Zettai Shougeki: Platonic Heart

Okay, so having completed this anime I can say I almost enjoyed it... until it got to the end. It has the rather standard ecchi anime vibe and typical OVA problems. Every fight you are guaranteed to see a boob shot with the occasional unnecessary fan service shots... it definitely feels like a wannabe Ikkitousen in that regard.

The story had a rather plain and unoriginal plot revolving around a gem that would grant the user any wish she chooses, however, it comes at the price of requiring them to fight for the gem and if they lose the fight, they would go into the ... "dark realm." The dark realm is never really explained and once you get to the end of the series you understand why. Now, as I was saying, I started off semi-enjoying this anime until it got halfway through the last episode. Out of nowhere it had more twists than an M. Night Shyamalan movie and like the new M. Night Shyamalan movies, the twists sucked and made no sense.

As another reviewer said, the main character's sole drive of continuing on this battle for the Platonic Heart is to save a "friend" that she only met a day prior. I don't know about you but I wouldn't put my life on the line for someone I just met and have no attachment to. Now, the other characters that you meet are plain and you have no interest or feeling towards them what-so-ever. Everything about this anime screams mediocre, from the art style to the characters and most importantly the story. It seemed like whoever penned the story liked the idea behind Sekirei and wanted their own version of it, yet they failed horribly.

I cannot express my frustration with how this anime ended anymore without giving it away. So I recommend anyone that is interested in this anime and feels the need to watch it, to possibly stop halfway through the last episode. You'll certainly be saving yourself a headache in the end. Overall: 3/10

Every April 1st, I spotlight a heartwarming anime with a special place in my heart. Last year, I covered the wonderful family film Shoujo Ramune. A film where we learned the lesson to choose ice cream over frozen yogurt, because some yogurt isn't even yummy at all! This year I'm covering "Master of Martial Hearts", which is the greatest magical girl anime you've never heard of! Move over Doremi, there's a new sheriff in town!

Why you should watch Master of Martial Hearts:

1. The characters. Simply put, Aya is one of the loveable and well developed characters in the medium. However, great characters can't exist in ... isolation. Even Don Quixote needed Sancho Panza. In Master of Martial Hearts, we get to see the astoundingly realistic family life of Aya and her mother Suzuko. The relationship between these two just blows past the mother/daughter relationship in Beast Player Erin. This is family drama on the level of Yi Yi and Tokyo Story.

2. Funimation is well known for their high moral standards. That's why they chose to dub, mass distribute, and continue to stream this series. Anime has a reputation for being lewd and sexist, but Master of Martial Hearts finally gets the portrayal of women right! This belongs in the pantheon of high brow, feminist anime along with Nana, Rose of Versailles, and Utena.

3. The art. My GOD the art is just beautiful. I wouldn't expect anything less from the esteemed Studio Arms. A studio most well known for their excellent biographies of prominent 19th century intellectuals including Wordsworth and Gauss. With titles like that, you KNOW it means quality! What other studio would have the artistic merit to make biographies of William Wordsworth and Carl Friedrich Gauss?!

4. Finally, it would be remiss not to mention the ending. I don't want to spoil anything, but this is hands down one of the most satisfying endings I've ever seen in a visual medium. The ending is so clever it makes your jaw hit the floor, but then you feel mad at yourself for not guessing it. The clues were all cleverly laid down all along! When the big reveal happened, I stood and applauded ecstatically for 3 minutes! This is the best ending I've seen since the 1973 film The Sting!

If you have friends that turn their noses up at anime and say it's trash culture, you MUST show them Master of Martial Hearts! Not Lain. Not Texhnolyze, not even Galactic Heroes. FUCK that shit! You show them Master of Martial Hearts and they will immediately apologize for ever questioning your tastes!

***Caution advised, lots of cursing and overall bad mood.***



So, anime as a whole has the reputation of not only being really, REALLY overblown and stupid but also to not be the greatest example in media when it comes to portraying female characters. Even though the days are long gone when people considered anime nothing but "oversexed teenage girls and tentacle porn", its ugly reputation as being sexist, stupid and overly violent still resonates. Especially whenever something like... well, THIS hits the shelves.

I don't even wanna type in the name of the anime because it's such a disgusting piece of crap. Let'S just call it "Schlocky ... Ikki Tousen Fanfic", or SITF for short. It's not possible for me to accept the fact that really awesome, thought-provoking and just downright beautifully crafted anime like "Now and Then, Here and There", "Infinite Ryvius" or even just fun, sexy ("sexy" will be a keyword later on, so bear with me on this one) titles like "New Cutie Honey" don't get a proper Bluray-release here in the west, while Funimation - as it seems - has nothing better to do than to license this... this wretched piece of baboon doo-doo!

F*ck!

Anywho, plot: Aya and Natsume (the subtle Tenjou Tenghe-reference here is the only thing in this OVA that can be described as borderline clever) are totally, like, BFFs and stuff. One fine day they stumble across a sexy stewardess fighting a sexy priest-chick. Aya - herself a sexy schoolgirl - helps sexy priest-chick out and by doing that, she "accidentally" joins the Martial Hearts-tournament. In this tournament, only women with sexy trademarks are allowed to participate and THE PRIZE (tm) is that any wish you have will be granted. And from there on out, bitches be fightin'. Bitches be fightin' in a garage. Bitches be fightin' in a maid café. Bitches be fightin' on a busy street. Bitches be fightin' everywhere. And then an awful, awful twist happens and this thing turns from a shitty anime into something way more sinister and vile.

