Kämpfer

If I had to describe this anime in one word it would be the word broken. As if a tornado just blew through a house but you can still see that there was a house there. The plot is broken, the world is broken, the characters are broken. So much of it is messed up that it's hard to know where to start.

Characters in this show just don't feel like people. They feel like dolls that only go, talk or feel if they have a quest marker telling them to. No matter where a person would actually go, what a person would actually say or ... what a person would actually feel doesn't matter. Had the plot actually been logical or sensible then I would have just thought of it as lazy writing, but as it is it would even be hard to even call it writing. It's hard to give any example but stuff just happens without any good reason. This goes for the small stuff as what people think, say or do all the way to how the world works and what is happening with the plot. The school gets destroyed/severely damaged multiple times without anyone taking notice of it. Everyone was fine with fighting each other until the MC came into the story and was the first to ask "why though?" Then there is also the issue with how almost ever single female character in the show falls in love with the MC at first sight. Most of is when the MC is in his girl form as well.

There are very few things that can be said to be well written or cohesive about this anime. Even the ecchi is not all that good either. The most erotic the anime has been has been is with the eyecatchers before and after ad-breaks.

Even with all this negative traits and some times even thanks to them, the anime manages to be entertaining at times. The wacky plot and the wacky way people act has managed to make me laugh at times. Most of it was laughing at how bad it was but there were also a few purposefully funny scenes.

This anime is defiantly not for everyone. Not even for everyone that likes ecchi comedies. But I got my fair share of enjoyment from the the show so it might be worth while for other people as well.

In most of my reviews, I break it down in each category; story, art , yada. With Kampfer, all of that is out the window. The biggest reason is simple: this anime as a whole is so mind-numbing in the sense of forgettable and mediocre, the characters, story, sound: one ear and out the other!

If you wish to know the plot of this whole lot of bog-standard: The main character is a fighting girl, but oh my, he's actually a guy, and turns into a girl almost randomly in the first half , hm , three quarters of the anime. Boom there's the ... plot.

The whole kampfer thing with girls fighting each other is almost entirely not told. The mysterious 'moderators' controlling the game . Who are they? Why is this happening? It isn't told to us. Why? THIS SHOW IS NOT ABOUT FIGHTING. For five minutes at the end of an episode here or there, perhaps. Why? Kampfer is a shoujo-ai (girl's love) ecchi anime. Thing is , it's a love-triangle. Thing is, there is barely any fanservice. Thing is, if you're a fan of girl love anime, stay very far away from this. Why? The girl's love, typical ecchi anime shenanigans ; is the fan service in this anime. Again, it's watered down and almost too laughable to make it memorable whatsoever.

What do all these ingredients mix together to create? A crap casserole ? No. Kampfer is a whole bowl of nothing noodles. If you like girls fighting? There is barely any of that. Fan of ecchi anime? There is barely any fan-service or related ha-has . Fan of girl's love? It's all fan-service or drama that is so ecchi genre bog-standard the result is eye-rolling . Fan of binge-watching 12 episoders? Kampfer is as entertaining as wading through mud: slow , annoying, and something you want to get over with.

The art and music : are about as 2009 bog-standard as you can get .
OP/EP: can't remember either.

Epilouge: Kampfer is the prime example of how saturated ecchi genre anime had become in the late 2000s. It is everything in an ecchi harem anime of the era watered down into a grey, sub-par smoothie that tastes boring enough to immediately forget the experience.

It's for that reason that, despite my strong opinions about this anime, Kampfer gets a bog-standard, nothingness: 5/10 .

I honestly don't even know what to say about this. I don't have a habit of writing reviews because I usually enjoy whatever I see, but this was just...an overall nonsense fest. Everyone's a simp - let's start with that. The MC is such a hardcore simp. Kaede is a simp too, like, why? None of it makes sense. When you have a character who loves the female version of a dude but can't even give the time of day to the dude's actual form, you really need to start rethinking what you're doing with your character, because that's just simp. As a premise, it's ... not bad, and definitely gives a lot of space for comedy. Ordinary guy that doesn't stand out one day gets the ability to transform into a magical girl, becomes famous and popular because of how hot she is, gets transferred to the girls' side of this split-up co-ed college and comedy ensues. Plenty of stereotypical situations, and admitted some of the female MCs have acceptable appeal. Shizuku is an A-tier waifu in my eyes. But this entire show would honestly have been better if A) Kaede didn't exist and B) Natsuru was a girl to begin with. The show would genuinely have been ten times better if it was flat out a yuri anime with female Natsuru at its core and if it wasn't a hastily put-together harem. Maybe make one other female character part of the main focus and have the other two become deuteragonists, and then absolutely ERASE Kaede from the story. She's a hindrance to any sort of emotional development. Even the action scenes are low-effort towards the latter half, with no real substance - it's like they just decided to put all the budget into the fanservice. Can't complain, but at the same time, don't have action at all then. This gets a 5/10 only because Shizuku is an acceptable waifu.