Kämpfer

I still have no idea why I even bothered to finish this anime. The whole thing is just random, boring and full of fanservice. The "story" revolves around Natsuru Seno, a normal boy who wakes up one morning as a girl. We learn through his stuffed tiger that talks (and also has it's stuffed guts hanging out of his stomach) that this change was because he was chosen to be a "Kampfer," a female fighter, and he continues going back and forth between girl and guy to participate in fights with other Kampfer. Why? We are never told. They never give a real reason for ... this. Anyway, it's filled with yuri and awkward moments as the protagonist tries to get his dream girl to fall in love with his male side as more and more girls fall for the female him. The stories tend to fall flat on their face and I ended up shrugging it off as another weird Japan fanservice show. If you like that then by all means watch away. If you actually want a real story, watch something like Blue Exorcist and stay away from this.

Stay away from it!

Although it was fun at some parts, towards its end it becomes simply stupid, a really senselless plot without the grace of being even really funny, unless we consider ecchi bordering hentai funny.

Actually there is no plot, just an excuse to present yuri action and some small fighting scenes without even that much energy. The end itself was totally open and with a really stupid Great Revelation, and nothing is really resolved, and the reaction of the really really baka main protagonist was simply ... stupid.

Say, how much stupid it can get: The villain is using the main male character, does ... not like men and tried to make him kill his friends by controlling his actions, disregarding his will and seeing him as a tool, actually using his feelings towards her to her own wishes...and after the "hero" discovers it he does what? Says he loves her and ... that is that. Conclusion: he free his friends (wana-be lovers) and let the villain escape...

Sheesh....

The only thing really good are the voice actor/actressess who are really First Rate (hard to understand on such a bad production) and the art used which is undeniably beautiful.

A HUGE waste of Hard Drive space and time...


I tried Kämpfer because I read a review saying it was one of the good animes from last year...my my...

I can agree taste in this or that varies, but terribly made productions like this are BAD no matter your tastes.

Overview:

Today I review Kampfer, perhaps the least original anime ever made! It fails as a romance, it fails as action, it fails as a comedy. Kampfer is entirely comprised of fail! Instead of "Kampfer", which is German for "fighter" , the series should have been called Scheiße !

Remember how in Ranma 1/2 there was a subplot where a boy would turn into a girl and it would create awkward moments of sexual tension and comedy? That was pretty funny in the early 1990s and it felt new at the time. However, like all Rumiko Takahashi series it ran a LONG time and the premise now ... feels worn out and tired. Kampfer takes this tired joke and absolutely beats the shit out of a dead horse! You can't have a fucking comedy series based on a 1 joke premise that isn't even fresh! Why do you think the Geico Cavemen TV show was cancelled in 1 season?

To give Kamper some credit, it doesn't JUST do a horrible job ripping off the humor of Ranma 1/2 and other slapstick harem anime of the 1990s like Love Hina and Tenchi Muyo. Kampfer also decided to be the 8 billionth anime to feature a battle royale tournament in which contestants are forced by some mysterious greater power to battle each other until 1 is left. Each "kampfer" is a girl with magical abilities and each has her own doll. Sort of like Rozen Maiden, the much better show about magic dolls that must battle each other to claim the ultimate prize. This type of anime tends to be really popular, so I suppose you can't blame the Kampfer creator for trying to cash in. Anime like Future Diary, Btooom!, and Fate Stay Night are some of the highest rated and most popular anime on MAL. The first huge problem with Kampfer is that it brings NOTHING new to the audience. It simply uses and abuses popular cliches in order to make a quick buck off Otaku that the Kampfer creator clearly thinks are idiots. The second problem is that it it isn't even an entertaining ripoff or mockbuster! The Asylum movies are better than Kampfer! Probably the most creative thing kampfer did was the obnoxious series of grotesque dolls called the entrails animals. Although, even those just seem like a cheap ripoff of the Garbage Pail Kids from the 1980s!

The art is decent, but nothing great. Kampfer isn't one of those anime that is entertainingly bad due to technical issues like laughably bad animation, a terrible dub, or a horrendous soundtrack. Kampfer is the worst kind of bad. Uninspired and BORING! If Kampfer was entertainingly bad like Angel Cop or Mad Bull 34 it would at least have SOME reason for people to watch it.

I can't believe so many people liked this series.

It started off with a good premise: Random girls get superpowers and are forced to fight for unknown reasons.

