Maken-Ki!

Story 3/10
This story takes place at a school once exclusively for girls —aka pussy high— tenbi. The main character, Mr.Ohyama Takeru, goes to this school primarily because he’s looking for sex and also because he’s too retarded to hire a hooker. Actually, I lied. He doesn’t try to screw any of these girls. He just plays pervert and stares at their censored panties. Here my friends, we have the first problem of an ecchi series. Ecchi series always tend to confuse me. I can’t tell if we’re supposed to masturbate furiously while watching them, or just stare at them with a huge boulder—rock solid geodude— ... in our pants. Unlike the casual anime that uses fanservice here and there, ecchi uses things like this everywhere. This show is even more sexually frustrating because they arbitrarily decide to flashlight the panties —as if looking at a girl’s panties is the biggest crime a man can commit—(If that’s the case I’m guilty as charged.) As a result, while they were using moves like maken lock, maken this, maken that, I kept waiting for maken sex—only to be sorely and sexually disappointed—. My balls were inert, eagerly waiting for the next move, literally en passant. Had they moved a little bit further, I might have even been able to ejaculate. But instead, I had to sexually satisfy myself with Hentai. And that’s probably what you’ll do when you watch this show. You’ll watch a bit of it, then you’ll go on to your favorite hentai and fap fap fap. There’s no beating around the bush, when one of the main aspects of a show is crotch shots, strip teasing and boob flashes you know what you’re supposed to do. Since we pretty much laid the framework for the entire show’s plot, we might as well talk about the bullshit last minute edits they put into this show so it could at least resemble a storyline. Don’t worry shit starts flying right from episode 1. Where they have sort of street fighter competition to see who can survive one on one in the ring with one extremely bodacious babe —le gasp—. Supposedly, the name of the show comes from these weapons they use, these maken. Some maken are real, and are part of the original maken created by kami-sama, others were replicated by Naruto Sensei. STOP! That’s all you need to know. The rest of this show makes absolutely no fucking sense. It won’t matter which episode you watch in this one, it’s all of bunch of randomly generated events. Bottom line, story = blue balls;

Characters 5/10

Ah the characters, the best part of this show. Or as I like to say, save the worst for last. But since this is only the first sentence in my extremely long paragraph that had to be split in two, we definitely have more horse manure to plow through. Let’s start off with our main character, ladies man and Mr. charisma, Ohyama Takeru. Literally this guy just oozes charm. He has almost all the main female characters in the palm of his grubby fingers right from the first episode. Let’s do a recap of the playboy’s debut performance. He starts off school with his hot childhood friend personally tending to him —she just can’t help but falling in love with his welcome to NHK habits—. Then at school he magnificently gropes and kisses this blonde haired tsundere. Finally, before we even get to lunch, he successfully has a girl say she’s his fiancée. I don’t about you, but did you guys count all of that? That’s three bitches, not one, not two but three of them!!! And what do they see in this 1940s cereal box —BlandOs—, megane motherfucker. I’ll never know. And what does our boy Casanova do? He befriends them. That’s right you all read that right. He not only knows all three of them but he also ends up roomating them. Do my eyes fucking deceive me? You expect me to believe this guy lives with 3 hot chicks and not once ever pulls out the Trojan? What is he sterile? This noble hentai crap is ridiculous, absurd and asinine (Three in fucking one).

All right, since we’re running out of time and space, let’s use the magic powers of fast forward to blaze through the bitches —if I might say myself—. First off we have blonde haired bitch named (brace for it) Himegami. Her name means beeping princess god. Can you beliiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeve this? She’s NOT (lies) your average tsundere; pretends to hate main character, blah, blah, blah. Read my previous reviews to get a good idea on how I shake these types of bitches down. What you need to know about her is that she pretty much changes from tsundere to servant in the course of one episode. Also she’s into incest —which is quite common in this show—. All right, next bitch, Kushihachi Imahoe. Our main characters so-called fiancée, she’ll do anything to bear our main character’s children. Other than that, she’s pretty damn negligible. Then we have our main character’s childhood friend, commonly referred to as Haru nee (Sister Haru). Why he calls this girl who is a non-relative, didn’t live together during childhood and is only one year older than him sister… I’ll never know. Well, you know she’s the basic childhood friend archetype. She loves the main character but is too awkward to say it, so instead decides to beat on him whenever he gets close to another girl. In other words, she’s a cockblocker. She constantly cockblocks the main character but at the same time never offers him her goods. There’s more characters like these chicks from this group named venus —that obviously need some penus—, bishounen teacher, naruto sensei (dattebayo!), kurigasa hardcore should’ve been in another show kai, his love interest faux action girl Azuki, our main characters best friend —who is essentially an unluckier and more realistic version of him but with a cooler sounding name— KENGO and finally the only ones that even partially resemble villains, our last incest couple. These two are obviously playing the game for the whole family, no doubt in my mind. All I can say is, if you’re into that stuff fap but do it silently. There are a bunch of random characters but yea I should have given you a good idea on this debacle of a character list.

