Knowing that a story will revolve around a battle royale, I bet we’d at least expect something thrilling, entertaining, and action-packed, full of exhilarating clashes. We may even expect a bit of poignancy, as after all, by structure, not all fighters are meant to make it to the end. Sekirei is very much a battle royale manga that anticipates these expectations, but utterly fails to fulfill any of them. Instead, all that its delivers is cloying light-heartedness, muddled storytelling, and constant cop-outs making for a bland series with surprisingly low entertainment value.
We start the story when down on his luck loser (and typical harem milquetoast) Minato Sahashi miraculously meets Musubi. He unknowingly establishes a master-servant relationship with her and is subsequently embroiled in an oncoming battle royale in which over 100 "battle maidens" like Musubi will battle to the last until one pair remains. However, an Ashikabi can have more than one Sekirei, and soon Minato amasses a harem, emerging as a strong contender in the game.
The series certainly sets the stage up well for an exciting contest, and by hinting at bigger mysteries early on, the game is set to be an interesting one too. However, as Sekirei progresses, it becomes clear that the series will not deliver on its promises. By setting a story as a battle royale, one would clearly anticipate the eponymous clashes. While battles are abundant in this series, they are not very entertaining. The most common reason for this is due to most battles being one-sided clashes where the victors are already certain; somehow, Minato manages to gain some of the most powerful Sekirei on his side very early on in the story, and probably too early. Minato’s deck is so clearly stacked against others that the outcomes of battles are clear before they even start. It quite effectively kills surprise which is part of what makes battle manga fun and entertaining. Even so, when the battles manage to escape the trapping of predictability, they are still disappointing. Either the clashes end up becoming a volley of flashy powers before someone ultimately gets a last-minute power-up and wins, or the battle abruptly ends with an anticlimactic cop-out. This actually happens both times our heroes face off against a particularly powerful enemy team, which killed the genuine excitement that these battles were imbued with at the start.
We may also expect battle royales to be somewhat tragic or dark, depending on the specific circumstances that they are established in. With numerous Sekirei battling until one remains, the series clearly sets up rules wherein we expect tragic developments to occur (and at times the series explicitly forecasts that this will occur). However, Sekirei is much too light-hearted in nature that it tends to shy away from these moments as much as possible. Though that is not an inherent fault, when the series reaches points where tragedy should be unavoidable, it cop-outs and gives a cheap answer to the particular dilemma. This light-heartedness feeling that permeates throughout the manga is probably the biggest drawback Sekirei has towards crafting an exciting battle manga, as the series is much too afraid to veer beyond this silly-happy territory. That said, the series does at times entertain tragedy, but these moments are rather unsurprising, cliched, and often feel like cheap ways to evoke emotional moments, which the series thereafter mines upon for cloying sentimentality.
While the storytelling of the series is okay in the first half, it is very light. This makes for a more breezy read in the beginning, but one lacking in substance, which is expected to follow later. However when it comes time for explanations, the series begins its descent into incoherent nonsense. Most of the reveals are vague, muddled, or just not that necessary for the story. This is at its worst in the last few volumes of the main story, where what should be the climatic finale is instead a mess of convoluted babble and developments that are ultimately not interesting or actually important. Instead of the finale that was being built towards, the series abruptly shirks this direction in favour of a messy final battle with faceless enemies, making for a wholly disappointing and jarring conclusion. This is a shame given how much author Sakurako Gokurakuin built up various plot-lines and drummed up excitement for them, only to utterly fail on their delivery. This lack does not only apply to explanations however. For instance, one extremely disappointing plot-line of the series was the sister subplot, wherein Minato’s sister becomes involved in the battle, creating an interesting dynamic in the story. However, this subplot is poorly developed, stretched out, and ultimately ends with an unfulfilling cop-out. It seems like all Sekirei does is cop-out.
Sekirei does not have much to offer on the characters side of things either. Our main "hero" Minato is wimpy and unconfident but has a heart of gold (of course). He does undergo minor change (which is usually explicitly expressed by other characters), but he never becomes an interesting lead character and is often swept along by the plot throughout the series instead of taking an active role. Author Gokurakuin creates most other characters as if they are made in a factory assembly line: a single characteristic (usually comedic) is slapped onto a character design and they call it a day. As a result, most characters tend to be nothing more than walking traits without much depth (and given how stale the humour is, they get old fast). Nearly all the Sekirei are like this, and with so many of them, the amount of one-note personalities to contend with becomes tiring. It doesn’t help how the Sekirei become utterly devoted and dependant on their Ashikabi, which feels like it strips them of their character depth and decency by assigning nearly all of them the seedy characteristic of dependency. Rather it just feels like subservient wish fulfillment, but perhaps I was expecting too much from a harem series. This all extends to Minato’s team of Sekirei as well. On his team, Tsukiumi is probably the most entertaining character out of the bunch, and while she is a one-note tsundere relegated to the deprecating role of jealous housewife, she is at least entertaining. Furthermore, the attraction that some of them have to Minato is not very evident or believable, which again makes his over-powered team questionable. While there are some decent characters, they are few in number and are outside the main cast. Despite the hundreds of characters in this series, I can count on one hand the number of them which are defined by more than one trait.
Gokurakuin’s art is probably one of the few plus sides of this series. The character designs are well done, detailed, and varied, making the series at least pleasant to look at. While backgrounds are fine, they at times are relinquished to give way to the spectacle of battle. Unfortunately, Gokurakuin is less effective on depicting these flashy clashes. While there are some noteworthy moments in battle art-wise, they are other times just bland. This lacking is likely what makes part of the action not very engaging. This being an ecchi series, gratuitous nudity is to be found in nearly every chapter. To give a quite sleazy view, I often didn’t find Gokurakuin’s nudity to be very salacious, which is part of the attraction of an ecchi series.
I think the main issue here with Sekirei was that author Sakurako Gokurakuin was not really suited to depicting an action-packed battle manga; Gokurakuin feels more like an author who would make the super cheerful gakuen spin-off of a series rather than an action-packed one. They clearly wanted to depict this kind of manga, but couldn’t follow through. Instead, the focus on light-hearted, lovey-dovey shlock, as well as muddled storytelling and constant cop-outs, brought down whatever potential this series had.
(originally written in 2019)