Let's get the obvious thing out of the way first: Titties. SITF has lots of titties. Really poorly animated, poorly drawn titties that are shown off in the most unattractive way possible. It's marketed as "Ikki Tousen without censor bars and with a little more gore", but they (= Funimation) left out the "... with way less budget"-part.

Resident animu-schlockmeisters and occasional porn producers ARMS - who, I might add, once were pretty damn good in the animation department when it came to sleazy-ass schlocky action-series (see: "Kite", "Mezzoforte", "Elfen Lied") - churn out their worst effort to date. The animation and art quality is complete horseshit all around. Everything looks unappealing and artificial, and despite being an OVA (for which, generally speaking, studios have more budget on their hands to do stuff with) this could easily be mistaken as a shitty generic shonen-panty fighter-series from the 90s.

Don't even get me started on the soundtrack that might just feature the most awful opening song I've heard in anything ever. Imagine Avril Lavigne being really frigging high and just babbling words in a foreign language into a headset-microphone, while some crappy garage band shreds "Smoke on the Water - The Punkrock Edition" in the background - there's your opening.

The Japanese cast doesn't even care, everybody just phones their performance in and collects their paycheck - and can you really blame them? The English dub is kinda decent, but the talents of the dub actors are wasted on this dull piece of crap, and you cannot make dialogue like this...

"I WILL CALL THIS DAY 'BEST FRIENDS DAY' FROM NOW ON! YAY!"

... sound appealing even if you tried.

To talk about the characters would mean spoiling SITF. And it's against the guidelines to spoil stuff, so let me put it like this: SITF tries really hard to sell one of the unnecessarily darkest plot twists I've seen in quite some time. Emphasis on "tries", because the anime needs AN ENTIRE FLIPPING EPISODE to explain the twist. The fact this twist exists is not my problem though - I dig the idea, sort of.

But the execution is incredibly baffling to watch. All of a sudden, everything just seems cold and meaningless and doesn't even start to make a lick of sense. Characters who were carbon copies of crappy character archetypes become even worse archetypes, people die, people try to explain what the heck they're doing and then SITF just pulls the plug at the end of episode 5 without even bothering to fill the plotholes it left behind, after (clumsily) deconstructing itself and the entire genre it belongs to. And, by proxy, it kinda accidentally shows us what kind of people work at Studio ARMS. And in the industry in general.

Here's what SITF wants to tell us: Basically, everything is a scam and we're dickheads for buying into said scam. SITF takes burning itself down into account to drill this into our heads: we're bad because we watch boobs. Bad us. Bad viewers. Bad Aya for participating in a tournament that fulfills some vage wish. Everything is shit. You're shit. How dare you?

Too bad it comes from the same goddamn studio responsible - as said above - FOR EXPLOITATION. ARMS animated stuff like...:
- Queen's Blade
- Sekai de Ichiban Tsuyoku Naritai!
- Elfen Lied
- Kite & Mezzo Forte
- Word's Worth

... but now WE, the viewers, are the bad guys because we buy into their crap. Well, congratulations, everyone - we watched crappy fighting anime after crappy fighting anime as kids, just HOPING for that one shot of the female characters' titties - but in the end it doesn't really matter, because we're horrible people and everybody's miserable at the end. Woop-dee-friggin'-doo.

And the fact that this message - this ugly, ugly message that harkens back to the "uberviolent underage- and tentacle-porn"-archetype I mentioned above - is basically carried to the west by one of the biggest anime distributors in North America is nothing short of alarming, cruel and a disgrace to the fanbase.

I love anime. I love exploitation. I love sleazy-ass Ralph Bakshi-cartoons. I love Yasoumi "the dude who made Kite" Umetsu, he's one of my favorite animators and character designers of all time. But I don't like being scammed. I don't like being painted as an idiot because I watch animated girls fight each other and getting a kick out of that. I don't like being painted as such an idiot by the same idiots who churn out "Ikki Tousen"-season after increasingly shitty (but at least fun-shitty) "Ikki Tousen"-season, and seem to judge their viewership OPENLY as such idiots. And I don't like it when something this stupid thinks it's smarter than me or anyone who likes exploitation'esque cartoons, by implementing a plot twist this jarring and nonsensical.

0/10

Words cannot describe how terrible this OVA is. In fact, you know how you see lots of bad reviews on MAL and think to yourself "oh maybe I shouldn't watch this?" Go with that thought. This is one of the many terrible Ecchi shows ever made. You can seriously skip this show, there are so many things wrong with it that I'm sure have already been explained. The story is terrible, the Opening intro sounds like they just grabbed some random non talented girl off the streets and paid her to sing. The art, is really bad for it's time. It has more of a ... 2001-2004 feeling to it. I found it rather difficult to continue watching, however I made it... mostly because boobs. I would NOT! recommend this to anyone, especially if you're like me and want to watch bad shows for laughs and giggles.

When it comes to anime that's commonly called the "worst", many people will generally answer with shows from one of 2 groups of thought - new school anime fans will say something like School Days, Mars of Destruction, or Pupa; old school anime fans will generally say something like Genocyber, Violence Jack, or MD Geist. I'm here to present the case that THIS is the worst anime of all time, hands down.