Enjoyment 3/10

I couldn’t even properly enjoy this show. Every time I tried —and kami know’s I tried— this show got even worse. There were just so many garbage episodes. Hot springs, dates, bdsm torture—hot—, hostess cafe and a ton of other random crap, that whenever I tried to get into the mood, the show was just too out there for me to attach myself to it vaginally —there just wasn’t enough for me to stick my dick into—. It just doesn’t know what the fuck it’s doing; they couldn’t even get this show done right even if they had a proper anime budget of at least 26 episodes. Compared to this, similar shows like ikkitousen and tenjho tenge look like elaborate works of art and dare I effin say it even a show like Angel Beats looks great by comparison. Not only were the last two episodes anti climatic as shit, the whole affair felt contrived. Like they just had to show oh here’s our main character whom we neglected most of the series but watch him kick ass cause he has like super powers and shit. What made this even worse, the fansubbed version I watched, had translation errors. In I believe, the 2nd last episode we are given a scene in the café where they discuss with the transvestite manager what the words O.B. means. The main character says Okama Bakemono literally homosexual monster but the translators, translated it to something like strange something. Yea that vague shit. How the fuck could you tell me you don’t know what okama Bakemono means and you’re translating anime?

Overall 4/10

The time is nearing where I disappear inexplicably like the main character’s mom. But enough of this shit really. Watch this show if you like having blue balls, poor storylines and censored panties. All I can say is this; if this show is exciting, get me the pills.

Alright so I'll try to keep from bashing this anime as much as some of the other reviews have done. It may be hard to do, but I'll give it a shot.

Maken-Ki is not quite the standard harem ecchi show. It kind of wavers between having great potential to trying to blow it's whole load on fanservice and saying "screw the plot." In the end it rather tends to lean toward the latter, which is a shame for the potential it had early on.

Story: Surprising to see ecchi anime with a good plot. Takeru is your usual perverted kid that wants to spend his days ... around beautiful girls. So he enters a high school that has been converted to coed from and all girls school. All well and good until he learns that this is a special school where the students control elements and use Maken, weapons that use their element, to fight battles. Add to that the usual harem surrounding Takeru almost immediately upon entering the school, and you have what seems to be the beginning of an interesting plot, even if it would likely be done in a cliche haremesque way as they all tend to be.

The whole idea behind the story is pretty interesting, but the directors/producers seemed too interested in providing awkward fanservice with horrible timing rather than developing what could have been a good story with occasional flashes of ecchiness. I'll be a bit generous and give the story a 5 for its potential. Maybe there will be a second season, but as bad as this one was I doubt it.

Art: The art was OK I guess. The girls had stupidly large breasts. This would make more of a turn off for me if I wasn't just plain used to it from this genre. I mean really if you watch enough ecchi anime you have to stop caring about breast size and just try to enjoy other parts of the show (unless of course you happen to like overly large boobs on skinny girls that just defies gravity). Otherwise, the character designs were alright, decent amount of detail for most of the characters, though strangely not as much detail for most of the main cast. However, the art style wasn't really my kind of style. The animation was poor at times. The fighting was kinda sketchy and used an annoying amount of unnecessary fanservice scenes. I may be generous giving this a 4.

Sound: Um...I think there was sound. Actually both the OP/ED seemed fairly well done. The main characters seemed to have decent voice actors, although Himigami and the Akaza kinda got on my nerves. Some of the side characters (and those who seemed to have big roles to play later on but never did) had mediocre to poor actors. So I'll give this a solid 7.

Characters: Well, stereotypical harem characters. Completely unoriginal and completely undeveloped. The characters came into the show and ended the show exactly the same. I'm giving it a 3.

Enjoyment: I enjoyed the first 3-4 episodes. Then I started to realize that the plot hadn't started to move, and that's a bit of a problem for a 12 episode show. I was expecting it to be packed into a few episodes a la Demon King Daimao (which I felt could've been 40 episodes with the plot it had, mostly squeezed into the last 4 of 12 episodes). But no such luck. In fact, the story starts to move in the last few minutes of episode 11, continues into 12, and then just kinda sputters out.

To be honest, watching this type of show before, I also expected the fanservice to be tuned down severely and the story to begin to flourish. But whoever wrote the checks here obviously thought that was unnecessary and instead opted to continue the ecchiness at the expense of the plot. Because of all of this, the show ended up being horrible and pointless fanservice with lost potential. And because the director chose this rout, he also probably ruined a chance at another season.

A final note, waaaaay too much censorship going on. Certain things that were censored must have been a lot more detailed than in most anime, since there were white splashes in strange areas that are usually shown in most anime that I've seen. It would probably be slightly more enjoyable without those censors, but I wont have the patience to re-watch it when that comes out, so whatever. In the end I give enjoyment a 4 for effort. And a poor one at that.

Overall I will be grading this as lost potential. The story was a nice one, and I've seen ecchi shows done the right way where at first there is a fanservice overload that slowly peters out as the "plot" thickens. This was more like watching a porno. And a censored one at that. And since porn has no and needs no plot, I have to think that this is almost more a tame hentai rather than an ecchi anime. Horrible direction/production took a promising ecchi anime and turned it into a poorly done hentai. My final score is a 5. And that is only because of the potential it showed.

Before reading this please excuse me if I have very little good things to say about this anime but well, it is a dreadful anime.

I am going to start off with what I liked about this anime first that way I will not be seen as biased in any way or form.
The overall storyline of Maken-ki was a great concept and reminded me of Avatar (well what I have heard of it), a school where you learn to fight using the elements. I thought it would be a great mixture of the shounen and slice of life genres. But sadly this was not the case. ... The first 2 episodes loosely get into this "Maken" concept which I wanted to hear a lot more about as it was avery interest concept of combat that I have not seen in any of the anime's I have seen.

