Maken-Ki!

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.

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.

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?

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.

“Maken Ki” a very pure made anime focusing on fan service.

For all those harem, ecchi fanatic out there this is your anime to watch. This anime is full of scenes where the ecchi-ness reaches its peak. Ranges from accidently walking into the room where the girl is changing to clothing getting shredded by fighting matches. Yes, this anime is action based as the source of the fan service. I’m not saying there are no storyline, but it would’ve been better if the story was more developed. This may not be like Ikki Tousen or Tenjou Tenge because it’s fighting scene isn’t smooth; it’s more ... like a magical shoujo archetype.
Artwork-wise, the characters are drawn nicely, and there are plenty of fan service since this a fan service base harm ecchi anime. I understand the art of fan service but the artist overly exaggerated the female characters bust size. It’s very un-proportional to the characters’ body ratio. I’m not saying it’s a bad point because having this characteristic makes the harm ecchi genre more successful but if it wasn’t necessary to make this kind of arrangement. If it was a little more reserved this anime would’ve received a better rating and more viewership. I’m not saying that there aren’t times where this trait made the fan service to its peak but to be honest having it made the anime a little unconventional.
Sadly to say, the fan service was more developed than the story itself. All the character’s personality is right out of the book, no originality. The plot was good, but if script focused more on deepening the story and made the characters engage in battle a lot more, it would’ve made it a lot more interesting. Despite this the producers went with the classic high school type story which wasn’t bad but it was too boring. I had hopes for this anime but end up disappointed. All there was are panty shots, flashing half naked bodies with big bust... it was fine for a few scene but got sick of the same scene over and over, just grew tired of it.
(*For the readers who are reading this and are disagreeing with these points or just getting a little angry, please keep in mind this is only my opinion I know everyone have their own preferences but wouldn’t you think those points are relevant?)
The opening and ending made me realize the true purpose of this anime and that is to satisfy those viewers who love a good harem, ecchi with a hint of romance anime. It seems like there will be another season but like most anime that also secretly hinted, it seems that this series was pretty badly viewed; meaning that the chances of another season are pretty low.
If you are a person who prefers a casual, ecchi anime with tons of fan services than a complex anime then you won’t be disappointed with Maken-Ki. It has some action, a little comedy, and a lot of ecchi scene. If only the story was more in depth it would be nice. I’m not that big of a fan of panty shots or a lot of huge half naked chest scenes so I think this anime is dedicated to those entire fanatics who like those scene and a whole lot fan service harem so enjoy!! If you’re not one of those people then … don’t watch it, you’ll just get bored!
~Later

Watch this if you wanna fap without the nudity. Do not watch this if you want your mind blown by quality story line, suspense, plot, plot development, character development, etc. There is one type of development however, and that development was the boobs. I think a couple characters gained a bra size or 2 and the MC might have gotten a concussion from constant smack down he gets from the women. Most of the female characters probably developed scoliosis because of their huge knockers (much appreciated). Like I said, this is the only development the anime has. Quality is fine, bearable, about what you would ... expect from this level of ecchi (very high level btw). It's comical if you enjoy the MC of the harem constantly getting smacked and owned by his girl classmates. Overall, watch if you want some good boob action, if you wanna be TITillated, one of the breast echhi's out there. Did I mention there were boobs? Not sure but yea, lots and lots of boobs. (P.S. Season 2 has an actual PEDO BEAR episode. Upon realizing i laughed for a good 5 minutes)

In my opinion there are two expectations that an individual can have before watching this anime and which you fall under heavily affects your enjoyment going in.
1. You expect a shounen or action focused anime with fan-service or ecchi elements.
2. You expect ecchi and fan-service focused anime with shounen and action elements.
The first group is probably going to have a hard time enjoying Maken-ki due to the emphasis on the ecchi mediocre plot, characters, and action.
The second group is more likely to enjoy it but there are still aspects that can be found wanting.
If you are interested in Maken-ki I heavily recommend that you keep ... your expectations low for engaging story and focus your attention on the art, character designs, and ecchi as they are by far the high point of the show. Personally this is all I expected from the series and I found myself enjoying it quite a bit and I definitely came away with a few more waifus and good times. That being said the series is pretty forgettable so don't expect to remember it down the line.

This anime is only watchable in 2x speed :)
Steve Harvey: "We asked 100 people, what is the male reproductive organ?" Contestant: "The penis" SH: "A WUH... HUH??" audience erupts into laughter Steve Harvey grabs onto podium to support himself laughter gets even louder SH: O lordy... one man goes into cardiac arrest and many others begin vomiting profusely from laughing too hard SH: YOU PEOPLE NEED HELP the Earth shatters and Satan rises from the underworld to claim unworthy souls the universe begins rapidly closing in on itself SH: (putting on a weary voice) Survey says... the board shows 100 for "penis" Harvey is able ... to get off one more shocked look before existence as we know it comes to an end :(

"Mom, can we have High School DxD?"
"No, we have High School DxD at home."
The High School DxD at home: Maken-ki

(Mild spoilers incoming)
Yeah...this is, um, an anime for sure. I'll start off by saying that I don't think the story of this is all that bad, I just don't think it's conveyed all that well here in the adaptation. A faithful adaptation, this is not, here they took quite a few creative liberties in the script, granted I've yet to read the manga but I hope I'm not wrong in saying that I'm sure the mangaka was handling the story better than here - but ... it doesn't take much to tell by episode 6 that a massive quality drop has happened. According to the fan wiki the writers generally only used parts of the source material to write the story and 2/4 arcs adapted here even had major areas re-written, which was incredibly disappointing to find out (but credit where credit's due, they hide it somewhat well).

