This show can be summarised in the following sentence; that is to say if i do not go off on a random tangent instead, big breasted female samurai fight against villains. That is, there are only two villains of the show but one of them isn't really that bad. He's just extreme. There are also only two males who actually do something. I believe there to be a third but he would hardly count and you do hear about other males but they are never seen. Expect a lot of harem clichés to slither their way in and out of the plot. I say out but to be fair they never leave. They stick around to the end. I will not claim Hyakka to be great and groundbreaking for its genre or claim it to be so terrible it's an insult.
The setting for this show is a hard one to grasp. At first you start thinking perhaps it is set in the edo period or a period similar but then a character whips out a computer from nowhere. Unless the writer of this show knows something the rest of the world doesn't. I don't think they had computers that far back, at the very least, we do know it is set in Japan and that it is set among very traditional Japanese people; Dojo's, Kimono's, those sliding doors. Not really surprising. It would be weird having a samurai show in modern day Tokyo or something. It's one of the shows facets that help it differ from the likes of Sekirei and Ikkitousen.
Each character from this show i found out (help from wikipedia was much appreciated) shares their name with famous Japanese icons from the past albeit gender flipped and huge personality changes. I mean ALL of the characters do, not just a couple or a few. There are two who do not however rendering my previous inflection on 'all' moot. Muneakira is our harem protagonist and to be fair to him he is a lot better at it than most HPs but he isn't that great. He actually does very little but what he did do was pretty bad ass. Yukimura is a small flat chested girl and is basically the 'smart' one of the group. Sen is the Ojou type who is incredibly bossy but does lessen as time goes on. These two become quite obsessed with the HP at times, i know, a pain right? Jubei is a slpit personality of sorts and claims the family name Yagyu, the exact same as our HP, yes they managed to throw in the classic non blood related little sister. Her 'other' half is so cool, that it can be forgiven. Matabei, Kanetsugu and Hanzo are pretty much there for the fan service. I mean, Matabei only ever wears a loincloth and a small shirt, Hanzo's attire consist os the standard maid uniform and Kanetsugu looks like Hatsune Miku of Vocaloid fame. With the abundance of clichés you should expect these characters clothes to get shred to pieces. I watched the blu ray (oh boy the blu ray) so everything was revealed in full HD. Something of which is hard to explain to people walking by glancing at what i am watching and having to explain not all anime is tentacle and boobs. Ah yes. I do believe i forgot to mention there are in fact two separate tentacle monsters and an invisible fiend. If you do not possess the ability to see me through your computer monitor i am as of mentioning the three monsters, shaking my head. You do have a blond haired big breasted d'Artagnan to look forward to (or straight at if you tend to perv).
The music was an area i don't have any particular feelings towards. The opening is enjoyable as far as openings go. I will listen to it for one minute thirty every episode but i will not hunt down the full mp3 anytime soon. Same goes for the ending. Had i not watched this on my tv but instead on my laptop i would most certainly have skipped it. Now holding my hands up in regret, i did not pay an attention to the background music for the most part. That is not a good thing, if it didn't stand out it was probably out sounded by speech or destruction or just wasn't very good at all. My money being the latter. One thing i did notice a couple of times. The battle music sounded awfully similar to Black Lagoons opening theme song.
The voice actors did an ok job. I watched both sub and dub. Well only about a thirds worth of it subbed but still subbed non the less. Now there were a couple of moments in which phrases such as; 'Ooooh' and 'Aaaah' would uttered from my lips in reply to the occasionally badly acted line but i would put the blame on the scrip more than the actors. This is a show in which the sub out ways the dub but i would recommend watching the dubbed version due to the reason stated in my next paragraph.
The best part of is the art. Not necessarily the greatest compliment you could get. In fiction i consider the story and characters to be far more important than how good something looks. Here though it should be seen as a compliment as had this show used a regular art style it wouldn't stand out in the least. Everything is drawn with a thick black outline compared to a normal thin line that may not even be black. Often when looking at a still you could compare it to a more traditional western comic book. They also had some fun with color. The entire final abttle is in black and white. Not the kind of black and white where it's drawn in color and then a black and white gradient map in Photoshop has been applied leaving a more grey feel to. No. This is drawn verbatim. Black shadows and outlines. White everything else. It really did make it look quite nice. They also used blood splatter on a regular basis. Even in calm moments just to pan from scene to scene. It was a nice change. Even during battle certain characters had different color motifs.
The art is the single part of Hyakka that sets it apart from the crap you usually find in battle harems. It is also why i probably would never recommend Hyakka Ryouran to anybody. Because what am i supposed to say? 'Watch Hyakka, it looks pretty', i'll likely get replies along the lines of 'Sod off' or 'anime always looks good idiot' or 'So does Gankutsuou and that's better'. Anyway, i find this show to be top of it genre, not really a compliment in as much, the rest is just shite. Quite frankly my dear the bad far out way the good and i can fully understand why it has the MAL rating it does.