Instead it turns into a "How many giant pairs of boobs and panty shots can we fit into 1 episode" competition. I mean I know this is an ecchi anime but I expected at least some subtly in the way they presented the characters assets. But again this was not the case as the female characters boob are 4 times the size of their heads and seem to have anti-gravitational powers that science is yet to discover. The panty shots are so crude that in the 4th episode once of the characters basically pulls up another girls skirt. I mean it was ridiculous!. I am not a fan of fan service but I understand that some people do and it is part of the anime culture but with this Anime I just felt dirty watching it as it was pretty much Hentai for those who didn't want to explain what they were watching incase someone walking in on them doing horrible unmentionable things to themselves whilst watching this anime.

The characters are pretty much the generic anime cast. There is your protagonist, the guy who is so so with the ladies and enroles into a newly co ed school in the hunt for his own personal harem. With him for this journey is his equally as perverted friend who he dragged along from his previous school, Not much to say about this character as he is really there to fill in the numbers.
Next we have our childhood female friend who has just happened to develop into a good looking girl over the years. She like every other child hood female friend in anime has a crush on the protagonist but is in complete denial about it.
Next on the cast is of course the loilita girl. You know the type; looks like she is 12 when she is about 16/17 and acts like she is 12. Again nothing much to say about this character either as she is just as bland as the other characters.
This anime also has a sudden wife appearance which to be honest with your surprised with me but as a character she is nothing special. Just the usual cutesy girl who loves the protagonist with all her heart yadda yadda yadda.
The thing that annoyed me about this whole sudden appearance is that there is no background story behind this, albeit I have not completed the anime nor ever will because of how bad this anime is, I think explaining why she has to marry him would be a thing to do within the first few episodes while we are getting to know the characters. Another thing that was poorly done was the fact about how the main character willing accepted this and just went with the flow because of course that is the standard reaction to hearing you have a fiancée!.

All in all this is a dreadful anime with the only redeeming thing was the original concept of the story. I suggest that you approach this anime with caution and only really watch it if you are a fan of giant boobs and constant panty shots.

Maken-Ki! is just another one of the ever occurring fanservice shows that pops up every season. They are a mainstay in anime and they range from being decent shows to being absolutely terrible shows. Sadly, Maken-Ki! is on the “terrible” side of the scale. That being said, I sometimes enjoy watching these shows since they can be fun and entertaining when they are done right. However, I did not have fun watching Maken-Ki!. It is also important to note, the director of this show is not known for his great shows. He directed such masterpieces as MD Geist and Genocyber to name a few. His ... previous works made me want to watch this show to see how terrible it was, and I was not disappointed in that aspect.

When it comes to story and plot, Maken-Ki!'s is nearly nonexistent. Like every pointless fanservice show, it is in a school setting and we have a wide array of characters ranging in bust sizes, hair colors, and personalities. All of which seem to have come out of a cookie cutter and have little to no characterization. There are also attempts of describing something that is related to elements and fighting styles yet it is never really explained nor does it really matter throughout the show since the majority of the show is focused around putting the girls in situations where they are exposed and the audience sees a nice light beam covering what might be a pantyshot. However, I am not sure due to the fact that Tien's Solar Flares blinded me. While this show does lack in plot, it certainly makes up for it in PLOT. The entire show focuses on breasts and panty shots and makes sure to put them into every scene. I do know that this is also to be expected and it is a mainstay in these types of shows, but when some of them can come out half decent there's not really much of an excuse. Just earlier this year, Freezing was aired which featured at least some sort of main idea while being a low brow fanservice show and ended up being somewhat decent. I did not expect much from this show story wise, but I did not expect something this little out of it. We had various conflicts that made little to no sense and characters that were introduced randomly and pointlessly to move along some sort of plot regarding a school that has students with magic element powers that fight. The story to this show is absolutely atrocious and nearly nonexistent. It is even worse than what you would expect from this type of show.

The art and sound of Maken-Ki! is unremarkable. Takeda Hiromitsu's designs were altered quite a bit for the anime and due to the nature of the show and the TV stations it was airing on, more than half of it was censored. Other than the having half of the show being covered in either white light beams or fog, the rest of the art is relatively poor. The backgrounds are plain and simple and there are some various character models which are absolutely ridiculous as well. It also features many vibrant colors which don't necessarily help it along. The character designs are typical of a fanservice show since many of the female characters in it have breasts that are larger than their heads but none of them really stood out for me. It is also a shame since fanservice shows can feature relatively interesting art, Samurai Girls which aired last year had interesting character design which was further accented by creative censorship that featured ink blots on the screen. Maken-Ki! Takes a step back towards the generic side by having unremarkable character designs in the anime form and features the dreaded light ray censorship that nobody likes. Maybe I'll take a look at the Blu Rays when they come out but my overall opinion on the art is poor. As for the music, my opinion does not differ. It had a generic OP, generic ED, and the OST was also unremarkable and easily forgotten. The voice actors did a decent job on their roles but it was also nothing special which just makes the show seem even more subpar, even for this genre.