Story - 1/10
The short version: Take Ikkitoisen, make it as edgy as the anime adaptation of Akame ga Kill!. Then, condense the end result into a 5 episode OVA, and give ... said OVA an ending as shocking as School Days - without the satisfaction of said ending. You now have the plot to Master of Martial Hearts.

The long version: A girl gets forced into a fighting tournament, with the prize being a gem called the Martial Heart, which supposedly grants the wish of the winner; the girl in question, Aya, wants to win her friend back - a friend that she just met, and has no reason to save. The plot gets darker and darker as the episodes progress, but it's not dark in the good sort of way, like the 2011 reboot of Hunter x Hunter. The ending, however, is absolutely shocking - but because it's the type that only works if you have seen the entire series, I'm not going to discuss it.

Essentially, this show is acting as a deconstruction of the "Panty Fighter" genre (examples of the genre include Rosario+Vampire, Ikkitousen, Kill La Kill). While I was able to understand the story better than, oh say, Mars of Destruction...what I understood of the story was terrible.

Art - 1/10
This wasn't the worst I've seen...but for 2008 standards, it's pretty bad. However, considering the fact that this is by Studio Arms, who have literally made only one anime I like (Maoyuu Maoyu Yuusha), it's pretty understandable as to why the animation quality sucks.

Sound - 1/10
The reason it gets such a low score is because the sound is just...forgettable. The only sound I remember is clothes ripping.

Character - 1/10
There is literally no character development (I guess there is character change, but it's "character destruction" instead of character development - the character that undergoes change is Aya Iseshima, and she devolves from "I'm fighting for my friends" to "I'm going to murder you for no reason"), and the characters there are just uninteresting. I could not name a single interesting thing about the characters if I tried. The characters are all unlikable - even the main character, Aya Iseshima, had no redeemable qualities (and for the most part, that's usually something that most anime get right - the only other case that I can think of that screws this up just as much as Master of Martial Hearts is School Days!).

Enjoyment - 1/10
This was the only area where my expectations were met - and that's not a good thing. I was expecting this to be terrible, and I was right.

Overall - 1/10
This anime makes me wish I could give a score of -1/10 - since this DESERVES that score. This is the worst anime of all time - it's not enjoyable as a show, and if you look at it as a deconstruction, it absolutely fails on that regard - heck, even School Days is a better deconstruction than this show, since at least with School Days, they actually manage to avoid most of the flaws that they are trying to make fun of, and the ending is awesome.

Alternative recommendations: Sekirei, Freezing, Kill la Kill, Highschool DxD

Take the story of Fate Stay Night - Fight to get your wish exhaused - Take the story of Ikkitousen - Girl fightning tournament - and you get Zettai Shougeki.

Character ? Basic. The two long years friends, and one of them is secretly in love with a gentlemen, beautiful men. When she see him, she always blush and dont know what to say (That's somehow already seen ... no ?)

This one is one more poor fan service ecchi anime, like ikkitousen, the girls are always getting naked because of the hits ... or the wind.
The drawing are very poor (check espacialy the legs and ... breasts) ...

I dont know what to say instead of : don't waste your time, if you like the animes with a good story and art, this one is poor.

Maybe, if you want to see naked girl, you'll like.

Just a review I felt like writing because I thought a lot of other reviews left out some details. For starters, this review is meant to give people a general impression of the anime and whether or not they should watch it. I have been surprised from all of these action-ecchi anime series that Funimation has licensed recently, but I guess people out of Japan have started to take a liking to these genres. Watch this show in whichever language makes you more able to comprehend the story. I viewed the anime in English dub so I could catch more ... of the vocal connotations.

Story: The plot revolves around Aya Iseshima, a high school junior, who is dragged into a “Martial Hearts” tournament one day. Yes, by dragged, I mean Aya pretty much has to participate in a life-or-death situation since she justifies her use of martial arts as self-defense. Aya has to battle other very stereotypically dressed anime girls to obtain this martial heart capable of granting any wish. The initial premise should be familiar to almost everyone who has seen anime like Fate/Stay Night.

Since the anime revolves around Aya’s perspective most of the time, many technical details are left out in the beginning, such as who sponsors the event or why only females have to fight it out like this. Although this lack of context kept me in suspense about the real plot, it nonetheless oversimplified procedures and made the anime very predictable in the beginning. In other words, don't expect the plot to be innovative.

Now, a big problem comes with the anime’s direction. On the surface, the anime seems to appeal to guys who enjoy watching women’s clothes ripping off during fight scenes. That is, expect a lot of unnecessary fan service. However, the actual fight scenes are often brief, spanning only a few minutes at best in an episode. A large portion of the anime is spent on the drama and transition events, such as Aya lamenting over the consequences of her actions or trying to find out why her opponent has to fight.

In general, the shifts may confuse viewers because they don’t really know whether to treat the anime as more serious or comical, especially with the stereotypical costumes and battle moves during the fights. It’s like the anime staff wants you to like all this fan service but still feel guilty about it as a morally responsible human being. Thus, the drama does not complement the anime's action scenes very well.

