The story revolves around a young man named Ouri in his quest to solve the supernatural mysteries which involves unexplainable deaths that is occurring in his town. While being episodic with the 1 monster-per-week format until about halfway of the series, a lot of things happened in those episodes that told bits of the main story moving the series forward such as meeting up several important characters, his discovery of what his hidden talent can do, and several other events concerning the Kougan cult and the Shikabane Himes in particular. When the real antagonists finally started showing themselves during the middle part of the series, it was at this point that the show finally started to get really interesting. The finale for the series leaves a lot of things to be desired that was later answered when the second season was aired.
The animation for this series is dark, very dark, even when the setting is daytime. It is something that the viewers can eventually get used to because it suits the series quite well as the story is shrouded in mystery and supernatural phenomena, so a dark setting is really appropriate. The background and characters are somewhat lazily drawn, having poor details and generally bland. The animation is not really sharp and crisp makes you wonder if the series is really an HD show or an upscale. The bright points of the animation are the fight scenes, it is detailed in such a way that makes the effects looks stylish and nicely choreographed while maintaining the simplicity of the animation, special attention was given to the animation of the Shikabane-Himes since they provide the fan-service for the series.
Music is not really the strength of the series. The OP and ED themes provide a good feel for the series but not really memorable at all. The soundtracks are pretty decent especially during the fighting scenes and several other important scenes have a nice selection of songs playing in the background. Voice acting on the other hand is fairly good. Note worthy amongst the cast are veteran seiyuus such as Sugita Tomozaku, Horie Yui, Fujiwara Keiji, and Yuuki Aoi. What is surprising for me are the seiyuus of the main characters namely Akiyama Nana which voices Makina and Hasome Tatsuya for Ouri, both are very new in the business but did a very good job giving voice and life to the characters they portrayed.
I generally preferred female leads that have strong personalities, one that doesn't back down and is always up to the challenge, so Hoshimura Makina is a big win for me and an important factor that made watching this series an enjoyable experience. In addition to that, she is also hot and cool when she wields her two guns and start shooting on her opponents. The male lead Kagami Ouri is also not to be toyed around. He could be annoying at the beginning especially when he came across to the mysteries that revolved around him but he developed into one fine male lead as the series progresses. The other main character that give huge impact to the story is Tagami Keisei, initially a very secretive character but with his relationship with Makina slowly being revealed, his presence is pivotal into closing the gap between Makina and Ouri. There are also several characters from the Kougan cult, other Shikabane Himes, and antagonists that made an appearance mostly to progress the development of the main characters.
Shikabane Hime: Aka is a fairly well done series as a whole. Despite it short-comings in animation and the episodic format in the start, it didn’t affect my overall impression of the series which is more on the positive side of things as it improves at the midpoint and ended with a lot of questions that was eventually answered with the airing of the second season. As for my final note, I would recommend this series for viewers who like stories that are supernatural in genre with lots of action, gore, drama, and hints of romance.
Note: This is a re-review of Shikabane Hime: Aka