When it comes to characters, we have our usual ones for the most part. We have our busty childhood friend, a tsundere flat chested girl with twin tails, and a delicious brown girl. Where this show differs from many of these other shows is the main character. Most of these shows feature a generic and wimpy self insert main character. But our bespectacled and perverted orange haired main character in this show takes it a step further and somehow comes off as being even worse than usual. On top of being a pervert and a pathetic coward, he puts on a righteous facade where he claims that women shouldn't fight and then ends up getting himself beat up by the various opponents that occur in the show. He must have taken a lesson from everyone's favorite dense orange haired main character from Fate/Stay Night. Our main character also has some sort of special ability which of course makes him overpowered when the time comes as well which is just another typical character trait in this type of show. The cast of girls in the show are generic and not particularly notable in any way. They are just there to get into embarrassing situations where they are exposed for the audience to see their goods. The characters in this show are not particularly terrible, other than the main character of course so I can't really complain that much about it. It's just that the main character really drags down the rest of it in this aspect of the show.

I definitely did not enjoy Maken-Ki!. It had a few moments that were funny because of how over the top they were, but the majority of it was pretty terrible. Terrible even for a fanservice show. There's not really much to praise about this show and I could go on and on regarding its flaws. I know that these fanservice shows are relatively popular (especially since they are consistently made and purposely censored so that people buy the Blu Rays), but Maken-Ki! is not one of the better ones. I would not recommend watching this show even if you do enjoy watching pointless fanservice shows. This one is certainly not one of the worthwhile ones. Some might argue that it's the spiritual successor to Fate/Stay Night due to our dopey main character who wants to fight in place of trained women fighters. But, character and VA jokes aside, we have the true successor being translated and will be done sometime in the next 25 years which everyone can look forward to. I do not think Maken-Ki! was worthwhile and I must say that overall this show gets a 2/10 which correlates to “Horrible” on the scale that MAL uses. What makes this even more depressing is that it was licensed by Funimation for release in the United States. I'm guessing it will probably sell well due to the amount of PLOT and that's a shame since it doesn't deserve that, but that's just how these things work out. That being said, Maken-Ki! is definitely not a buy. I would not recommend watching this show or buying this show, there are many other superior options out there for your wacky fanservice and harem antics.

This anime is truly great. It's great for those people out there who just happen to have a passion or adore ecchi. If thats the case this anime's for you. It also as you've probably seen has been categorized as a harem anime. This anime is kind of Like sora no otoshimono. The difference is this character has special traits which you later will find out. He wants to protect all the girls so he end up joining the school counsel in which he makes sure people are not hurt in fights. It turns he charms one of the girls from the harem in the ... 4th episode and he continues to conquer other peoples heart along the way. The similarity to this anime is that the main male lead is a complete pervert and an idiot which makes it have its hilarious parts. Also in the school like most other ecchi anime's his childhood friend is also there & in which you find out she likes him in episode .

It's a must try anime give it a shot. Its not overrated by me its just Right ;}

Maken-ki is badly done. I am not saying that it is badly done because it is of the harem and/or ecchi genre, because I've seen stuff for either genre, some of which encompasses both.

Problem one: What could have been a great storyline even with the harem/ecchi moments is wasted by tedious and copious amounts of stuff that is not really related to the plot. While a person may make the argument that the stuff not needed for the plot line is there for fan service, Anime such as “Freezing” show that you can not only have plenty of fan service during the main plot ... line, but you can have filler fan service that runs smoothly with the main story line.

Problem two: The art is horrible. The character designs leave a lot to be desired. Minor characters seem to get more detail put into them, then the main three characters, which consist of the main lead, the child hood friend and the fiance. The other characters have much more realistic features, minus the unrealistic bust sizes, but that is to be expected from this genre.

Problem three: The action sequences are unrealistic. There are way to many forced panty scenes, rather then panty and ecchi scenes that came naturally to the action. The movements of the characters are stiff, again... because of the aforementioned reason. I've seen stuff in this genre that is far better executed, which I think says something if one really thinks about it.

Problem four: The characters are flat, cardboard cutouts. They have absolutely no personality beyond what they are initially given, and the only character development is the fact that the main character comes to have some sort of realization that he has some sort of feelings for his childhood friend and vice versa, and this is minimal. Anyone who knows the Twilight sage will know how that results in Mary Sues and Gary Stus.

Problem five: Which brings me to the fifth problem. The main character is a Gary Stu. First off, his klutziness is not a flaw, as it only crops up to conveniently get him into perverted situations. He actually proves quite a few times that he isn't actually klutzy. Second, his perverseness isn't a flaw either, because it only serves to get him fanserveced slapped, and then the girls forget about it, UNLIKE another pervert that he runs around with.

There are more problems, but these are five rather big ones.

A school for magical combat. A loser kid with a heart of gold has several girls who are interested in him, although some of them won't admit it. It turns out he has a super powerful magic ability. Where have I seen this concept before? Oh, right. Everywhere. The plot isn't original. And the setting isn't original. And the characters aren't original. This anime follows the formula and does not stray from it one bit. If you like the formula, you'll like this anime.

Story: 4

A high school that teaches magical combat. Where have I ... seen this plot before? Oh, right. Everywhere.

It's kind of confusing. I never did quite figure out the rules of the magic system. After several episodes I finally figured out that Makens are magic items that grant their users magical powers. Elements are... I'm still not sure about this. And the Maken-Ki is the school's rent-a-cops, charged with preserving law and order on the school grounds. There are also bad guys, although I don't know who they are or what they're trying to accomplish.