But then it's like they let a twelve year old boy re-write the story into a male to female bodyswap ecchi comedy with a harem. WTF? Sorry, but no amount of overly-sexualized high school anime girls will make your series "good". And how many times did we have to see Natsuru writhe in agony as a hot girl tried to seduce him? Awww, poor guy! o.O

If the girls had not been so obviously in love with Natsuru ... (they were actually physically fighting over him while he stood there confused!), and if the White Kampfers had shown up earlier (and been an actual threat) then this series might have been good. As it was, they had to make Natsuru an idiot so that it didn't turn into outright Hentai. Not a reasonable character choice! And the sudden "it was aliens" ending was pretty bad, too.

Nice art. Nice premise. Horrible plot. Dumb, dumb main character. I only finished it because it was short.

This show is made of fail.

let's see:

* a rich source of raw narm for very crude handling of a delicate subject. I really did want them to do a better job.
* near zero action, not what it says on the tin. the first chapters were better, it went downhill from there.
* way too much fanservice. goes over the line. see also next item.
* the near sexual harassment of natsuru becomes a very serious squick.
* last chapters dropped what little LGBT friendliness this show had.
* Perhaps i'd be more appreciative of the ending if the above was different.
* not to mention total disregard for manga ... canon.

redeeming qualities - high visual and audible quality. not enough to warrant a good show though.

overall, this gets a 3 from me.

This part is what people usually read expecting you to tell watch it or not worth it but that's impossible. People have different tastes. Kampfer is full of fan service. If you want an anime where you get to see cute, big breasted girls fight for no particular reason then go ahead and watch kampfer. If you want to see a harem where everybody likes the boy and seduce him 24/7 then go ahead. If you are looking for an anime with a good plot, good action and good romance, please reconsider if you decide to watch it.

Story:
There is absolutely nothing to it. If I ... could change the title I would name it "The Life Of Natsuru Senou". At first you could tolerate it. Tolerate seeing girls fight with each other for no particular reason but then a few episodes through and you are wondering, "What the hell?". It makes no sense at all! Though there are some clues that tell you that there is something a lot more deep to the girls fighting each other but then there is nothing.
Backing up my previous statement on changing the title to "The Life Of Natsuru Senou". There isn't decent romance in it but most of the time when the girls are not fighting they are seducing Natsuru. That's where it was enjoyable. Seeing big breasted girls fighting over a boy. XD!
So we have established that the plot is only about a boy getting seduce by cute girls(Oh! He can change into a girl for some reason they never cared to mention) but there is actually no romance and there is mindless fighting.

Art:
This is one good point in this anime. The quality is fantastic and the art is outstanding. It's enjoyable to watch. I didn't really look out for animation but I just know that the characters are well drawn.

Sound:
The sound is fair. it is not corny but not particularly excellent.

Character:
Maybe they had too many characters but you never really saw them to the fullest. The main character was like an insignificant toy(then again there would be cute girls without him). You didn't see much of the other characters either.

Enjoyment:
Finally, it was very enjoyable. There were laughs. The art was good. Just another typical harem that hardly makes sense.

Kampfer, well......

Just when i start to type my comment on this anime, i still thinking like: what does Kampfer really attach to me? The gender-swapping? The seiyuu? maybe the odd but interesting story element in it? And ya, i have a good sense of why it might attach to the other guys mostly: Service.Service.Service.Service.Service.Service.Service. (just follow the Service tone form Hayate 2nd Season episode 0 OVA).

Even i don't know why, but i just give what i think of it so far. (It will be update when is over)

Kampfer from what i say did have to do service. But here is the basis:

In one morning, Senou ... Natsuru (a guy) discover that he has become a she by some cute but has it stomach cut out talking tiger doll and told her (him) that she (he) is a Kampfer, a magical girl who has to fight on something. It still haven't reveal what it is but maybe later. As soon she finally revert back to him, he was throw into a sudden battle/meeting Mishima Akane, his later allies; but end up his childhood friend he like, Sakura Kaede, is in love in his female self.

Overall, the episode i see so far where i like to call 'random service' plot. The anime or the director doesn't take the plot seriously, just give us random stuff; but only have a small portion of Kampfer plot. Nothing new or anything big to scope out the real thing. Oh ya, speaking the real thing; you get to see Natsuru getting her (him) self to be like some kind of service tool on the series and to other character.