This anime also has the issue of length. Spanning only 5 episodes, the story really doesn’t allow much time for multiple character developments. You’re expected to know how each character is related when they are first introduced, and the story pretty much goes from there. Therefore, you might have a hard time sympathizing with some of the characters, especially when it comes to situations when you're clearly suppose to feel sorry for them. For example, you're suppose to believe that Aya's friendship with a character you meet in the first episode is reason enough for her to risk her life.

If you can’t come to like any of the characters, that makes appreciating the drama in this anime rather difficult. Things might have been more clear if the anime was extended so proper character introductions could be made and the fight scenes given more detail. It just often seems unrealistic when the staff spends so much time emphasizing how important each contestant feels about winning and yet each fighter gets beaten in a few punches.

In addition, the length of the series makes episode 5 a bit hard to swallow for most viewers. I had to watch the episode more than once to fully grasp its meaning. The staff jammed way too much information in one episode, since the anime had so many plot holes to cover. The lack of transition scenes can make the ending appear rather distorted to viewers, which is understandable. I could tell that the staff members were attempting to make the plot seem simple at first but gradually grow more complicated. The only advice I can really give for this factor is to pace yourself when watching the anime to minimize information overload.

Art: In my opinion, this is probably the weakest category in this anime. The art style is your usual pretty girl look, and the female bodies are given a mature appearance to enhance the appeal of the many boob and panty shots. Seeing as how this anime is based off of a visual novel, you would expect the art to be gorgeous, but this is sadly not the case. There was obviously a budget issue. For one thing, the characters hardly look the way they are portrayed on the cover advertisements for this anime. Whoever was in charge of character designs in the show probably didn't care very much.

Furthermore, the animation is often very limited. You’ll often see only a few frames associated with individual facial expressions and movements. Some of the scenes were quite ridiculous, like the flight attendant’s handbag assault in episode 1. The bag was clearly heavy enough to dent a solid wall, yet the woman suffered no recoil. This obviously violates conservation of momentum and demonstrates how the staff lacked an understanding of fundamental physics. But I suppose this is anime humor in its own right. Other fight scenes tend to look rather jerky and fake, and female bodies are sometimes shown out of proportion when the camera angle shifts. At the very least, special effects like explosions, rain, and obstacles are inserted in the right places.

Sound: There’s nothing too radical in the sound and music department for this anime. The opening is upbeat and cheerful to fit the action genre of the series, while the ending is more melancholic to fit the drama category of the show. The OP can get annoying somewhat, but you can always skip it at will. Music of the proper mood is thankfully inserted during important scenes of the anime, although they can get slightly repetitive. Most of it, once again, is used to enhance the drama that is centered around Aya. However, don't expect anything groundbreaking.

Character: There’s pretty much a large variety of stereotypical female characters you would find in a ecchi anime, like the shrine maiden, nurse, and police officer. The characters certainly act like the way they should in those uniforms, which tends to add some comic relief because it’s just plain hilarious to see people out of context like that duke it out. Besides the costumes’ intent for fan service, it also seems like an easy attempt from the staff to try to differentiate characters in order to make them more memorable. This is reasonable because there's really little time for development in these other characters, so you pretty much have to stick with what you see on the surface here.

Aya seems like the only one whose background was explored in-depth somewhat, although this isn’t a surprise since the story revolves mainly around her. You’re often forced to interpret her past through brief flashbacks and subtle gestures she takes towards certain events, at least before the final episode. One thing I liked about her was her humanistic reactions to her situations, like how the Martial Heart tournament sounded really ridiculous at first or how there would be consequences for others if she continued fighting. Aya's determined but naive personality will certainly be a mixed bag for most viewers.

Enjoyment: To get the most out of this anime, you pretty much have to appreciate both the hilariously bad fight scenes and the emo drama scenes. It’s not something most people can do for this anime, especially since this series is so compressed. You’ll just have to keep an open mind and try to place yourself in Aya's shoes, particularly as the series progresses. For many of the poor aspects discussed above, it might be a good idea to treat them as more amusement from the anime.

Overall: I somewhat enjoyed this anime since I was able to bring myself to like the drama centered around Aya, even though such a story element is overused by now. The action scenes weren’t particularly the best, but they were still rather funny from being random and out of place at times. I especially liked the plot twist towards the end even if it was a bit rushed. For those of you interested in watching, pace yourself and try not to focus solely on the comical fan-service part of the anime if you want to get something out of it.

I’ll start by saying, I don't usually have a problem with finding anime I like, actually where genre is concerned I'm pretty easy to please. As long as it; Has some funny moments, a cute guy here and there, and a main lead that uses words with more than one syllable (sometimes). I mean that’s not so hard to do. Maybe throw in a cute animal just to add to the overall cuteness. So how, HOW, can a show that the girls kick ass be such a disappointment? For me it was because it just made me feel extra dumb. Hey I'm the first ... to admit I love certain genre because it requires minimal brain usage, no shame in admitting it.
Yeah, so if you plan to watch this one just hit the eject button on that brain of yours, send it out to clean or something and use that in between time to watch shows like this.