Not to mention all the other sub-plots they throw in then never develop. Most are introduced as if they'll have a major effect on the plot, then five minutes later they're forgotten and never mentioned again.

The ending to the show was weak. Nothing was resolved. Maybe the second season will actually resolve something.

But at least the show did one thing right. It didn't drag out the ending across three or four episodes. The major conflict all happened in the last episode. The transition from Episode 11 to Episode 12 is odd, because it feels like they left out some important scenes, but at least it tells you everything you need to know.

Art: 5

Clean artwork. The character designs are fine, but not outstanding. Decent special effects during the battle scenes. Nothing to write home about.

Sound: 5

The theme song is kind of catchy, but not the greatest. No complaints about the voice acting, but nothing really stands out either.

Characters: 5

The perverted hero. The busty childhood friend. The girl who insists she's going to marry the hero. The gothloli. The idol. Where have I seen these characters before? Oh, right. Everywhere. There are also too many supporting characters. It should have stuck with the core group instead of adding a bunch of needless filler characters, like the "Venus" group that shows up halfway through for no apparent reason. Still, none of the characters are particularly dislikable.

Enjoyment: 6

Stereotypical characters, lackluster plot, not enough humor to make up the difference. It's a fairly enjoyable watch, just not spectacular.

Overall: 5

Upon watching it a second time, I wasn't quite so confused about the magic system and school politics, so I could enjoy it more. Still, there's nothing that makes it stand out from all the other magical combat school shows and harem comedies. For an anime that screams "mediocre" I can't justify giving it anything but a mediocre score.

The following anime review is excluding the fact that this is a fan service intensive ecchi. I’ll now summarise this anime, in a new section that I’m dubbing the ToyBox - feedback is encouraged and well appreciated!

ToyBox:
This anime is bad; especially in comparison to other ecchis. The only ‘creditable’ aspects of this anime were: the concept and the fan service (for those who love fan service this is one of the best ecchis).

I repeat, this anime isn’t for people who like their fan service served with a good plot, you’d probably only enjoy this anime if you enjoy seeing pretty girls with inordinately ... proportioned ‘breasts’ (or at this point, I’ll say it in words that everyone will understand, MELONS!)


PLOT – The concept of this anime is commendable however, execution was horrible, Maken-Ki! could’ve been a really good anime if more thought was given to the plot. Takeru Ohyama is your stereotypical harem/ecchi protagonist: him being a complete tool yet still having the ability to get girls without even trying – seriously, it’s unbelievable how many girls are wrapped around his fingers. And when I say a complete tool, it’s probably an understatement for how stupid Ohyama actually is – it baffles me how his inability to comprehend both basic female emotions and speech itself, still allows him to have girls attracted to him like bees on honey, he’s so mentally pathetic that he seems to respond more to a smack round the face rather than an actual conversation.
Anyway, Ohyama being the pervert he is, wanted to be around girls, hence why he moved to the newly co-ed school but being the jack-ass he is, Ohyama didn’t bother to research what the school actually does… pretty, pretty stupid move. It turns out this school is specialised in elemental manipulation whereby the students use their Maken (their designated weapon) to fight. Infuriatingly, he is the luckiest b****d ever – he manages to arrange living with three beautiful girls in the space of one day: one, being a hot childhood friend, two being his fiancé and three being some random girl.

MUSIC – The music is fairly weak, there is nothing worth credit for, in all honesty.

ART – The art style lacked detail in most areas and the animation, during most fight scenes, were shoddy; it seemed the directors wanted to fixate more on the “comedic” panty shots rather than the fight itself. Throughout the anime it felt as if they repeatedly asked themselves: “can we add more fan service?!” the simple answer is “no”. They went out of their way to overlook the plot and focus on serving the fans with breasts that bounce at their own leisure. At times I wondered how expensive the materials for their skirts were because they could only seem to afford enough material to hide about 3cm of leg.

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT – This wasn’t even viable in an anime like this… the male protagonist, Ohyama, is the most underdeveloped piece of trash with an unbelievably shallow personality and a sense of humour that matches that of a rock. Though, credit given where credit due, the female characters seemed to be more interesting than the anime let on – it was a pity that all their feelings were drowned out by the size of their cleavage...

ENJOYMENT – It wasn’t a particularly compelling anime, it was more because of my curiosity (and the girls) that made me endure it all. It was also because I have a compulsion to complete things!
Seeing as I already summarised what I thought in the beginning, I’m not quite sure on how to end it so I’ll say it simply.
Anime = Bad (4/10)
If you like fan service = good.

Plot & Synopsis:
Maken-Ki is an action based superpower school life series. It follows Takeru Ooyama as he joins Tenbi High School because there is no entrance exam and that his is the first year of the school being co-ed. Coincidentally, his childhood friend Haruko happens to be a second year at Tenbi and she decides to meet him on his first day. However, on his first day though the art of Duels or Battles (depending on the fansub) using a Maken and Elements is demonstrated by a second year Kodama Himegami and Takeru himself though he has no idea what's going on. But the battle ... is interrupted by a girl named Inaho who says she is his fiancee. And with this, Takeru's high school life and the story of Maken-ki begins.
Now Maken-ki's plot had potential to be a good superpower high school plot if it was properly developed. First of all, what an Element or Maken was was never explained properly. When I hear 'Element' I think of fire, earth, air, water and depending on the series ether, wood, metal, etc. But in Maken-ki, the only "Elements" to make an appearance are air, lightning and water to an extent. Also, what is a Maken? The way the Makens are used and the different types kind of remind me of the Elements from the Mai-HiME series (coincidence on the terms?), although HiME did it better. Secondly, they show Takeru to have some kind of hidden power but never explain what the power is or where it came from. Is he human? Probably not. Then what is he? There were too many loose ends that led to key points in the story for it to be solid. The fanservice is more developed than the story..sadly.

