Sekirei

Sekirei is targeted at male audience, viewers who dislike ecchi/harem anime should look elsewhere. Likewise, those who love fan service should give Sekirei a try. It contains all the "ripped up clothes" scenes, "censored panty" shots, "semi-bare breasts", etc. You will not be disappointed.

It should be noted that while the show does follow the manga quite closely for the most part, the ending of the anime does deviate from the manga a bit.

Story:
Are you familiar with Fate/stay Night? If you are please continue reading this paragraph, if not skip to the next. Upon reading the synopsis, you may find Sekirei's plot to be very similar. In fact, to sum it up in a nutshell, the major difference is that instead of 8 servants fighting each other, this time we have 108 seikirei instead. But rather than only having 1 servant to fight for the master, in the Sekirei world, the master can have as many seikirei as he/she can get.

For those who are not familiar with Fate/stay Night, Sekirei is about a battle royal between 108 artificially made life forms (disguised as mostly female, though there are some male as well). These life forms, known as sekirei, are to find their Ashikabi (humans with special genes that allows them to partner with sekirei) and fight for them.

Art:
The quality of the animation is great as it is done by Seven Arcs, whose work includes the Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha franchise and Inukami!. Everything flows pretty smoothly and characters are drawn in detail, though sadly the show is not broadcast in HD.

There are occasional scenes that, when compared with the manga's artwork, the level is plainly a grade lower. Hence for those who actually appreciate artist's drawing, I recommend try reading the manga as well.

Sound:
The OP and ED are very well rated by most viewers due to the talented casts of seiyu singing them. Talking about seiyu, one should be able to recognize a few names right away. Just to quickly name a few:

Kazehana voiced by Yukana Nogami (C.C. in Code Geass, Teletha Testarossa in Full Metal Panic, etc)
Tsukiumi voiced by Inoue Marina (Yoko Ritona in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, etc)
Asama Miya voiced by Oohara Sayaka (Milly Ashford in Code Geass, Alicia Florence in Aria the Animation, etc)
Matsu voiced by Endou Aya (Sheryl Nome in Macross Frontier, Lena Sayers in Mai-Otome 0~S.ifr~, Kinue Crossroad in Gundam 00, etc)
Karasuba voiced by Paku Romi (Edward Elric in Full Metal Alchemist, Hitsugaya in Bleach, etc)

etc...you get the point

Believe it or not, this talented casts of seiyu was one of the major selling point for Sekirei (beside fan service of course).

Character:
Many characters tend to be under developed for the most part of the story (this is usually the case when there's half a dozen "main" characters and only a dozen episodes to talk about them). As the series approach the ending, we see quite a lot more development for the main casts, particularly Minato (the male protagonist) and his sekirei. It is also interesting to note that the relationship between Minato and his sekirei throughout the series also provided a lot of entertainment, but more often than not these don't contribute much to character developments.

Enjoyment:
I enjoyed the series very much. Each episode has its own comedy to laugh at and at the same time it still contain enough action and drama to make the overall story attractive enough to me glued to the screen episode after episode. Definitely worth spending your time on.

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It doesn’t take a genius to look at the anime page for Sekirei and have a pretty good idea what you are getting yourself into. But I have a weakness for such shows regardless how silly, played out, and clichéd they usually are. I have to say though that with Sekirei I was pleasantly surprised with the results.

The basic premise for Sekirei was interesting to me. In a lot of ways it reminded me of the action movie Highlander, only with tits and asses. The setting is a town in Japan controlled by the massive MBI cooperation. They are administering a "game" of sorts which pits 108 mysterious girls (and a few boys) called Sekirei against one another in a battle in which only one will get the prize. Each of the Sekirei binds themselves to a human called an Ashikabi with a kiss which grants them extra powers. There can be only one... giant pair of boobies.