All the character here i would say useless. Natsuru is a guys and he (she) is helpless with a bunch of girls around him, and they happen (smartly) to use him (her) popular to earn $$$. Akane suppose to help him but couldn't help herself and might be like him (her). And Kaicho-san (Sangou Shizuku), enough flirting with Natsuru or other and start tell us what going on and what you know.

For what i have write and think of the episode i watch so far, this is more like a yuri anime! X_X

Sure, the animation is well done, and the color in the anime is bright color. This was one of the place Kampfer have won.

The other were the seiyuu. Inoue Marina, Horie Yui, Nakajima Megumi, Noto Mamiko, Mizuki Nana, Tamura Yukari and to name a few. All top notch seiyuu doing kawaii voices on 'kawaii' anime, with service. Another won by Kampfer.

And the funny thing is that they even throw themselve in it, mostly by name but Tamura Yukari-san happen to throw her image in it on episode 1, in anime style. Again, they won.

(The other seiyuu that also throw her image in it from what i heard are a seiyuu voice Shizuka on Doraemon, don't who that is but she is old and voice the tiger in this anime.)

The OP of the anime just doesn't not suit my taste, but ED does suit my taste with the closing done by none the other Inoue Marina and Nakajima Megumi.

Well that how it is so far, even there is still a lot of bad point on it, but it just keeps me watching! (Maybe i am the type of guy who want to finish to the end) I write a full review on this anime when is over, and hopefully they will able to live up everyone (not everyone) expectation.

OK, this is my first review, but I felt I had to say something.

WTF!

The show started off OK (Ep 1-4). A bit of comedy a bit of action and a bit of ecchi, all fine and dandy. Then ensued a few episodes of 4 horny teen girls trying to get with a teenage boy who didn't get it. He was in love with an evil alien or possibly a human. Let me rephrase that, we have no idea who or what she was because instead of putting an end to the story in the final episode they put a comedy ep without an explanation to ... ANY of the questions the first 11 episodes worked up to.

This in my book was utter shit, the biggest dissapointment I've had in anime history so far. And I'm up to almost 150 days worth of anime already...

THE LOWDOWN:
Lesbian Anime Highlander is... just kidding. Kampfer is no Highlander. Being disappointed is not an accurate enough description to describe my thoughts for Kampfer, a show that might actually have some promise story-wise, if properly delivered. The story has roughly 10 minutes of airtime in the total 12 episodes. Nobody really fights anything for long, and nothing happens. There is never only One, and there is no facemelter.
It might be possible to use the characters in a slice-of-life comedy, though. It should be considered.

THE GOOD:
The art. The style looks great, and is well animated... and I'm not necessarily talking ecchi. Weapons, when actually involved, ... are well-designed and portrayed. Locales are well-represented. And the in-show soundtrack is pretty cool, but I'm not particularly fond of either the OP or ED, which is generally surprising.

THE BAD:
Even the smart characters are generally oblivious to everything in existence, and it's horribly stupid and kind of insulting. I would, honestly, be a bit suspicious of a talking doll, no matter how cute its intestines are, or which popular VA voiced it.

THE UGLY:
The story. It kind of ends abruptly as if they ran out of ideas or money, though obviously it's waiting for Season 2. Cue Poochie going back to space.


CHARACTER CHOICES:
Kampfer gives you lots of females in bikinis to make note of, but only one regularly-seen male, who isn't always a male, and is a big idiot. Sorry, female fans.
I don't think there's a single one in the show that won't sway to vaginas, so it keeps it open for fans who don't like closures of any kind. The maturity of Shizuku, the immaturity (in both forms) of Akane, or the zaniness of Mikoto should at least appeal to one person. Sakura has no real character design because you're not supposed to like her, but rather see her as an obnoxious obstacle.
My top character choice is Shizuku. Sexy maturity, is capable of doing stuff, and is pretty smart. Additionally, she kisses like a prostar.
If not Shizuku, Akane is fun. She's cute and smart, then turns into a massive badass with a terrible case of potty-mouth, and the aim of a Stormtrooper.
Another favorite of mine is the lesser-seen Masumi, because she's got a cute screw loose. But she basically has no role in the show beyond winking hearts everywhere.

So, this is going to be the first review about anything I have ever watched, and this is the perfect anime to start with, because it is simply terrible. I simply cannot keep silent about this terrible/horrible/disgusting/appalling anime. Let me explain you why.