Characters:
Like all ecchi harem titles, there are a few character archtypes that must be present to make up the core of the harem; the childhood friend, the tsundere and the ditz. Some other archtypes that may or may not be included are the underdeveloped smart girl, the megane, the tomboy and the brown girl. All of which are present in Maken-ki. Are the overused? Yes. Do I care? No. Why? Because it works. There's a reason this formula is applied to most ecchi titles if not all and that's because the main goal of ecchi is to please the perverts- I mean fans. And there is just something appealing about a childhood friend, a tsundere and a ditz all vying for the love of the same man. Really, if something ain't broke don't try to fix it.
As for character development, there really isn't any. The characters are introduced as being a certain way and that's how they stay. The main character is an outright pervert with a will to protect the people around him and that's how he stays. He doesn't realise that his perverted ways are 'wrong' (for want of a better word) and tries to change, he just keeps on truckin'. But it's to be expected. If you watch an ecchi title expecting character development come talk to me. I'd like to see if you have some kind of psych disorder.

Music & Sound:
With respect to music, I personally like the opening theme. It was one of the things that pushed this show onto my watch list. Misuzu Togashi did a good job considering this is the first I'd heard of her, not to mention she also voices my favorite character from the show and the voice from the OP doesn't match hers at all. Which I liked. The ending theme I didn't like. It was just..no. Background music hardly stood out and how could it over the screams of the girls as their skirts were being pulled down or their breasts groped by our main character right?
Like I said a little before, Misuzu Togashi is the only member of the voice cast that I left the show remembering. The others sounded like the generic voices of the character archetypes. The ditz's ~desu and the tsundere's angry bursts from time to time. They all sound the same to me man.

Art & Animation:
Personally, I liked the art in terms of character designs. But I'll have to be specific as to whose I liked cuz I didn't like them all. I did not like anyone with overly huge boobs minus the Student Council President and her assistant. I also liked Azuki's design and a few of the later characters that came in. But characters like Haruko and Aki-sensei turned me off big time. Mainly it was the boobs. Your boobs shouldn't be that much bigger than your head people.
In terms of animation, I noticed a drop in quality in the second half of the series. The second half of the series should be where most of the action is, especially in a series like this. If anything, have a great first episode or beginning to draw in the viewers, a slightly lower early middle set of episodes and a great latter middle and ending to go out with an impression. Maybe a cutback on the boob kinetics would have left a little more in terms of proper animation.


Enjoyment & Closing Comments:
When I first started the series I really thought that it could go somewhere. But then it didn't. And I was sad. Luckily I've got the manga to read which I have more faith in.
I'm not a fan of the panty shots or floppy boobs or even that lovely beam of light that selectively censors the said panty shots and/or boobs. Thus the only reason I watched this was the hope that there would be some good fights and a few laughs along the way. Which there were. Enough to satisfy me for the time being anyway.
If you want the boobs and the various panty styles over a properly explained superpower school life series then be my guest and go check out Maken-ki. But if you are then I'm assuming you're a pervert and wouldn't enjoy the series to the fullest with our lovely friend, Mr. White Beam of Light. So my advice, wait for the BD releases. You can keep it in your pants that long can't you?

so good so good, almost enough tits for me personally. I had exciting expirience watchin it with my bestie while feelin myself. It made me feel so dirty it made me feel so naked. I highly recommend this 4 evrybody who likes less words and more actions, other recommendation is to NOT watch it alone.

• story is absolutely unique and totally unpredictable, i enjoyed it anyway bcs i like this genre/set-up
• the artstyle perfectly fits for the story
• the characters where well-rounded. they had flaws and strengths, or were unusually strong/smart/stupid
• the characters react to situations and events in a realistic way
• think others ... will enjoy/dislike this series, even if I did

I'm done 4 now!!!
see ya
dg4life
=D

Now I'm not to much of a fan of ecchi,but I don't mind it and I have never let it get in the way of my enjoyment of an anime even when it's only ecchi.But to me Maken-Ki! doesn't walk that fine line I have for ecchi titles switch is be as ecchi as you like but have a good story to tell.On the surface the concept of Maken-Ki is is good"fighting with magical abilities in duels"but Maken-Ki lets that take a backseat to up skirt panties shots and closer ups of barely covered breast in near every scene with a female character.And ... to me any anime that let's the story take a backseat so that they can give us nothing much endless fan service is not anime worth watching

Only Fanservice will not mean that a ecchi anime will turn out to be good, Maken-ki is a very good example of it. This is one of the first animes that i have dropped since i just couldn't watch since there was a lot of mistakes and flaws in this anime that ends being a generic predictable and unmotivated anime to watch. Lets start then? here we go:

