The few times that Mai and her friends had some respite between fighting “orphans” (the name of the evil and destructive monsters) were probably the most enjoyable. The anime wasn’t all about fighting. After all, Mai had just arrived at a new and seemingly luxurious school (super large and filled with numerous facilities) with her brother, so it was imperative for the setting to be built. Mai had a job and made some nice friends and ran into other girls who could see the HiME star. There were a lot of characters introduced, though I only remembered the names of the ones that had a big role in the story. It was fun to see the mesh of evil-fighting and school in the beginning, though. Obviously with childs as big as trees and larger, it was extremely difficult to cover up damage from battles. Plus, it was hard to keep secrets for so long as the orphans became more prevalent and dangerous.
While the anime does hint at having darker tones starting from the beginning, it surprised me that there were a lot of themes that took on a negative twist. Some were a little bit much or didn’t have enough time to develop. I had a hard time sympathizing with the characters at some moments.
For example, to pay the price for the power of being a HiME (one that can control the Highly-advanced Materializing Equipment), one must sacrifice something very special, and the price to be paid if the child dies in battle is quite dire. I couldn’t take it very seriously because the anime made it so dramatic, and it was unbelievable to the other characters as well.
In addition, Mai spent time a lot of time being sad and I felt that it was difficult to understand her pain because she stopped herself from telling almost anyone at all. Her position as a big sister made her a strong character, but she also kept her feelings to herself so that she did not look weak. It looked like she was supposed to cry by herself, but even when she talked to someone just a little bit about her emotions, it seemed vague. Her character perpetually seemed lonely and unreachable.
One other thing I should mention is that there is a bit of fanservice in here, made very easy by how well-endowed Mai is. The other girls have nice bodies as well, so they get utilized for this reason here and there. It happens more often in the first half of the series and not so much later on because the plot gets more serious.
As the anime went on, the relationships between characters became clearer and back stories surfaced. A few of them were sad but not so unique, and just a few were original. It was appropriate buildup to explain what exactly each girl was fighting for, though, which I appreciated. I remembered each girl distinctly from her troubles and appearance, so the creators did a good job at individualizing the characters.
Given the romance tag, I wasn’t too disappointed with the kind of relationships in Mai-HiME. Most of the girls had a special person in their lives and good reasons to love them. The main problem was the main shipping involving Mai, which was a huge letdown. Both parties were unsure about their feelings and denied it themselves, so that just made it worse. There wasn’t enough time to develop it since it was in between fighting and their only bonding moments were brief. It wasn’t that I wanted to force them apart at the end, but I was indifferent to them by then.
Many people would probably say the ending was too happy and too easily erased all the problems that the girls had gone through since the beginning, but I can say it was explained with magic, so it was better than most inexplicable endings. I actually enjoyed it since I like happy endings, and this one was very happy. I especially think it was deserved since the girls had gone through so much pain to get that far.
While I like the headstrong girl that Mai was, it was a little strange to me how much she doted on her younger brother. Even though he did need her help a lot, she was just so nice to him. It’s explained later why this is, but their relationship seems so unnatural to me. I do like how her responsibility shows when she’s around her other friends, though this is a result of her being the older sister all the time. She’s dependable, smart, and cooks well. There’s that nice body, too.
Her uncharacteristic weak moments were the flaw in her personality which I wish were carried out better. She has an inability to communicate her feelings when she’s had to bottle them up for so long. Otherwise she isn’t a bad character. I liked her child the best.
The other characters were fine, too. They all were strong to have childs that could fight the way that they did. It was interesting to see what kind of backgrounds they had and to discover who else was a HiME. Some of them I liked more than others, but that’s to be expected given such a wide range of personalities and appearances.
I think for their time, the animation in Mai-Hime was not bad. The materializing childs were very cool and so were the fire and sparkly effects. The lighting was good at night when where flashes of light in the dark on the characters. The childs were very detailed, drawn with so many individual parts on them. The hair of some characters was kind of stiff, but I suppose it was all right. What I found the most unique was the way the girls’ eyes were drawn. They’re smaller than those of girls in other shows, but they’re still capable of showing a lot of emotion.
The beginning of the OP was peppy and cool, but the rest of it was more subdued. I liked the mellow ED. But anyway, the anime really shined with a great soundtrack. I am a huge fan of Yuki Kajiura, but even so, I do acknowledge that she brings out so much emotion in her work that if its applied to scenes that aren’t nearly sad enough, her pieces can make the scenes feel corny or cheesy. I found that to be the problem sometimes in Mai-HiME. Regardless of that, I really enjoyed the music. A lot of it sounded like some mystery becoming sad, and I think the creators wanted Mai-HiME to be the kind of anime that would induce that grief and pain from viewers. There were also some happy scenes accompanied by sweet pieces which I enjoyed.
I admit the anime had quite a slow start and noted that it didn’t really peak my interest until the eighth episode. In the beginning I was mildly curious, but even then I didn’t watch more than one episode a night, and sometimes I even skipped watching. Later on, though, I binged two or three episodes at a time near the latter half of the show as the cliffhangers became more serious. It wasn’t something I was fangirling about at all, but it was okay to watch. Magical girls and mecha is intriguing combination, and the plethora of characters was fantastic. Some themes were not communicated clearly enough, but I understood the gist of what the creators wanted to convey. Mai-HiME was certainly more than I expected, though.