Story (1/10):
I will not write anything about the story because you can read other reviews or a synopsis about it. But in short: It is simply amazing how bad it is. There is no backstory about the whole "Kämpfer" situation. It is just there so the protagonist can be a girl, good reason right? Then there are these talking stuffed animals. They ... have no real reason for existing, except for being super annoying.
It is a harem anime, so the story develops around that fact. However, it is worked out so badly it made me cringe all the time. It is just a girl fight around this guy and there is nothing else to it at all. Not even a bit of story behind it.

Art (3/10):
The drawings of the characters are reasonable. However, the animation itself is really bad. The fighting scenes are terrible and very static, just like the rest of all the scenes where there is more than 1 person in it. Whenever a character is talking/moving, all the other characters are standing completely still and it is just very boring to look at, especially in the chaotic scenes.

Sound (2/10):
The music is below average (I would even argue worse than that) and is constantly played too loud during conversations. Whenever there is something chaotic going on, it just speeds up and becomes even louder, just to compensate for the static movement.
Then you have the voices. I hate the voices of everyone, especially the protagonist. It is such a whiny high-pitched voice, totally unrealistic for someone who pulls so many girls. In girl form, his voice is slightly less annoying, but only slightly.
The girls’ voices are also very bad, high pitched and they constantly scream way too loud, also during regular conversations. Often they scream over the loud music, which literally gave me headaches, if I didn't have a headache already from just watching any other scene.
The sound effects are standard and boring. Not much to say about this.

Characters (1/10):
Here. We. Go. Characters! They are terrible!
The stuffed animals are annoying and simply don't contribute to anything to the series or the plot.
The girls are the most desperate girls I have ever seen. Damn they are so hungry for d***. Not only that, it seems that the protagonist is the only person in the world that could satisfy them. I understand this is a harem anime, but still, it is by far worse than every other anime I have ever seen (and I have watched a lot). It really annoyed me. They overreact to literally everything that is happening and have crazy mood swings all the time.
All the girls are your typical roles, like bookworm and student council president. Exactly portrayed as in any other anime, but just worse.
Then, the protagonist. This guy annoyed me like crazy. He is the denser than a block of lead. Whenever the girls push themselves onto him he reacts like he does not understand anything, which is especially ridiculous for how far the girls go. His voice really matches his character, terrible, whiny and annoying. A. Perfect. Fit.
Oh, and btw, there is no character development at all. Which is obvious, since there is no story or character to begin with.

Enjoyment (1/10):
I pretty much explained it all here above. I did not enjoy it at all. I literally got headaches watching this. The music is loud and bad, the voices are high pitched and annoying. The characters are bad, the story is bad. it is just all so bad.
I have a principle of finishing every series that I start watching, so I will watch season 2. Let my suffering continue.

Overall (1/10):
Man, I am overrating this series by giving it a 1. I wish I could give 0's for some categories. It is just so horrible. If I got 1 shot of vodka for every time I cringed during this watch, I couldn't even finish the series, since I would be dead by alcohol poisoning before it ended. And I can take a lot, just ask my friends.

I recommend avoiding this series at all costs. I repeat: do NOT watch. If you are here for the harem and fan service, just watch another series. If you are here for the action/fighting, I don't even know what you are doing here, but also just watch ANYTHING else.
I hope this review was successful in preventing you from watching this.

It's truly a show that shows about as much promise as you could expect from a combination of Comedy/Ecchi/Harem and Action/Magic, except somehow misses most of those marks. Everything this does, something else has done far better... and sparse few have done worse.

The story is actually really bad. It starts with a dumb premise to begin with. You'd be forgiven for actually thinking that there will be payoff of any sort or an actual explanation as to what the hell is even going on... but there isn't. It's just a circlejerk for 11 episodes and a sad, sorry excuse for an ending that doesn't actually ... do anything. Well it actually does do something... it introduces characters that are more interesting because they are likely to never get more screentime than they need to be badguys. Ergo less screentime means less time for them to be ruined. There's also nothing in the way of "Action" or "Fighting" beyond a grand total of maybe 20 seconds (combined) in the whole show. Most of it is done offscreen as you see them preparing and the end result with nothing inbetween. Or it's actively avoided for no real reason.