Story: 3/10
How about we start with the story? now i ask you guys....what story? Maken-ki just have a concept for explain the why of the events are happening. It starts with Takeru Ooyama, a typical pervert generic ... character that enter in a school in that doesn't require entrance exams. Soon he discover that this school is special where everyone is able to gain a special weapon/item called maken, that unleash magical abilities but yet somehow he cannot have a maken and he some type of hide power inside of him and while he keeps trying to find a maken fo him, he get between troubles and problems involving girls of diverse personalities. The story is simple...awful and unpleasant. Is extrmelly unoriginal, since we have already see many animes where the main characters develop a special power and gets surrounded by girls, if at least had some interesting events, it have could be understandable but yet nothing are interesting in this show. Is just a generic anime ecchi with a lot of fanservice and not story at all. Every episode focus in takeru's problem between a girl and nothing more. I didn't expect to ecchi animes have a lets say, deep plot, but cmon, there is a lot of ecchi animes that somehow turned out to be very good and amazing like Highschool dxd, sekirei, sora no otoshimono because what makes interesting were the events, yet Maken-ki falls hard in entertaining people. Story could have been much better, it started good and become very bad.

Art/Animation: 6/10
Is a OK Art, nothing spectacular or amazing for be impressed. What saves the Art, is the stunning effects of the combat that i have to admit, are simple beautiful and amazing to admire. But...the worst part of the animation...is just the anatomy....The girls' boobs are like giant watermelons O_o is so unreal and weird(i wonder how the medical teacher's boobs will look when she is old XD), i guess they think how more giant the boobs are, more beautiful the girl is, is just horrible.

Sound: 7/10
Is pretty good, i enjoyed the opening and ending, but i personally don't find them being spectacular or memorable. Yet the OSTs are simple AMAZING with a orchestral, violin and some rock beats themes principally in the battles, while simple and beautiful piano themes in the sad moments. Simple Amazing and thats what saves the sound of maken-ki.

Character: 3/10
Now the weakiest point of the show...All the characters are just...bad...really bad...they are not interesting(yet the girls looks beautiful), they are just typical unoriginal harem/ecchi characters that you see. Yanderes, tsunderes, the perv main character, the boob monster woman, the girl that wants to marry the main character and etc. No one of them are personally likeable but is not really dislikeable, they are just too simple, they do not entertain for cause the feeling of "want more", also they don't have something interesting to lock us into them, in other words, you will watch the anime without care what will happen to them since they don't exactly modify or change the show somehow. They will end just like how they starts.

Enjoyment: 5/10

Trust me, if you starts watching maken-ki, the chances that you will drop it in the episode 4 or 5, are like 75%. Somehow i managed to go to episode 8 and i was extremelly sick for all the fanservices and annoying characters appearences. Maken-ki could have been a lot of better if the creators could put less fanservice on it and some interesting stories on it. But it ended like this so we can't do anything about it.

Overall: 4/10
Maken-ki is a so predictable anime with a unoriginal story and characters, horrible direction with a lot of plot holes. Is your typical and uniteresting ecchi anime with a weak male lead surrounded by strong females. As i said before, fanservice doesn't mean the anime will turn out to be good, you won't like this anime and will personally drop just like for some many flaws and mistakes in the story and very poorly developed characters. It's just lost potential to be a good ecchi anime for become a generic ecchi/hentai one.

Pros:
+Stunning Effects
+Memorable Soundtracks

Cons:
-Unoriginal and Uniteresting Story
- Awful Characters variety
-A Lot of Annoying fanservice
-A lot of things left unexplained
-Repetitive Episodes with differenct concepts

What a bunch of @@@@. Maken-ki is one of the worst anime out there. It has absolutely no plot,simply a guy who flirts with several girls. The heroes have no personality,the only way you can tell them apart is by how mucch they want the main character, who by the way is a retard who does nothing but flirting and getting beaten.

The art resembles hentai and i guess this is the real reason why they created it (for those who want to watch soft hentai disguised as a martial arts-ecchi anime). Even the "figth scenes" expose as much flesh as possible.Seriously,this anime is ... one step away from tentacle...

So,no

Maken-Ki! is a great example of 'Don't judged a book by its cover.'

Harem type animes are usually all the same and that pretty much drives people to stay away from any new ones that air. I personally feel the same way, though when a friend who does not like anime recommended Maken-Ki! to me I thought I should check it out.

Lets get down to the review starting with the basics.
Maken-Ki! has an amazing art style, and the voice actors were chosen to fit there rolls perfectly.
However thats all I can really appreciate about the anime. Big boobs, perverted teenage boys, 4+ girls fighting over ... a less than average male who has a jealous friend who does not get any action, your typical Harem anime. I'm afraid that when it comes down to originality Maken-Ki! falls a bit into the shallow end of the kiddy pool. Though not all is grim, they make up for being unoriginal by adding a cluster of strange and random events that help build the story.

Maken-Ki! Takes place in a high school that has just changed over to coed. Takeru Ohyama transfers to this school with nothing but the thought of boobs and panties in mind so he has no idea what he is about to walk into. The school Ohyama joins is a special school where unique students hold mysterious and unique powers known as 'Maken' and they use that power to duel other Maken users over pointless things like who will have to be on cleaning duty. Takeru Ohyama joins the school's enforcing club, 'Maken-Ki' after being recommended to it by his childhood friend. Its the duty of Maken-Ki's members to stop unofficial fights around campus, because Ohyama does not know how to use Maken he gets himself into some quite interesting situations.

