisfying pace. You can see that she's steadying improving, but not drastically changing.

The cast surrounding her is a lovable bunch, the show doesn't pull any punches in presenting them in a more calculated way. You're pretty much throw at their everyday experience while they're rapidly introduced by a little profile, which it's a good thing because you get the feel that these people are actually accustomed to each other and been living together for a long time, letting you appreciate how their dynamics change and evolves in the course of the story.

Kasahara's interactions with her roommate Shibasaki are specially tasty, their contrasting personalities are not only matched by the dialogue, but by their seiyuu as well. Marina Inoue and Miyuki Sawashiro are such unique voices and deliver such stellar performances that you could watch just for it.

Talking about the ladies, one specific aspect this show nails is their visual presentation, they are treated with utmost respect despite being plenty attractive. Which may not comes as a surprise since it's an early Noitamina show, but still a reinvigorating factor considering the ways things are nowadays.

Despise romance being quite an important thing in this series, it never overwhelms the plot, Instead, it naturally flows and spontaneously happens at times. Not to say it's great, but it's not a hindrance either. It presents itself quite smoothly when it comes to supporting characters, in contrast the romance between the main characters is awkward and clumsy as it gets. Also, it's pretty stupid how the story constantly reiterate how "they're so alike and do exactly the same things!", it only comes as a very lazy way of bridging, Despise all that, they still make an adorable pair.

Actions scenes compose a great part of the narrative, and while they're not essentially bad, they suffer from the lack of political nuance and actual stakes of danger and weight, people are constantly shot but blood is a rare sight to behold (except in a scene in the last arc, that ironically maintains the absurdity of the show in that regard). Battles and conflicts in general have strange conjectures but are diligent enough to make up engaging scenes.

Toshokan Sensou ended up as a mixed bag, having problems that highly affects the show thematically, but doesn't compromise the moment to moment experience, which I personally find captivating and endearing.

~A note on the movie: Kakumei no Tsubasa~

In the TV series, there was a strange feature where characters sometimes would have bold outlines, making them look very cartoonish, which was not only inconsistent, but questionable considering the overall somber tone of the show. The movie completely get rid of that and looks much better in comparison.

The plot is more interesting as it shows another side yet not explore in the series - the writers themselves. An author who is shamefully unaware of the unfair laws that could potentially wipe out his works - his raison d'être, finally realizing the danger of censorship and fighting against it. Unfortunately, this concept is not expanded as triumphantly as it could, wastefully existing only in a micro perspective of the matter.

The movie also progresses the romance even further with somewhat the merits and demerits as the TV series. Not a letdown, but also not a surprise. Overall, a nice resolution to a kind of a nice show.

Open

Gift

Feb 5, 2021

AnimeEnjoyer420

Not Recommended

Summary: Toshokan Sensou is an unfortunate case of a solid premise (what if libraries had their own militaries to fight off censorship?) wasted on uninspired material and a scattershot approach to genre that causes the tone of the series to careen wildly from one scene to the next. The pieces of a good show can sometimes be found here, but it's ultimately a disappointment that never capitalizes on the ideas that it has.

Positives:

+ Intriguing premise. Though it never really makes the most of it, the sight of people in military fatigues doing book readings for children at the local library before fighting off ... jackbooted government thugs trying to do Fahrenheit 451 to their Clifford the Big Red Dog books is admirably goofy and unique.

+ Some good side characters. In particular, Shibasaki and Tezuka are interesting and I would have liked to see more of them, even though it wasn't as though they were sidelined or anything.

+ Looks pretty good for being over 10 years old. It's not perfect (see negatives section below) but generally looks solid. The art style is very reminiscent of Archer as well, it's got a different look to it that you don't see very often.

+ Ending was kind of nice. I wasn't really feeling the love story between Kasahara and Dojo for most of the series, but they managed to hook me a little with some nice scenes in the last episode.

Negatives:

- Unlikeable main character. It's very hard to root for Kasahara at points in this show. She's incompetent and emotionally fragile, unable to handle simple criticism from a superior office or put up with a single day of mild hazing without crying. She regularly displays poor judgment and puts others in danger because she doesn't think through the consequences of her actions. She is constantly criticized for these things by her superiors and yet they still put her on an elite special forces team, despite the fact that she can't even reliably hit a large, stationary target during weapons training. She messes things up constantly and is still shown favoritism and given duties and promotions far beyond her actual demonstrated capabilities, and then still whines about how her superiors are too mean to her when she fails. She sucks and I didn't like her at all.

