Let’s start me review, shall we?
Story: 7
During early 20th century, by discovering “Magic circuits”, scientists found a way to give life to countless things. These magic circuits are made from complex magic and highly developed technology. Magic circuits were put into different objects to bring them to life and even give them human-like traits. An object that has magic circuits installed in it is called an “Automaton”, with humans called “Puppeteers” controlling them and providing them the “Mana “ they need to do certain actions .
Akabane Raishin is a puppeteer attending Royal Academy. Together with a beautiful teenage girl Yaya, who’s actually Raishin’s puppet. Royal Academy is a school specializing in training puppeteers and crowning them as “Wiseman”. Wiseman is a title given to the strongest puppeteers. Raishin has to defeat every single puppeteer in the academy to be crowned as a Wiseman.
That’s basically the gist of the plot. You’ll learn some more of it by watching it.
7’s a perfect score to gauge Machine-doll’s plot/story. Not so rare these days if you ask me.
Art: 9
Amazing CG battle sequences alone deserves a 9. Aside from the great CGs, the details on everything are smooth. This wouldn’t surprise most of us by now. It is 2014, nothing is impossible anymore (aside from me having a girlfriend). A point I would like to add, the manga’s art style’s a bit (itsy bitsy tiny bit) different from the Anime. Not much to mention here.
Characters: 8
ONE YAYA, PLEASE! NO, MAKE THAT DOUBLE—NO, THREE PLEASE! An obsessed girl character isn’t that really rare for a harem. Female leads and supporting characters in Machine-doll doesn’t differ much from other harem girls. Every girl goes gaga for Raishin. Meh, wouldn’t be a harem show if he wasn’t flocked on by girls, no? Anyhow, every girl in his harem has their own different personality. Telling who’s who might spoil you, so I won’t utter any word about them. They’re all drawn perfectly, breast size, pantsu color—I’m not trying to sound like a pervert, ok!? Lastly, they’re all waifu material.
Music: 8
Given that the series has only 12 episodes, there’s only one OP and ED theme.
Maware, maware, maware, maware, maware, maware, maware, maware. Don’t mind me, I’m just singing my heart out. That’s the catchy ending theme of Machine-doll. The seiyuu(s) sung it themselves! Yaya’s singing in it, too, of course. It’s so catchy I’ve been playing it for numerous times, even now while I’m writing this! I didn’t like the OP theme though.
Enjoyment: 9
I enjoyed Machine-doll a lot more that I had expected. Part of it is it’s been a while since I’ve watched a series with these enough fan service. The occasional pantsu shots and "other" fan service moments were satisfying for me. After all, these are what most viewers (not counting out myself) find attractive. So if you’re a fan of harem/ecchi/seinen/action shows, you’d definitely like Machine-doll.
Overall: 8
I first encountered Machine-doll, if I’m not mistaken, around 2012, ‘course it was on a manga site. I click on the advance search button, clicked genres: ecchi; seinen; harem; action (three of them are my favorite genres). And then, BAMF! Machine-doll was on the first page of the results. That time, Machine-doll was about 25+ chapters. So you can imagine how hang-up I am when I finished reading them. Then last year, Machine-doll has finally turned into an Anime! I was so happy I forgot to watch it for a year (lol. Actually, I forgot to put it on my watch list).
Plot-wise, Machine-doll isn't really a rarity these days. Truth be told, I find it "most common". But that doesn’t mean I don’t like it. A lot might overlook Machine-doll because of the common plot. I find the 12 episodes too short for a series to show its real plot—how deep it is. Or maybe, Machine-doll is a failure because it hasn’t showed any serious developing within the 12 episodes? Nevertheless, Machine-doll is still a working progress, so it has a lot of potential to get better. I just hope they won’t take too much time. Lastly, I assure you that Machine-doll isn’t a waste of time. But, sadly, if you’re a fan of “deep-complicated” plots, you better pass this up. Ultimately, don’t let an amateur so-called reviewer, such as me decide for you.
P.S.
I still want my own Yaya. =(