What is Master of Martial Hearts about?
It's about the the world of Martial Hearts. What the heck is it? A fighting contest/tournament that one enters which has the prize of a gem that can grant the winner her one and only wish.
The main leads are friends Aya and Natsume who happen to stumbled into the Martial Hearts world by mistake when walking into a fight in progress between a priestess named Miko and a flight attendant. After saving and hearing Miko’s story and the learning about how the tournament is and a few happenings in between they decide to join.
Who will come out victorious?….dah duh dum, wow no one will ever contract me to do soundtracks lol

Requirement to be recruited in the Martial Heart:
-Have knowledge of the martial arts. Which just so happens ALL the girls in this one have. Love it when that happens.
-Be a girl, which is just code for have boobs you don't mind being displayed to the world. And wear tornable (should be a word, clothes that can be easily torn, or made of foam) clothes.
-Have a wish that seems impossible and you want it to come true
-A cell phone, so that they can text you with the contest information
-Appear half naked at impromptu times throughout the day while fighting another female.

How it works when you‘re in?.. It’s not that easy, there are rules people!
They supply you with the money necessary to get ready and you start battling your way up the pyramid. If you end up being the winner you will receive the gem.
-That’s it?
-Yeah…
-But I thought you said it wasn’t that easy?
-Don’t blame me I don’t make the rules. Anyway you have to fight girls in really skimpy outfits. Maybe it makes you uncomfortable…

This contest isn’t for the faint hearted and boys can’t participate. I guess in this anime world boys have no hearts, sorry guys there’s always a next time. Don’t worry I feel insulted for you. But to be fair the fan service is ALL for you.

Actually even above all that it wasn't soooo bad. More annoying with than anything, and for a fairly short show that’s saying something.
For instance, every time (EVERY TIME) they hit, punch scratch their opponent their clothes magically shred leaving them in their underwear or naked, all I can do is call forth the 14 year old dude inside all of us and he'll say, "Boobies!" Fine he probably won't say it, but he'll think it. For those wondering, no, I don’t even take myself seriously sometimes. And with anime like these, that’s a silver lining.

As for the soundtrack and animation. Nothing stood out and the animation is rather plain. It’s not a new anime therefore it’s actually pretty ordinary in character design and color as a whole. No major flaws that I could see but I'll be honest I dozed off a lot of times. No worries when I came back five minutes later I still understood the plot, so no harm done.

The ending is where you get a feel for the main characters and you see they have some depths. It's a shame it's only for 10 minutes and you don't really care at this point.
Which honestly I just didn’t see throughout the show to begin with. Well maybe in a few instances but they get stripped away by battle scenes, pun intended. It’s also at the end where you see the perverseness behind the show, I mean it’s there (duh, the ecchiness?) but it shows you more in the end.
They tried to stuff us with useless plot lines and complicate the story to make it more interesting when if you really stayed and watched until the last second it was probably because you (as I was) were wondering if the "gem" was a symbol for anything but gem. Maybe that's just me cause seriously this was a piece of work... yeah let's go with "work."

What does Aya want as her wish? Watch and find out, why should I suffer alone….

In this world, there exist all kinds of anime. There are good ones, bad ones, as well as REALLY bad ones. And then… there are some that transcend the idea of good and bad, so much so that one cannot simply express their opinion of it by means of such trivial things like “numbers” or even “words”.

This is one of them.

Only 5 episodes long, the story is rather simple for something of its kind. Our protagonist, Aya Iseshima, one day finds herself participating in the tournament of Martial Hearts, and determined to win the tournament so that she can have her wish fulfilled. The first ... four episodes are pretty dull, and kinda just mediocre overall. Boob and panty shots are in no short supply thanks to the help of Arms, with everyone apparently liking to wear clothes that explode on impact, and so on. Pretty silly, but whatever. It is what it is. If that were the case the whole way, I would have just given it a 3 or something and move on with my life. Of course, if it were all that simple, I wouldn't be writing this as though I just got home from war, writing about my experiences from observing horrors of what humanity is capable of doing to their own kind unfold in front of my very eyes either.

This brings us to the final episode. In the span of 20 minutes, it goes from a generic ecchi fighting OVA to something much greater than that, one that would make End of Evangelion look like baby food.

You might cry.

You might yell.

You might drink heavily, much like how I did when I wrote this review.

Either way, you will react, and afterwards may experience strange things, like you would during puberty: you don't know what the fuck is going on, but it's happening and you don't know if it's a good thing or bad thing. You may have an out of body experience, as the reality you once previously knew crumbles apart. When it is all over, and able to digest everything that has transpired over the last two hours or so, it will forever be seared in your conscience for as long as you are able to retain memory, no matter how much you want this to happen or not.

There are no words. Only tears. Whether it is from grief or laughter is your choice. It doesn't matter, nothing matters at this point anyways.

All that said, watch it in the dub. Yes, we can party it up like it’s the mid 90s all over again and have 40 page long wars over subs vs. dubs, but there is simply no contest here. Funimation already generally makes some pretty solid dubs when not working on something like this, but the bar set by the Japanese audio is so low to the point that you could replace the entire cast with alpaca noises and it’d still probably better.

And so there you have it. Anime of the year, all years.

Forever.

NOTE: This is my very first online review so please bear with me.

I finished this series and I have to say that i was pretty disappointed. i understand that it's a 5 episode series, but this one dropped the ball and has no intention of trying to pick it up. I thought it was good at first; however, the series lead up to the biggest WTF twist of an ending i have personally seen in an anime so far. Basically, through out the series, it was one fight after another with plenty of fan service and somewhat of an attempt to throw in slice ... of life scenarios. Other than that, there really wasn't too much to it in terms of plot, characters and story.