It doesn't really take much to tell when the episodes have abandoned the source material as it's whenever the tone of the events and the actions of the characters seem to not line up with the first five episodes; that and the fanservice panty-shots suddenly disappear, whereas scenes concerning major story beats feature them overtly. There is an irony to the fact that it's episodes 6-9 where this blatant creative liberty is most egregious. For whatever reason one of the side-characters suddenly has moral layers that then disappear and ultimately added nothing to his character, stakes of events are suddenly way watered down, and it goes from slight political thriller to slice-of-life for four episodes. This out of twelve might not sound too bad but back-to-back eps of this really soured my enjoyment of the show. The series is about a martial-arts academy where fighters bolster this with elemental magic channeled through devices called Maken, which seems interesting on the surface alone, it even adds some mystery aspects like MC Takeru's strange inability to be given a Maken and his weird power, why love interest Inaho already has one because of "where she came from", and a third student who has a twist reveal.

Yet for all of this interesting set up, the anime is not the least bit concerned with that and just goofs off for four episodes. Granted, ep 7 is semi-important because it introduces a cast of new characters who aid in the worldbuilding, but the episode itself seems to embody this utterly astounding disinterest the adapters have in making the viewer interested in the source material. Lemme tell you how it does this: So earlier in the series the school tried to give Takeru a Maken but the special device used (it's like the Harry Potter Sorting Hat) for that couldn't identify a trait. This seems to be an important mystery to solve, and in ep7 the device's maker finally comes up with a Maken for our hero. Yet the whole reveal of this new device is disturbed by the new characters' arrival AND THEN the series has the audacity to hold off this reveal until episode 10. COME ON, it's a constant kicking of the can with this series; it sets its McGuffin's up and then never follows up on them, and if they do, take an excruciatingly long time to pay it off. The total opposite of the series I compared it to, High School DxD, both are as raunchy as each other but whereas DxD actually focuses on its worldbuilding and politics, this one seems more than happy to disregard them and just go for some underwhelming slice-of-life nonsense.

Reading the manga seems a better use of time. This is NOT BAD as far as adaptations go, but it is lackluster.

HEres the nitty gritty:

In a nutshell what we have here is a classic case of ecchi /harem risque shots of very sexual fanservice in exchange for emasculated, constantly disappointing male characters. Though this seems to be the norm in anime, its tiresome and got old long ago.

That being said, there is IN FACT a plot of some merit to this show which , believe it or not allows for moderate enjoyment aside from the panty/ P***y outline shots and bare breasts ( yes there is an uncensored version, DOOOY) .

If you wanna add another anime notch to thine belt pick this ... show up for some great tits on some attractive girls, some funny moments both fanservice and not and the fact that this will continue into a new season later this year in 2014 ( so some1 must have thought it good enough). IF you do miss out on this one though, no worries, just pick up an actual hentai and you will be A-OK. Ja

See before watching MakenKi one must ask his or herself “am I a pervert?” if you are and you’re not ashamed to admit it MakenKi is the show for you. MakenKi is one with Ikki Tousen and Sekrei and if you’ve seen those shows you know what to expect from here. You get plenty of panty shots plus all the bewbie jiggle you can handle but frankly that’s all you’re going to get out of this show.
On the visual front MakenKi, like almost all anime made this century looks good. It’s bright with vibrant colors. The animation and fight scenes are pretty average some of ... them I didn’t know what the hell was going on but all the fights had cool neon lights and shit like that that took the attention away from actual animations in the fight scenes. Audio wise the show is average, there wasn’t a track that really stood out to me while watching the show and the opening just felt like a generic anime theme song, although the ending song was pretty good. I watched the show in sub so I can’t really comment on how good the Japanese voice actors were.
Honestly there really isn’t a plot here. No tournament arc, no evil villain trying to take over the country. The story just revolves around the daily lives of our characters and the experiences that they have in the security committee. Now this would fine for most anime, plenty of shows plots only consist of the misadventures that the main characters go through, and the show is carried by the chemistry that the cast has with each other. The problem with MakenKi is the lack of interesting characters. Every girl you meet in MakenKi you’ve meet ten times before in better anime the male protagonist has no noticeable traits that separate him from any other guy in the harem genre. This is the problem, when you focus on putting so many butts and boobs in the show and not focusing why they are there in the first place you just leave the audience feeling unaffected and unmoved that anything that happens in the show because we can’t identify with the characters.
Look Makenki is only for a specific audience, those who love fan service. However even if you’re a part of that audience it’s still an average show overall and if you don’t like fan service like me then MakenKi will hold no value for you and is just be a waste of time.

i feel this anime is searching for an identity as if it doesn't know which genre it wants to be a rom com or an action romance anime. through the anime at the beginning it had a story about why one girl was after the main character because he had the same abilities as her brother but it was never touched on or brought up again. then a villain group who are trying to require the powerful maken-ki for there evil deeds but it was not touched apon till the end of the anime. the rest was your typical ecchi high school anime. so if ... you are into so good ole fan service which who doesn't like some fan service but if you are looking for a story or good characters highly doubt you will find it here