The Characters are all definition tropes with exception to 2 characters. The "aloof" student council president is one of them because she has more balls than everyone else in the show combined and isn't afraid to get what she wants. The other is the magically-enabled personality disorder girl who is basically just fusing the polar-opposite "Twins" trope into 1 character, which is a real shame because half of her is painfully boring and the other half is a dominating presence ready to dictate where the show goes.

The sound is very average. The only exception is the Tsundere half of the personality-disorder girl who actually sounds like you would expect from a Tomboyish Tsundere in an actually good anime.

I wouldn't recommend anyone actually watch this. It's just not good.

(edited 9/24/18 for format and slight content revision)

Hi! Welcome to another of Robert's Too Late Reviews! As always I assume you have read the synopsis and don't need me to detail what is going on in a general sense with this anime. I'm also sure you've seen the 'overall' number, and are just dying for me to elaborate. Well lets get to it! I came into this anime with very high hopes, as I'm a fan of 'magical girl' type shows, action anime and romances. In fact there isn't much I don't enjoy when done right. Sad to say, Kampfer left me feeling flat and ... irritated. Pretty obvious Kampfer isn't going to make the incredibly RTLR wall, also there's a note to be had about the manga. Many people who have read it say that the story isn't as atrocious as the anime. Perhaps so, but as a non-reader, I have to judge the show purely for what is presented in the anime. Let's get to why this show left me so unfilled.

*POSSIBLE SPOILERS even though I try to keep them to a minimum*

Story: 3
I love a zany premise as much as anyone, and was hopeful at the idea of a boy that becomes a girl. I mean, how can that NOT lead to all kinds of awesome moments? Well it immediately begins to come apart with the 'female' version's choice of name. I understand being put on the spot, but that was beyond ridiculous. Moving to the main thrust of the story, we have the proxy war supposedly being fought between these galactic powers, but we are never told why these two supposedly superpowers decided that the proxy war between human Kampfers would even matter. We are never even introduced to anyone from these warring states, if you don't assume the possessed dolls are from them, which there is no reason to make that assumption. We are told that the Red Kampfers are the mortal enemies of the Blue Kampfers (of which our main guy/girl is a reluctant member) but yet other than a couple of intro fights with no clear winners, we have no battling between the groups at all. Another Kampfer color appears as a villain set later, and they are never explained at ALL. Are they from either the Red or Blue empires? Are they a new player in the Empire war? I believe the manga gets into who the new coalition of Kampfers are, but that information is basically omitted from the anime. Why are this new faction controlled by a character who is not a traditional Kampfer as she has no bracelet which until that point of the story means she should not be aware of the Kampfer world whatsoever. The story never explains who she is, why she is evil, and what her dastardly plan really is. It's not even explained who she's representing. It is a plot twist purely for the twist sake, and is groan inducing when it hits.

Art: 9
I LOVED the art in Kampfer, the attention to detail and really nice execution. When the characters do a 'magical girl' transformation scene (which only happens a few times, frustratingly) it is done remarkably well, and looks very good. The quality art just makes the failures even more saddening.

Sound: 9
I liked the sound. The battles sounded properly, the voice of the guy/girl sounded appropriate to me in each gender, and the foul mouthed Kampfer was a welcome comedic relief with her angry curse-riddled shouting.

Character: 5
Here we fall on our face. Our boy/girl and his/her unfortunate mistake of naming his female self leads less to shenanigans and more into wondering if everyone in the show are idiots. Also no one seems to question why the new girl just shows up, begins attending class, and living a normal life without one teacher/admin asking her who she is and where she comes from. On the opposite hand, the longer the show goes on, the more time she spends in female form, and no one seems one bit concerned their male friend has apparently disappeared. Sure maybe he didn't have many guy friends, but someone just up and disappearing garners attention, liked or not. The lead red Kampfer also happens to be the student council president (aren't they always?) and instead of busting up the new boy/girl blue Kampfer, she basically falls in love with him/her. The other red follows suit. The other blue also falls a bit, as is expected as the main character is supposed to be her Kampfer partner. We also have weird possessed dolls that serve no purpose at all it would seem, except for mentioning Moderators once or twice, who are of course not explained in any form whatsoever in the entire series.