That being said, if you are someone who doesn't care too much for those specific areas, then don't be surprised if it turns out to disappoint you, because it most likely will.

Master of Martial Hearts is the utter definition of "So Bad It's Good".

I have long prided myself on being a lover of the best and worst that the visual medium has to offer. I don't limit myself to watching anime and movies that people, critics, or my friends think are great. I love watching things that just plain suck sometimes. So bad it's good, so bad it's HORRIBLE, I don't care- I think you can get something out of anything, even if that's "I want that hour of my life back and a bag to puke in".

I've seen a good number of godawful 80s ... and 90s OVAs that exist solely for exploitative purposes- tasteless, shameless, filthy, or just plain obscene things that have no good reason to be out there but for some T&A, but are cult hits regardless. Mad Bull 34, Violence Jack, Angel Cop, the list goes on and on. The "trashy OVA schlock" is basically a genre of its own, and if it's not, I'm coining the term now, Bob Saget!

I had thought that this was a dying breed, the anime equivalent of a late night titty movie- something with such a barely functional plot that served only to push you from one pointless sexual scene to another bare body. I was very, very wrong. In 2008 and 2009, studio Arms (the animators of Kite, Elfen Lied, Queens Blade, and hentai galore), perhaps the most famous tasteless anime-trash producer of all time , dropped another bomb on the world: Master of Martial Hearts.

Since this is a 5 episode OVA, there's not a whole lot that can be said regarding the plot and characters that the viewer shouldn't just see for themselves. Master of Martial Hearts is, at heart, a panty fighter in the vein of Ikkitousen and Butt Attack Punisher Girl (yeah, go look that one up). Every episode features the MC, Aya fighting against various fetish stereotype girls- the little sister, the maid, a priestess girl, flight attendant, sexy nurse/cop, and Shenhua from Black Lagoon. (cheongsams, whaddup?) PS, be on the lookout for a FOTNS reference.
Every gut busting, throat crushing, bone cracking blow from our pugilistic sadist of a MC also destroys her opponent's clothes- another note straight out of Ikkitousen. One chick takes a knee to the face, and her bra shreds into tiny pieces like paper. Another girl gets punched so hard in the stomach that her butt comes bursting out of the back of her panties and skirt. No article of clothing is safe! It's like Soul Calibur out here! Expect a lot of exposed titties to keep you glued to the screen, because it's certainly not for the personality anyone exhibits.

The next bit is the plot twists. It would be criminal of me to reveal anything, but dayum, there's so much over the top, out of nowhere melodrama that a telenovela would be jealous of Martial Hearts. If you've ever seen the SNL skit "The Californians", IT'S THAT, IT REALLY IS!

Finally, we put the icing on the crap cake that every shameless OVA Schlock must have to achieve legendary status: the dub. Staples in the OVA Schlock genre have historically consisted of the venerable Central Park Media or Media Blasters. No more. Funimation stepped up to the plate (and why they licensed this odious turd is beyond me) and immediately started swinging for the fences. It's hard to believe it, but they actually pulled out all of their A list ladies for this one- Trina Nishimura, Alexis Tipton, Cherami Leigh, Colleen Clinkenbeard, Caitlin Glass, Brittey Karbowski, Monica Rial, and they even got Luci Christian in on the action. It's an ensemble of various action girl voices, and boy, does it ever make it more fun to imagine the other characters they voice going at it in a trashy, half naked death match. I mean, the show is already about some disgusting fetish wish fulfillment, so why not imagine that the blank slate characters are replaced with ones from other series??
In all seriousness, these ladies actually didn't do a gag dub. If anything, the English version is vastly improved over the completely emotionless, robotic Japanese. It adds so much more color when they get really into it, which brings this into that special level of schlock: Shoji Sato class. High School of the Dead was a terrible anime pandering to people with swollen cow udder fetishes, as was its stablemate Triage X. But what makes them so special is how they're the perfect amount of schlock and trashy, tasteless titty movie with some super hammy and overplayed melodramatic moments. They're hilarious in how utterly ridiculous they are, (not to mention that the HOTD dub is 5/7 perfect). Shoji Sato is a man who knows his target audience, and makes manga that appeals to them. It sells. It was a shock to me that Mr Sato didn't make Master of Martial Hearts, because it's so perfectly in line with his style.

Seriously, I'm giving it a 9 for the same reason I gave Mad Bull a 9. Just plain ridiculousness. And if you manage to make it to that 5th episode... the ending will leave your sides as shredded as the girls in the show's clothes. I promise it's worth waiting until the end. You might die laughing at the sheer stupid craziness.

Oh, and if you value your eardrums, mute the opening song. It's like a tonedeaf gazelle trying to mimic the shrieks of a dying whale mixed with Eddie Vedder and nu-metal.
"Just forget about that, and act stupid for a while!" -Natsume

WHAT THE *Beeping* HELL IS THIS *beep*! WHO THE *beeping* HELL DECIDED TO ASK ME TO REVIEW THIS PIECE OF *Beep*? I SHOULD…

*Please stand by as we are having technical issues*

You know, you would think to this point that I would be desensitized at how much fan service the animators put into these shows but I end up feeling still grossed out to how much they do place. You don’t need a breast and tant shot every five seconds for it to catch someone’s attention, nor do you need female characters that are stressed that they may be more then just friends. The forcefulness of ... the girls being friends makes me feel a bit unwell and makes the script that much harder to listen to (Before anyone asks, I did watch the English version). Every character in this show seems ether perverted or a mental case.