Sekirei does a good job of combining a lot of different genres together and making it work. Action and fighting anime mixed with harem romance and comedy and a healthy dose of supernatural magic. It manages to work quite well and despite being a short series there is enough of everything to keep fans entertained. Though the series doesn’t wrap up the main storyline it ends with an announcement of a second season. This is good because quite a few unanswered questions remain at the end. The pacing of the plot is good and it keeps you interested and never feels like its dragging along or becoming repetitive. It doesn’t always stay on topic but I never found myself minding that much when it didn’t. Unexpectantly I really did enjoy the harem aspect of the story. This was one of the few series in which I liked the entire group of girls. It also may be the only time I wouldn’t mind if there is never a romantic choice between them and the male lead. They all work so well together and have so much chemistry that I really just think they all belong together.

The cast overall is a bit mixed but for the most part very good. It is brought down mainly by an uninspired and uninteresting lead in Minato. He is your classic harem lead and I really fail to understand why the girls in the cast find him so damn interesting. It’s not that he’s an unlikable guy, because he is but he is very unoriginal and doesn’t stand out. Viewers are unlikely to think much of him other than to wish they were in his place. Besides spouting clichés and acting holier than thou he contributes nothing to the plot other than to be saved by his busty harem.

It’s the harem though that saves the series for me. I really loved them all, they were hilarious together and while none of them are inspired characters from an originality standpoint they just matched each other so well that they were a lot of fun. Musubi is the ditsy and airheaded fighter who really just cares about the competition. Her personality provides for a lot of comedy and a whole lot of fan service. Early on in the story you would say she was the main love interest and while she may turn out to be that in the end she kind of became just one of the girls by the middle portions of the show. I didn’t mind this so much because the rest of the girls were fun as well. Tsukiume is the main rival for Minato's affections with Musubi. She’s the resident tsundere so of course I loved her immediately. Like most tsundere characters it seems she underwent the most growth in personality so I felt like I was rooting for her. Misato stars as the perverted and geeky glasses girl. She takes more of a backseat with the romance but her personality is more for laughs. Of course a harem wouldn’t be complete without a loli, Kusano. Despite me not liking loli's much I have to admit Kuu was pretty damn lovable and impossible to hate.

The rest of the supporting cast and villains is solid but not particularly deep. Everyone’s favorite is likely to be Miya, the landlady of the house they all live in together. She’s a bit of a mysterious character in her origins but she acts a bit like a teacher, combat trainer, and a mother. But dont tell her that or she’ll make a scary aura appear. Other Ashikabi and their Sekirei appear over the course of the story, some to help and others to fight against our heroes and heroines. We only get a small taste of the main villains which mostly serve to tease the next season. Other supporting characters like Uzume and Homura remain mostly clouded in mystery and set for larger roles in the future.

Artistically I can’t say I like Sekirei. This is not to say the animation and art is bad, because it’s not. Sekirei really puts the service in fan service and its uncensored version rivals pretty much any other show in terms of its nudity and panty shots. My main problem though is the unrealistic and silly body measurements and character designs. The boobs are outrageously huge on practically every non-loli character and really not even that attractive to look at. They are unrealistically shaped and this is important because you are going to see them ALOT! Additionally the girls’ bodies are completely malformed with huge hips and asses and tiny waists. Often characters, particularly Musubi look practically deformed. It really takes away from the show as I dont think it was necessary. Dial it down a couple of cup sizes into at least a feasible size range. The magic and fighting special effects are pretty good though but there are far less of them then there are nipple shots.

I enjoyed the music and voice performances. I felt the OP/EN theme songs which were performed by the cast were cute and captured the spirit of the series. Of the seiyuu, I really liked Marina Inoue and Saori Hayama as Tsukiume and Musubi. They really brought out their respective characters and stole the show.

Looking back I shouldn’t really have liked this series as much as I did. It’s not remarkable in any aspect except just being entertaining. If your dont like harems and over the top fan service then you should stay away from this. However if you have a boob fetish, love service anime, or like fighting anime then Sekirei will probably be an enjoyable experience.