Enjoyment: 2
We have a show starting with the promise of the awkwardness of gender swapping combined with rocking action fights. We get basically none of this. The main seems almost immediately comfortable in his female form, and the tired old trope of 'where's the boy' leading to him running and swapping genders, then being asked where the girl is and running back again is trotted out as a 'comedy' bit. We've been seeing that kind of thing forever and a day, in Hollywood, anime, tv, and just about everything else. Shoot, Superman's favorite shtick is Clark Kent always missing on out Superman. A few battles happen, but ultimately our gender bending ass kicker anime devolves into to a lesbian harem with confusing convenient villains who are convenient. The magical girl style animations which would fit so well are barely used, and the ending left me stretching my head wondering exactly what I had just seen, and why the story ended in such an unfulfilling way.

In closing, no matter how cool Kampfer looks, the last half of the series seems like the writers ran out of ideas and started slinging everything they could at the wall hoping something would stick. Nothing did, including any pictures on the RTLR wall. Pass, trust me.

Kampfer is an anime I saw potential at first, but that quickly faded away after the second episode. Basically, it's just full slice of life with stereotypical, bland characters and stupid as shit interactions. I have never seen worse characters ever. The story is there just to bait people, so they can show off what they can do with that R+ rating. Overall, if you're ecchi, fanservice, harem fan who likes protagonists that are stupid as fuck and constantly get pushed around, then this anime is for you, otherwise I don't recommend it. I could only bear it until episode 6-7 and stopped there, it's ... not worth going through even if the second part is better.

I just saw all the episodes of Kämpfer, and I have to say, I gave it a one. Why?, at first I really hated everything, the characters, the fan service, and most importantly there was no plot, the anime was just aimless, it was just about Shenanigans, until I realized how much greater it would be if the character's parents where there, and when I had just finished episode eleven, I thought I would just give it a two or a three since I enjoyed some of the wackiness, but some of it was really cringe inducing...

Episode 12 was the final nail in the coffin, ... at the first minute I had to put it at two times the speed, and I couldn't believe what I was seeing, it was just a mess, the episode just ignored everything that the other episodes "built on" although it didn't have much, I wasn't expecting such a train wreck, my hands trembled the entire time I quickly browsed MAL and gave it the legendary rating, and I occasionally skipped 5 seconds because I couldn't bare to watch the fan service, it was too much, I felt my soul leave my body, this is the saddest anime I've watched, it had so much potential, and it was wasted on pointless fanservice, truly a shame.

I only recommend it for those who only enjoy fan service and wacky stories, truly a dissapointment.

I'm usually a huge fan of gender bender anime/manga, so after reading the description I thought it would be a an action/adventure based comedy, which is sort of unusual for the genre, but this was nothing like what I expected, it turned out to be a 'fan service' based, really awful ecchi love polygon, with the action and what should have been the main story line was sat out on the side lines of the show.

Story 6/10 - The only reason why I am rating it this high, is because, as mentioned it does introduce itself as something that will be unique and interesting and ... it maintains it for about 2 1/2 episodes and then it becomes rubbish that's been reused a hundred thousand times and done better with other anime. The story line is just completely derailed by the ecchi comedy/love polygon and even ignored by the characters themselves. But that's not all, the story also takes some really weird turns in itself, even away from the ecch;i at sometimes it feels like the randomness in anime like Ebiten.

Art 5/10 - Wasn't really anything special, but it wasn't poorly done either. Very plain unmemorable characters that have been seen time and time again in ecchi comedy. Atmosphere wasn't that great, but shadows and lighting accents were quite exceptional. The pallet of the atmosphere consisted of your general comedy school life anime; light blue skies, sun always shining, grass really green.

Sound 5/10 -Noting special here either, your pretty basic comedy OP/ED. The voice actors weren't that great, their reactions and lines weren't very realistic at all and they never seemed to convey emotions in a realistic manner, though that is the scripts fault more than anything else. At least the voicing wasn't whiny and shrill like what you mostly hear in these types of anime.

Characters 2/10 -And if it wasn't dead before, here is where the anime surely dies. Instead of developing any of the characters emotions or relationships, they just throw some clueless guy who turns into a girl into a harem and kill the whole story and premise of why I thought it would be alright to watch it in the first place. The only character that seems to be aware of the main storyline is even deviated into the whole harem thing about half way through the anime.

Enjoyment 6/10 - Despite the horrible execution and disappointment this anime turned out to be for me, it did keep me laughing. It may have been crappy fan service that's been done before, but it puts the main character in those awkward/funny situations that make the gender bender genre appealing to me.

