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I began Zero no Tsukaima since it was labeled as a fantasy, but it quickly brought out the ecchi fan I had never known!

The story follows a chain of somewhat ridiculous coincidences that kept me laughing continually as the series went on. There was good drama and occasionally some fun adventurous/actiony pieces.

Characters:
Honestly, the characters did it for me in this series. You have Louise, who works very hard to keep up a good face and prove herself a worth mage, while continually failing. You can see how she takes out her feelings of shortcoming on Saito, whom she has a love hate relationship with. Then ... Saito, who is just the unlucky guy who fell out of the sky into Tristain who is struggling with understanding the world he is now stuck in, and understand his feelings for his 'master', Louise. Then throw in Siesta, the good girl-better choice-adorable servant; Tabitha, the silent-studious-super power; Guiche, the womanizing-overly confidant; and of course Kirche, the always horny-boobs. Throw them all in a bag, shake it up and there's bound to be plenty of room for laughs.

Story:
The story, I'll admit, get loose at various times. There is always the sense of Saito trying to discover what his place is in the new world, and how to get back to his world. Then there is the ongoing battle of who Saito should be in love with along with his feeling that he should protect everyone regardless of their class. It takes the series a little while to develop a genuine evil-antagonist, which makes the overall story sail better (now that all the characters we like seem to have a common goal) but up until that point, I was willing to forgive that thanks to all the constant mini-fights between the characters.

Drama:
I loved the awkward feelings and uncertainty that were present in almost all the character relationships. I won't lie, I occasionally got mad a Saito when it seemed like he finally smoothed things out with Louise, only for him to fawn over someone else, but without his endless distractions, the fun and funny tension would have been gone.

Themes:
The show is a comedy-ecchi more than anything else, but there are a few deeper themes present in the show that make it further interesting. What role does pride play in how we live. Equality amongst people of different classes. How do we communicate love to the people that matter to us. Most of the themes appear only fleetingly, but they still make you think for that brief moment.

Overall, I really enjoyed the show. Zero no Tsukaima:
* delivers on the drama
* catches the watcher's curiosity (both in story and in characters)
* provides plenty of laughs

I would recommend it to anyone that enjoys a good, misguided love story.

I decided to pick up Koihime Musou since I enjoy fantasy adventure series, and it looked like it might also fit in with the part of me that enjoys ecchi comedies as well. But it was definitely not what I was looking for.

After watching the first 5 episodes, I found myself trying to find other things to do on my lunch breaks, and I only watched the next 5 out of what felt like an obligation to get though what I was hoping to be a lull in the series.

Characters:
I think one of the drawing factors of the anime was the variety of characters, each ... of whom seemed to have their own type of weapon of specialty. I was hoping for an equally varied group of personalities, but I felt like they all had a lot of the same basic characteristics: a sense of justice, no blood family left, desire to be great, jealousy, trying to compensate for insecurity. I suppose the set of characteristics can make the characters quite real, but I'd like a little more in the mix. Also, aside from Kan'u there is almost no deep development of the characters based on events that transpired before the present.

Story:
The story really disappointed me. Everyone's on a mission to rid the world of all bandits, yet it seems all they do is scare away or run off a group of bandits from a city, and then leave it. Leaving the inhabitants of the city to now fend for themselves again with further enraged bandits. Furthermore, the characters seem to have almost no interest in joining together for their common goal. Someone will inevitably leave or abandon the group for whatever reason they feel. After a little while, the story begins to feel repetitive. Stumble across people in need. Help them solve their problem. Drive away the evil. Repeat.

Drama:
With a cast of all female main characters, I was hoping for a bit more drama to the series. I feel like there was more drama between characters in KissXSis (which, I by no means consider to have a deep story). It can be argued that there are never guys present, so that sort of sexual or relational drama would naturally be absent, but there certainly seems to be an attempt at drama through the insinuations of various lesbian relationships. Even so, all these relationships seem to be either very one-sided, or so consensual that there's no tension in the relationship at all. The times that any kind of relationship is alluded to, it is made to be a joke, either on behalf of, or at the expense or an uninterested, or unknowing character. None of the main characters seem to express any desire to be in a relationship with anyone else, be it purely physical, long-term or just to bide the time.

Overall I feel like the show:
* lacked the continuous action to really be an action series
* lacked a solid story or goal to be a decent adventure
* failed to provide reasonable drama or relationships between characters.

just not my cup of tea.