The beginning of My-Hime was quite fun to watch, featuring extremely likeable characters and well choreographed action sequences. In particular, the first episode had amazing action sequences and was quite a good way to start. However, I started to wonder just as the previews for ep 2 said “Hey, isn’t this suppose to be a school life story and have lots of moe in it?” Afterwards they started to focus on the school life aspect, introducing and fleshing out the large cast of characters while slowly building up the plot in the background. Where as in the 2nd half all of this character building is cashed in so to speak and the plot rolls in full force. Without the first half the 2nd half of My-Hime would have not been as effective.
Now this isn’t to say that the 1st half of My-Hime was bad, it just wasn’t anywhere near as good as the 2nd half. As I said before the 1st half was fun to watch with amazing action scenes and very likable characters. What really surprises me is the fact that virtually everyone in such a huge cast gets plenty of screen time to flesh out their characters. Even now I can still remember the names of most of the characters, where as most of the time I can only remember one, the main character. Part of this is due to the extensive back-story and distinctive personalities of each of the characters. In addition, there is a high level of consistency with the characters actions when things get intense in the 2nd half, which is where My-Hime really shines.
The 2nd half features some of the most powerful moments in all of anime. Even now I’m hard pressed to think of any arc in any anime that was as emotionally intense as the 2nd arc of My-Hime. This is because of the highly fleshed out characters and relationships between the characters. I could go on and on but I’ll let the unspoiled viewer see first hand. This is how Battle Royal (movie) should have been done, yes I found it tragic, but it was not emotionally involving as I didn’t know the characters or their relationships.
Accompanying the intense action/drama of the 2nd half is nothing less than the music of Yuki Kajiura. The pieces were appropriately haunting/sad when needed and happy/upbeat during the more comedic parts. I consider this to be Yuki Kajiura’s best work to date. Voice work was equally as impressive, as it should considering the number of well known voice actors/actresses were cast in My-Hime. For example, Mai Nakahara, Tomokazu Seki, and Saeko Chiba. Animation is excellent, as evident of the amazing action scenes as well as the high level of consistency in character design. Although, I wasn’t too fond of the characters designs, in particular Haruka’s eye shadow and Yukino’s hair.
However, My-Hime is far from perfect, my majors complaints would be the lack of direction in the first half and the ending. Most of the first half was dedicated to introducing the characters but it felt like they were introducing characters for the sake of introducing more characters. In addition, there were a few filler episodes that didn’t serve any purpose. I felt that the writers didn’t have the full story planned out from the beginning and was testing to see how popular My-Hime was to gauge how long it would be. As evidence, My-Hime was originally planned to be 13 episodes (or at least that’s what everyone thought at the time) and due to its popularity it was made into 26 episodes. Similar to Code Geass, originally planned to be 25 and ended up with 50.
My 2nd and perhaps more critical complaint would be the ending. Since this is extremely spoilerish and is something that I cannot leave out, the rest of this section will be hidden.
I’m not opposed to happy endings (contrary to what most of my real life friends would say), I’m opposed to poorly done happy endings. Around ep 16 the series became much more darker and serious. However, half way through the last episode they decide to pull a 180. All of a sudden the tone shifted to light and happy and all the previous conflicts were magically resolved (ex, Haruka and Shizuno). In addition, all the hime’s coming back was done in such a cheesy way, it was almost painful to watch. This was not a dues ex machina as the “beloved one” being revived was mentioned and was a major part of Midori’s role. It was the reset, sudden shift in tone, and the poor execution that pissed me off. Also, some of it made no sense what so ever, for example, Alyssa died of a gunshot not because of the child of her “beloved one” was defeated. I think the creators were so dead intent on a happy ending they forgot about everything else, especially in making a well executed ending.
I have one more minor complaint, I wish they had changed the OP and ED to reflect the tone of the 2nd half. It felt awkward when an upbeat song is used as the OP for a series where things are extremely dark and serious. Besides that I can’t think of anything else to complain about.
My-Hime features a fun and lighthearted 1st half with extremely likable characters. In addition, the characters are all fleshed out, which is quite impressive considering the number of characters. The 2nd half is the payoff of the character building of the 1st half, featuring one of the most intense and emotionally draining arcs of any anime I’ve seen. However, My-Hime is not without its faults. The first half lacked a bit of direction and the ending is poorly done which forces me to drop the final score. However, this doesn’t change the fact that My-Hime is a fun yet emotionally intense anime series with a great cast of characters.