Overall 4.8/10 -Overall the producers took something that could have been cool and unique and destroyed it for 'fan service' and crap. Recommend to anybody that was going to watch the anime on that premise to stay away. However, if you like to watch anime for the ecchi comedy and harems rather than story line, than this is definitely one you should check out.

Kämpfer was surprisingly better than I expected, despite me giving this a 4.

The first episode or two were actually a lot better than a lot of shounen shows out there. It's not that Kämpfer is unique or something, it's just that most shows are garbage, and Kämpfer manages to make something that pulls the viewer in, but the magic just about stops there.
Why, you ask? It's pretty obvious, looking at the cover art and synopsis. It's fan-service and ecchi galore. Kämpfer starts off, and I can't believe I'm saying this, strong as a genderbent action anime and devolves to a pretty generic romantic comedy harem ... that's been repeated dozens of times. Girls start falling in love with the main character, both male form and female form, and it's basically for no reason at all, which is great. That was basically an indication for me to stop watching the show entirely.
Look, I highly dislike shows with fan-service to begin with, but honestly speaking, Kämpfer is just stupid enough for me to not care about it. It gets on my nerves a lot more when fan-service scenes happen in a show with a serious story: something that Kämpfer was not looking to achieve in the first place, and append the fact that the main character is basically half girl, meaning no girls to randomly fall in love with the guy form, the fan-service could have acceptable, but the show went all out.
If Kämpfer went the ore no twin tail route, where it wasn't just all focused on romance, and still retained action elements, then it could have been fun, like ore no twin tails. Both feature similar themes, but the fact that there's no action and lack of comedy in favor for tit shots and jealous girls that are randomly in love with the main character is a serious degrade in the show's quality.
So no, Kämpfer had a fun concept, but ruins it with the direction that goes for more fan-service generic stuff than actually doing something good.

I don't even know what this whole thing was suppose to accomplish? A transvestites wet dream maybe?! I don't care what you are into, as long as you are also into plot that actually functions. In no way did this story ever cohesively come together. There were just blankets of obvious fan service. I should also mention the already ridiculous plot is never explained or concluded in any meaningful way. You never get answers to any of your questions, not to mention the twist is also pretty odd. It seemed cool at first and you thought they may go somewhere cool with it, but then ... they make it even more convoluted and it ended up actually making no sense at all. Also EP12 seems to be separate from the rest of the show and maybe not cannon? It makes zero sense too. In fact it makes the shower 30x more confusing then it already is. Beyond all that I was really hoping this would be better or at the least have an ending, it's not exactly a cliff hanger, it's basically just mid fight cut to credits. Very boring end. The art is pretty decent, the characters look appealing it's not the best stuff I've seen but it's def good enough. The sound is alright, nothing blows you away. Characters are pretty hallow and cookie cutter. MC almost was unique but they didn't really go very far with him, I feel as they he could have had potential but ended up being pretty hallow as well. The overall show was pretty unenjoyable when the ending is considered otherwise it's just very uncomfortable. Overall 1-2/10

Kampfer is one of those anime you go into expecting it to be stupid. Now that might not be a bad thing, especially not for me. There is something entertaining about watching something that takes a bizarre premise and just rolling with it. However Kampfer fails to fulfill that and ends up being unfunny and legitimately frustrating to watch.

Kampfer follows out protagonist Natsuru who has been transformed into Kampfer, a female warrior granted supernatural powers by a stuffed doll. Kampfers are split into two groups blue and ... red. The two groups must fight each other for some mysterious reason. The first problem I have with this anime is how it thrusts you straight into the plot. Kampfer doesn't set up its world at all nor does it give you time to digest any of the plot. It just skips all the important plot details and goes straight into the action. In the first episode alone I had plenty of questions like: Why do Kampfer exist? Why are they fighting? Why does the main character get chosen to become a Kampfer? Nothing about the nature of Kampfers is explained until much later on and even then its still vague. It wouldn't be so much of a problem, however the most integral plot points all deal with the nature of Kampfers and their reasons for existing. The villains are representative of this problem as they lack any real motivation in this plot because they are so intertwined with restoring the status quo of Kampfers for some great beings that are never properly explained. They don't feel like an actual threat because I have no idea what their stake is in this universe and why they are such a threat. The story tries to be play it off by being mysterious and vaguely philosophical and it doesn't work because you will be too confused to even ponder the reason why any of this is going on. It even tries to throw in a couple plot twists, but they don't work either because they simply just come out of nowhere and it ends up being an excuse to show more girls fighting with each other. The plot takes a backseat for most of the anime so all of this just comes out of nowhere and feels out of place.