The first girl they meet in this fighting match is a woman named Miko… a priestess… I shit you not, that’s her damn name. For those of you who don’t know Japanese, Miko is the name of a Japanese priestess. The word means pristest so therefore… SHE DOESN’T HAVE A NAME! Not only that, but she is in the fight because of a rather stupid wish, not that wanting to make friends is stupid… just fighting people in order to get a jewel that will grant that wish just so you can have a friend is stupid. She ends up making friends anyway with Aya and Natsume anyway even though she doesn’t get the jewel so what the hell is the reason she needs it?

So I got a question for you, when you fight someone, do you start kicking when you are about a foot away from the other person or do you kick when you are farther away? Well in the first episode, Aya actually kicks when she isn’t even close to her enemy and then stands in the way while she’s getting attacked. I don’t think the fighting animation works like that. A lot of the fighting looks half assed or done with a lot of speed lines and cheesy backgrounds. Another small thing about the battles I should mention, HOW ARE THEY SECRET? Half the time, they destroy everything around them anyway so how can they even think that that would be a secret?

And they didn’t have to place all of the little love problems Aya has in there as well. She is always giving the love lust eyes at Natsume’s brother even though she thinks she knows a dark secret. We feel nothing for this little love problem because we get no idea of who this boy is. We don’t even get a chance to feel for Aya herself so what makes the writers think we would have time to feel for the brother?

The ending really doesn’t work right. The ending is so demented that it just doesn’t feel right. It’s like they pulled it out of their butt because they had no other idea how to end the series.

The art is well… up to par with most hentai I think, and it really should be hentai for how much bare boob and pantie-d taint they show in it. I also wish they would pick a size for the breasts too, Aya seems to gain and lose boob mass whenever the artists seem fit. And what is the obsession with clothing being the look of wet paper towels getting ripped from a person’s body? I know I am a girl but I do know what is sexy and what isn’t on a women and this… this really isn’t. That and the strange breast transformation from large to tiny in two shots. Many bits are just looped and it’s rather bad. I would not watch this for the animation at all. The eating animation they have in the beginning of the series actually is very unattractive and makes me wonder what women in their right mind would even eat like how Miko was doing.

The opening it actually pretty good though the girl screaming in some parts makes me cring. I actually liked the upbeat way they did the song and it does show this will be a rather action packed show. The script for English is rather bad, and though it does ‘sort of’ get better, it still feels like it could have been done much better, it would have at least added something to this little piece of… um… ya. The script starts out stupid and pretty much remains that way throughout. The tone of the voices are better then the script but again, not much. Natsume comes off sounding like a whinny school child and Aya doesn’t sound much better when she gets down to the actual thinking.

They had an ok idea for a show, but in the end, they really massed it up with the script and the artwork.

5 episode ova. My review
[img]http://i620.photobucket.com/albums/tt287/shadow_wolf124421/Kuroko-Head-Desk1.gif[/img]
yeah, that about covers it. Anyway, for those who want more information... It's a 5 ep ova about a girl that becomes involved in a fighting tournament with only girls. Clothes explode with any punch or kick like Ikkutusen. Sounds hot, but the animation is so plain and ugly looking (looks like something late 90's or something when digital animation was just being practiced). Completely uninteresting characters, and a final episode that is so WTF why did they go there. Complete waste of time, you might laugh a bit at first, but that is ... only good for an episode or two. I think maybe copious amounts of alchohol might make it more watchable, but I think that won't help with the last episode and ending

Hahaha, this was so bad it was entertaining. You have to marathon this gem, otherwise you'll never go back to finish it. Poor writing, generic characters, and ridiculous fight scenes(with guaranteed boobs every time, usually indicating the K.O.) makes this almost unbearable to watch. But Those are the same reasons i kept watching i couldn't help but laugh my way through. Personally I loved the ending, it's the best way to wrap something like this up.

Makes a great drinking game, and way to kill a very very slow Monday night.

Zettai Shougeki: Platonic Heart, what a series this is, it's truly something that has to be seen to believe.. And I don't mean that in a necessarily good way either.

I'll first start off by stating I watched this expecting a whole lot of ass-kicking babes, with a lot of fan service, which is exactly what I got. But here's the kicker..

General premise of the series is about a girl named Aya Iseshima and her best friend Natsume Honma, and their (well Aya's anyway) inclusion in a fighting tournament called the Platonic Heart, a tournament where female fighters compete for the grand prize of the Platonic ... Heart, a jewel that can grant any wish to the winner of the tournament.

Story 5/10
I admit I was kind of enjoying this particular little anime, for a little while.
While the story lacks any true construct, it makes up for it's brilliant fight scenes.. But then again, a story can only go so far, when after all, it is about buxom babes fighting each other with plenty of ecchi to boot.

Art 7/10
Now I have to say that the art style is actually pretty good. Watching our heroine beating the living daylights out of her opponents is a crisp, and rewarding thing to watch, and I love the fact the fact their clothes literally explode when a blow has been landed hehe.. Alas though, that's just about the only good thing I can say about this..