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Overview:

Sekirei is an anime that has never been a critical darling! However, my good buddy convinced me to ignore all the critics and give this series a shot. Unfortunately...I kind of have to agree with the popular consensus on this one. Sekirei has enough problems to make it very hard for me to recommend.

Plot and characters:

The plot of Sekirei is that some hot alien chicks crash landed on Earth and an evil corporation is forcing them to pair up with bland males to act as their “masters” and fight each other to the death in a Battle Royale tournament with the winners getting to ascend into Godhood. If only I hadn’t seen so many highly similar plots in other shitty anime like: Akikan, Kampfer, Future Diary, etc. It must be said that Sekirei is not exactly going to win any awards for its creativity. Each of these alien girls called “Sekirei” have different “types” that determine which techniques they can learn and how well they match up against other types based on elemental strengths and weaknesses. Funny, this seems AWFULLY familiar from somewhere! The main character is Minato, who is supposed to be a lovable loser kind of guy that has failed twice getting into Tokyo University and is now studying hard to finally succeed. Seriously! That’s just how little this series tries in terms of creativity. Although I wouldn’t say he is a complete Keitaro from Love Hina ripoff because Keitaro didn’t keep a harem of female slaves that he fought to the death in gladiator matches. I guess Minato is more like Keitaro mixed with Calvin Candie from Django Unchained?! The first Sekirei that Minato gains mastery over is a “fighting type” Sekirei named Musubi. Predictably, Musubi is an airheaded bimbo that lacks any interesting character traits. She loves to eat, flash her tits, and punch other Sekirei in the face. That’s really about as far as her character development goes. My favorite character is the mad scientist leader of the corporation controlling the Sekirei. He is so bombastic and over the top that he actually made me laugh on several occasions, especially in the English dub where he is played by Chuck Huber.

Art:

The animation in Sekirei is decent and some of the fight scenes look pretty good relative to its year of release. However, I wasn’t a fan of the character designs. The tits are so absurdly large that it just looks fucking stupid! Sekirei’s idea of human anatomy clashed hard with my personal aesthetics.

Enjoyment:

Sekirei actually did have a few moments that were genuinely funny, or at least so incredibly stupid that I laughed. In one scene, Musubi randomly starts flying and takes Minato into the air to spoof the romance scene from the 1978 Superman film…then she announces that she has no idea how to land and they fall hundreds of feet before crashing into a tree. The fight scenes as mentioned above in the art section are fairly decent and if you simply want to watch some entertaining garbage, this series is passable.

Overall:

Sekirei is not what I would consider a good anime by any stretch. However, it never annoyed me to the degree that Akikan and Kampfer did or infuriate me by being horribly written, yet taking itself dead seriously like Future Diary or Code Geass. Basically, Sekirei is a bad anime, but there are a LOT of anime I hate WAY more than Sekirei! Still, I would avoid this one unless you really want to see some mindless entertainment featuring impossibly busty Pokemon women fighting each other for the sake of a highly cliche' and contrived plot.

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I don't know why people ask me to review harem anime. Yes, I've found a few that I liked, but most of them are heavily misogynistic and treat the women like prizes to be won or vapid automatons that have been programmed to chase after this one very ordinary guy regardless of how he treats them or how obviously he rejects them. Who knows, maybe my general distaste for the genre makes people want reviews to see if their particular one will be one of the exceptions or maybe it's a case of people wanting to see me tear an anime a new one and they figure a harem title has a good chance of filling that role. The series was created by the manga artist, Gokurakuin Sakurako or Sakura Ashika. An artist best known for her shounen ai. The anime adaptation was handled by Seven Arcs, the studio behind Inukami, which was bad and Mahou Shoujp Lyrical Nanoha, which was good. Let's take a look at Sekirei and see if it's one of those rare good harem anime or one of the many that isn't even remotely worthwhile.