To be fair, I could tell that Kampfer wasn't supposed to be about the plot, but rather the humor of a man who can transform into a girl and how every female near them seems to instantly fall in love with his female form. However this fails to be funny. Most of the humor ends up being forced. Much like the plot, the humor lacks any set up and skips straight to the punchline. Most of the awkward situations that Natsuru is put in(such as buying a bra or wearing a bikini)end up happening because one of the girls in his harem decided to drag them around just because. They were often contrived excuses for jokes and fanservice which lacked any reason to exist. Another fault with this show's humor is its dialogue between characters. Often the interactions between Natsuru and their harem boiled down to Natsuru saying something that could be interpreted as sexual and then that character acting like that they're asking to have sex with them. This was unfunny and it gets old really quickly.

The characters themselves are also terrible. The main character is your bog standard extremely dense harem protagonist with no personality. It was really frustrating watching all the girls swoon over Natsuru and seeing how Natsuru was absolutely clueless about why these girls were making all these sexual advances. His female form doesn't save his personality either. Even when he's a girl Natsuru only gains a few new personality traits, mostly acting a bit more awkward than usual, but she acts mostly the same. In fact all the girls, with the exception of one, treat Natsuru the exact same way no matter what form they're in. It ends up being a missed opportunity to create a humorous contrast between how people react to him in guy form and how they react in her girl form. Kampfer really fails to hold up the comedic aspect of its premise. Throughout the entire anime Natsuru even progressively transforms less and less and it ends up losing any of its charm because of it.

The other characters aren't any better. Most of the characters are your standard harem cliches, such as the kuudere, dandere, etc, who lack any nuance to their characters at all. They were pretty boring to watch as most of their screen time is dedicated to fighting over Natsuru. None of the characters are compelling and they all just seem to like Natsuru for no real reason at all. I can't even say that they like them for being a nice person because they all fall in love with them at first sight. Its really hard to care or even like most of Natsuru's harem because they are mostly just there for the sake of fanservice, which this anime has a lot of. I don't mind excessive fanservice personally, but I could tell that this anime shoved it in for the sake of having it as a way to keep the viewer engaged, and it doesn't work.

There is one minor exception in all these characters and that's Sakura. While she still likes Natsuru for no good reason, unlike the rest of the cast who could love Natsuru despite what form they are in Sakura is only infatuated with the female side. She ends up having a few funny interactions between the two forms of Natsuru, mostly relying on the contrast of her attitudes between male and female Natsuru. She could've fulfilled the promise of creating the joke of an awkaward yuri romance between a purehearted lesbian and man stuck in a girl's body. She could've saved this anime, but Kampfer always did things to make her seem less appealing compared to the other girls, and actively push her away from Natsuru.

The animation is also quite bad. A lot of the time the characters movement looked jerky and awkward. Most of the fight scenes were also disappointing as most of them were just one of the girls swinging or firing their weapons a couple times and the fight was usually over. The character designs looked pretty average and I didn't find any of them particularly attractive. The music in Kampfer was surprisingly decent and I kinda liked the OP and ED, but its nothing to write home about.

Needless to say I thought Kampfer was a train wreck of an anime that didn't fulfill the promise of its premise nor did it make me think about the plot or its characters. I actually might've enjoyed Kampfer if it was so aggressively terrible or even if it had more yuri in it, but it just became another bog standard ecchi harem series.

Thanks for Reading!

My Ratings
Story 2/10
Character 3/10
Art 4/10
Sound 6/10
Personal Enjoyment 3/10
Overall 3/10

This show is ass and and the writing is awful and lazy.

Im not saying that because its echi and echi often times isnt my cup of tea. I have watched and enjoyed echis when they are well written and entertaining, witch this is not.

In particular Im thinking of ishizokou reviewers witch it can be argued is more suggest then this show is. However despite this its still alot better and I often feel inclined to rewatch it, not because of the echi aspect but, because, its just a well written and entertaining show.

Also akane is annoying as fuck. Everytime akane opens her mouth ... its either to find something suggestive, or to just be jealouse of sakura. It is really fucking annoying.