Maken-Ki!, like other harm animes is about 70% fan service, 20% story, and 10% character development. The anime really falls short on wow factor other than boobs defying the laws of physics. Personally I did not walk into Maken-Ki! with high expectations but the anime really was not that bad, because its so short it felt like I was able to sit through it while still enjoying myself at the same time. If someone asked me if Its worth watching I would say "Yeah, give it a shot." With a decent story, outstanding art, good character development and a fair enjoyment level I give Maken-Ki! a 7 out of 10

This is officially my first review and me deciding to do it on a low rated ecchi/harem might be a little strange to some.

Firstly, I'll be rating this anime solely within the confines of its genre. Legitimate romance anime or well done comedies, they're out of the equation as this type of series can't possibly stand on level footing with another series that devotes its budget to great animation and story, not amazingly lively breasts that really look like they would hurt one's back. Now that's out of the way and in your thoughts for consideration, let's begin.

Story: For an Ecchi/Harem show ... I didn't find the plot to be lacking really. For this type of show it had enough underlying plot and back story to make sure it wasn't a stale watch. I'm not saying you're tuning in for the plot at all. In fact if you are then I suggest trying something like Death Note or Steins;Gate, it'll blow your away. I digress however. Point is, the story has enough elements so you are somewhat interested enough to watch more than one episode in a row.

Art: Not much to say about the art here really. I found it fine for what it was, the breasts are amazingly well done of course if you must know beforehand. Other than that, it's good enough, it looks new and sleek but nothing that stands out as special.

Sounds: This was the worst part of the show for me in terms of nothing really stood out. I mean, I did really like the intro but even so the background music and ending wasn't my cup of tea and overall the sound ended up adding very little to the show if anything at all.

Character: This is a strange thing to rate in a show like this for me. I personally found no one annoying in this show, and usually I'm not a fan of the overly tsundere loli looking girl. I think the designers actually found a great balance between those two traits for Himegami and I enjoy her. Not to mention the other main girls, they all have one similar obvious trait (except Himegami) but they also all have somewhat different ideals and motives for a harem. The best character is actually the guy when speaking of personality. He's a hilarious pervert but it's not as though he's pathetic and whiny. He actually holds a great deal of power and has some fight in him which is very nice to see.

Enjoyment: I thoroughly enjoyed this show, I knew what type of show it was before starting, i didn't go in expecting big plot twists or a deep complex villain. Instead I got a respectable enough story for its setting and characters. There's also decent enough romance, and plenty of seeds for future romance to develop and grow in the second season. So for those who like that touch of romance, don't think there isn't any because it's certainly there and developing.

Overall: As mentioned above I really enjoyed this series for what it was, and personally it's one of my favorite Harems, (third beyond Highschool DxD and Sekirei) and has enough devices to keep you interested and not bored watching the same thing every episode. It has a fresh kind of feel to it and they disguise a lot of cliches relatively well to.

For a ecchi/harem/martial arts/romance/comedy-- 8/10

Compared to any other genre- 5/10

3/10

While this anime has a decent amount of ecchi content fan service, unless you enjoy that kind of stuff, you probably won't enjoy this show.

Though fan service is one of the main complaints about show, considering that the show is an echii title. The Plot is nice and fun to follow though it's frustrating at times due to the suspense that is built up to a wholly anticlimactic peak. This however is not a 'major' let down because there was never a promise though genre that told of breath taking writing to steal your heart away. The real deal is more on the large breasted women, as what can feel completely ridiculous so much so that it becomes a joke in itself and the outrageous fighting in a school ... lifde environment. Now it may sound like repetition but I think that it should have been allowed to be a 24 episode show to give the plot time to breath and make some parts of it less arbitrary.

All in all however the show is at the base 'fun' to watch and although not a masterpiece, it was never meant to be one and although the tone has seemed negative it is really enjoyable to watch and is one to be recommended to anyone wanting to just watch something casual and funny.

This anime started of nicely, looked like it had a story thatIi was going to stick to, but after around two or three episodes it trailed of the main story.

Many questions I had were unanswered at the end of the anime, if you care a lot about the story than this anime is not for you, do you like ecchi none sence and a lot of nice fighting, than this is for you.

I love anime, harem and ecchi. But this ecchi is beyond pointless. All the characters are very annoying and bland. Not only that the girls have ridiculously huge sized assets.

The art was too glaring and the sound was not too engaging. All are given a 3.

This anime is full of pointless fanservice. I just wanted some action and character development but the action only happened in the last few episodes but the character development goes out of the window.

The only question I ask myself is this "Why do you have to make a pointless anime with assets moving around and panty shots, without any ... character depth and story flow? WHY???? WHY?????"

I understand if you've been watching anime for long enough I get it this one doesn't break any new ground but I also am saying that you knew what this was when you picked it up to watch it in fact that is why I started to watch it you see Harum comedy's make me happy and no amount of boobs and panty shots hurts that one bit i suggest if a all be it done it before plot and lots of fan service isn't your thing then no this isn't for you but I'm a grown man boobys make me happy and ... reality is in my everyday life and on CNN I'm looking to get away from all of that so I really like this and can't wait until I can see season two I bet there is more boobs
even some main stream anime has some boobs like Naruto and Bleach or have none of you been watching