Sound 5/10
The soundtrack or BGM, is rather forgettable, nothing really struck me as brilliant, I can say is that I don't particularly like the opening theme. As for the ending theme, well.. It's forgettable! (Haha, oh well, I tried)

Character 6/10
I really found myself liking our heroine Aya Iseshima, she has a knack for kicking some ass so.. Elegantly, which is pretty fun to watch! Aside from Aya, and her best friend, the rest of the characters hardly have any real development, they are just there for their respective episode, and we'd be lucky if we'd hear or see from them again.. Like I remember seeing one character with only 1 minute of screen time during the entirety of the show! She didn't have it good at all, ahh well, a lot of characters are indeed left with something to be desired, go figure. Afterall this is a show about expendable characters.

Enjoyment 5/10
Like I said, there are parts where I liked, but for everything I liked, there about a dozen things I didn't.. There are characters we only see for a brief period of time, sometimes see them once, and never again. Soundtrack is relatively forgettable, and that awful opening theme I just don't care for in the slightest. Story is nothing spectacular, just your standard fighting tournament with Femme Fatale's fighting and tearing apart their clothes.

Overall 5/10
This is something that was truly something to behold...
Well I guess if you're looking for a show with little plot, but plenty of fan-service action girls, then this is a show you may like, just don't go into it thinking you'll get anything other than that. Being said, the only thing I like is the main lead character Aya Iseshima (The only character with development), and her fight scenes. In conclusion, Zettai Shougeki: Platonic Heart is just your fan-service fix for the weekend.

Alrighty so ive seen one episode so far and i must say this is bad.... even by ecchi OVA standards.... General plot summary (thusfar) Introduced to 2 cliched schoolgirls.... one (aya) apparently is a master in hand to hand combat, as well as a girl in a cliched priestess costume. The priestess (Kazuki? ) is seeking the platonic heart, a magical gem which can make one wish come true for the lucky lady who wins it. That wish? to make some friends... wow thats bad.... If she wins she is able to make friends..... if she loses she will be thrown into the dark ... abyss, as the rumors go.

Story: well as you can already tell by the synopsis this is pretty bad.

Art: nothing special. generic anime women, unimpressive backgrounds, horrible animations for mouths and pretty much any movement in general.

Sound: AWESOME just joking.... this is dreadful. the opening song itself made me want to stop watching. no good sound effects, just random noise...

Characters: there isnt a whole lot of information about each character

Enjoyment: nothing.... being a 5 episode ecchi ova, i guess i came into it with a pre-convieved notion that i would get a couple of chuckles and maybe enjoy a few scenes, nothing much but at least something.... nope not happening with this series... it seems so emotionless, and just as a heads up... if ur watching this just for the breast shots, you should stop and watch something else... its just not worth sitting through this

Overall: dreadful

there is or should be a core rule with a short series. finish the story and simple. after all, ther is not enought time to tell a long and completd one. the whole thing is was suppose to be a fighting tourment for a wish, simple. the "fighting matches" was a badly done strip show. the last part when she "won" her all she thought she knew fell apart for no real good reason. if her mother paid ANY REAL PART IN THIS MESS. this could have been fixed. how? she was in the first one! so in the end her "prize" all her ... friends dead and betray her. i write this as a warning.....there are better was to waste your time.

A friend of mine, recommended me this by telling me "This is the worst echi fighting anime ever made, but it's a whole trip".

I can't actually qualify this anime (so just ignore the rate), it may look that it suck, but if you know that, and expect the worse of it you can have a really (I mean REALLY) good time, sometimes brutally bad animes are fun.

Laugh my ass all the time by watching how stupid everything was, and in the end I actually enjoyed it.

A really good recommendation would be to watch it English dub, it highly increase the fun material.

So how can I ... qualify it bad if I ended up enjoying it, there's no way.

If you're doubting about watching it, give it a try, the first episode is nothing from another world, but after the second everything goes wrong, and in the final chapter you'll definitly explote.

(and it's still better than glasslip...)

How far are you willing to go to save your friend who you just met the day before? I don't know and it doesn't matter. What matters is that do you enjoy masturbating?

Before I start the actual review, I want to say that this show is unsuitable for these types of people:
- People with basic moral values
- People who does not like fan service
- People who want a good story
- People who want good character developments
- People who does not like excessive violence
- People who are sick of cliches

Now that all the haters are gone... ......... I guess there is not many of you ... left... Now it is time for my review!

Enjoyment, the only thing that matters in this review: 6/10

*Gets punched in the face, bra breaks.
"H2O!!! CO2!! O3!!!!"
With golden moments as the ones above, it makes up for the terrible story and poor OP and ED. As a big fan of Women's combat sports + Senran Kagura, this show was "enjoyable". Thanks to the depth of "plot".

What hurts my enjoyment of the series is that the fight scene last too short, and the 3rd to 5th fight is rather weak in comparison to funny and "enjoyable" 2nd one. Outside the fight scenes, the story is too slow paced.

The last episode... ... It is at at least thrilling!

Recommended for fans of: School Days, Elfen Lied, Sexualized women.

ok so one night eden of the east decided to go to a bar and got REALLY wasted, and in a drunken slur took home ikkitousen and had a one night stand. unfortunately they forgot condoms and thus produced its bastard baby master of martial hearts.

queens blade is its step mom.

also best watched dubbed, srsly you GOTTA watch this dub. best.dialogue.evar.