Our story begins with a ronin named Minato who's just failed to get into University for the second year in a row. As he's walking down the street a girl, Musubi, falls on top of him. She's being chased by lightning hurling twins. She grabs Minato and runs. It turns out she's a Sekirei, a being with super powers that are fully activated by kissing an Ashikabi, which is the title for their masters. The idea is that a hundred and eight of these beings will fight until one is left to claim the ascension prize. The story from there primarily focuses on the various Sekirei that flock to Minato. Just about everything in the series is pretty typical for a harem series. The only real exception is the powered being battle which, as the only potentially interesting element, is pushed into the background. Plus, the execution for what they do have of it is crap. Get this, one of the rules is that Ashikabi are forbidden to mention the Sekirei plan to outsiders, and yet you see the Sekirei fight out in the open where anyone can see them by walking by, opening a window installing a security camera or through various other means. And yet this is supposed to be a secret. That goes past Twilight and to All Star Batman and Robin levels of stupidity. The humour is another element that fails. Sekirei does have an occasional funny joke, but you can count them on the fingers of one hand, assuming a normal number of fingers. The ending is absolute rubbish. They set up for a sequel while having a pandering, arbitrary triumphant moment. The worst aspect of the work as a whole is the absolutely vile treatment of the female characters. They're quite strongly objectified right down to having masters who can, quite literally, claim them whether they like it or not. This is probably the best example of internalised misogyny I've ever seen.

The characters are about as nuanced and developed as tissue paper. They're fully typical for what you almost always see in bad harem anime. You have the ordinary protagonist with no special attributes who you're supposed to root for because he's a generically "good" character. The perky and air-headed girl. The more aggressive girl. The loli (ewww) and so on. You will never find a real woman who acts like any of these characters, but they're designed to appeal to incredibly shallow and hormonal men so... mission accomplished?

The artwork in this could be generic, but there are several factors that bring it down. The first, and most obvious, being the absurd fan-service. Expect a lot of random panty, ass and breast shots. The fight scenes would be good, but they have the same problem as the action sequences in Highschool of the Dead and Ichiban Ushiro no Daimou, they like to break up the action with fan-service scenes and use the fight scenes as a flimsy excuse to strip the protagonists. Sekirei, stop being stupid. No one is going to do that in a fight. You're going to aim for causing injuries, not ripping someone's clothes. The only way you're going to go for someone's clothes in an actual fight is if they've got loose bits that you can use to pull the person to the ground or to hinder their mobility. The backgrounds are largely dull too.

Don't expect great vocal performances in this. It's almost certainly a case of dull, uninspired characters having voice actors who are good, but can't add depth where the script calls for none. And the problem certainly isn't the actors. You've got Hayami Saori (who was good in both Ano Hana and Sasameki Koto), Inoue Marina (who was good in Gakuen Utopia Manabi Straight and Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha Strikers) but if I give examples of good performances for every voice actor this'll be exceedingly long. The point to take away from this little exercise is that the actors are capable, their performances in this are just bad. The music is the best part of the series. It isn't good, it isn't even mediocre, but it's not bad.

The yuri factor is a 4/10. There are some decidedly yuri moments in this.

Sekirei is terrible. The story is largely typical harem schlock and the atypical element has been done by several, vastly superior anime. The characters are a joke, the treatment of the female characters as objects to be collected is appalling. The sheer idiocy of several of the elements is headache inducing and the fan-service is just ridiculous. I will give it some credit for it's few funny moments and occasional good action sequence, but they certainly aren't worth sitting through the rest of the series to get to. Final rating 2/10. I just hope the next thing on my review request queue is better. Let me see... Sekirei: Pure Engagement. Insert as many expletives here as you like, it probably won't be enough. I'm going to take a couple hours to read Gail Simone before moving on to that, but expect the review next week.

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