- Tries to be too many different things at once. This show tries to be a military action story, a shoujo rom com, and Fahrenheit 451-style social commentary all at once, and ends up not doing any of them particularly well. The action scenes lack drama and the fact that dozens of people are shooting actual guns at each other for hours at a time and not a single person ever dies lends an air of absurdity to the whole thing. The rom com aspect is not especially well done. For some reason they decided to transport all the high school rom com tropes like blushing girls literally running away from their feelings into this series, which follows a military unit full of adults. I fear for how well they will be able to defend freedom of expression from fascism if they can't even make eye contact with someone they have a crush on.

- Uninspired and the social commentary lacks bite or purpose. The Fahrenheit 451 type setting of this series is quite literally just a setting. This series has nothing interesting or new to say on the subject. The message is "censorship bad, join your local library" and that's it. If you're watching this series expecting profound satire or political commentary, you will be sorely disappointed.

- Strange animation problems. Though the series mostly looks fine, there are some times when the character models get all wonky or look like they're moonwalking. Kasahara in particular sometimes takes on a weirdly frumpy appearance when you see her walking around.

- Lack of compelling villains. The Media Cleansing Committee are just faceless thugs. They seem sinister when they're first introduced in the opening episode, but only become less frightening with time. They take L's constantly, never winning even one time during a confrontation over the course of the series. They're Big Brother meets the Washington Generals. They aren't threatening and you never feel as though they're a significant obstacle to the main characters. Tezuka's brother occasionally shows flashes of being an interesting villain, but they never follow through on this and all of the tension dissipates when he exits the story for extended periods of time.

Open

Gift

More stacks

Interest Stacks

Nonschool/Adult Romances

by Majoux

50 Entries · 782 Restacks

noitaminA (Programming Block)

by MyAnimeList

111 Entries · 302 Restacks

Words. Paragraphs. Books

by RachelPanda

41 Entries · 73 Restacks

More recommendations

Recommendations

View All

More news

Recent News

North American Anime & Manga Releases for February

Here are the North American anime & manga releases for February Week 1: February 6 - 12 Anime Releases Gedo Senki DVD Gedo Senki Blu-ray & DVD Combo Heisei T...read more

Feb 5, 2018 10:23 AM by Sakana-san | Discuss (5 comments)

North American Anime & Manga Releases for November

Here are the North American Anime & Manga releases for November Week 1: November 3 - 9 Anime Releases Blessing of the Campanella Complete Collection Fairy Tail C...read more

Nov 4, 2015 1:59 PM by trebmeg | Discuss (20 comments)

More discussions

Recent Forum Discussion

Poll: Toshokan Sensou Episode 12 Discussion ( 1 2 ) dtshyk - Jun 26, 2008	61 replies	by Maou_heika »» Aug 25, 2023 5:04 AM
Poll: Toshokan Sensou Episode 5 Discussion dtshyk - May 8, 2008	29 replies	by Floral_soap »» Jun 2, 2023 4:10 PM
Poll: Toshokan Sensou Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 ) dtshyk - Apr 10, 2008	60 replies	by TenM »» Sep 17, 2022 3:51 AM
Poll: Toshokan Sensou Episode 3 Discussion dtshyk - Apr 24, 2008	38 replies	by caneton_pas_fini »» Sep 2, 2022 11:38 AM
Poll: Toshokan Sensou Episode 11 Discussion dtshyk - Jun 19, 2008	41 replies	by AntiMoba »» Apr 24, 2021 10:00 PM

Toshokan Sensou

Alternative Titles

Information

Statistics

Available At

Resources

Streaming Platforms

Synopsis

Background

Episode Videos

Visit MALxJapan
MALxJapan -More than just anime-

Related Anime

Characters & Voice Actors

Doujou, Atsushi

Kasahara, Iku

Shibasaki, Asako

Komaki, Mikihisa

Tezuka, Hikaru

Asahina, Hikaru

Tezuka, Satoshi

Inamine, Kazuichi

Nonomiya, Shizuka

Orikuchi, Maki

Staff

Opening Theme

Ending Theme

Reviews

Interest Stacks

Recommendations

Recent News

Recent Forum Discussion

MoreTop Anime

MoreTop Airing Anime

MoreMost Popular Characters

Toshokan Sensou

Alternative Titles

Information

Statistics

Available At

Resources

Streaming Platforms

Synopsis

Background

Episode Videos

Visit MALxJapan MALxJapan -More than just anime-

Related Anime

Characters & Voice Actors

Staff

Opening Theme

Ending Theme

Reviews

Interest Stacks

Recommendations

Recent News

Recent Forum Discussion

MoreTop Anime

MoreTop Airing Anime

MoreMost Popular Characters

Visit MALxJapan
MALxJapan -More than just anime-