Samurai Girls #12 — Wait, What?

December 19th, 2010

 

I feel cheated by this.

Impressions:

Seriously ARMS? In your show about clones of samurai running around everywhere, the power of love, and random displacer beasts and tentacle monsters popping up, this is how you end things? With the main character dead? I kept waiting for her to fall out of the sky again but apparently not. All we get is a star shining when Muneakira finally turns his back. Don’t get me wrong, I like bittersweet endings more than most people, but this was so far out of line with everything that this show has done so far that it just plain doesn’t work. Plus, I’m sure if/when the inevitable sequel comes (this is ARMS after all), she’ll pop right back up as if nothing happened.

Anyway, solid episode otherwise with only a little bit of "love power" (shut up, Totali) nonsense in the middle of it. Continuous action from start to finish without any real overtures to adding to the flimsy pretense for a plot (thank god), but much of it was very Dragonbally, consistent of flying inkblots bouncing off each other and posing with stills. At least Muneakira finally used his sword… to cut tentacles from raping him. Well, dude’s got priorities. Nia got her kiss from Yoshihiko too I suppose, not that it mattered since Jubei was the only one who fought anything other than tentacles or the giant motionless bubble. I’m not sure why Muneakira needed to pick Yukimura up for her own love powerup kiss, but at least she wasn’t licking herself like Gisen was or mounting her hammer like Naoe was. Still waiting for Naoe to be relevant! I’m not sure what the monochrome was about really. I kept expecting them to do something interesting with it, but no… it was just monochrome for the sake of monochrome.

Final thoughts at the bottom.

PS, I’m aware of Badlands Rumble, but have a huge holiday party to go to today. I’ll get to it on either Monday or Tuesday.

       

Final Thoughts:

A strong start and unique artistic design gave way to time filler and an extremely poorly paced plot. I enjoyed select parts of both the serious and the comedic sides of the show, but it did a very poor job of mixing the two and the lack of (wait for it) focus didn’t help matters much either. Too much of the show is spent meandering around getting nothing accomplished but not being funny enough to get away with it cleanly either. All it ended up doing is compressing the plot into about four episodes that they had to rush through like a ostrich on speed, leaving characters like Nia, Yoshihiko, and Gisen sorely undeveloped and the characters that were just there for comic relief completely out of their element.

The show was decently produced for the most part, but gets away with a lot due to style. Unfortunately, the action does taper off dramatically after the first couple episodes. Muneakira was also… well, a lie. Master swordsman, my butt. The rest of the main cast is solid though, especially for shows of this nature and it’s always nice to see characters open with their feelings instead of trapped in a sea of angst for no reason. Jubei was probably the worst handled of the core cast, but I could still just be cross over her sudden death at the end. She still wasn’t particularly well developed or explained even to the very end though.

All in all, it’s not a decent show with an out-of-place ending. The style is the main noteworthy thing about it and it’s otherwise just another relatively generic action comedy. There’s nothing wrong with that, mind you, and it’s the genre that I enjoy the most, but it’s not going to win any converts or awards for its execution either.

Posted in Samurai Girls | 13 Comments »

13 Shouts From the Peanut Gallery

  • Aex says:

    Wish I could say Jubei “dying” was a shock, but it felt like it was coming all along considering how she appeared in the first place. At least some things got resolved(kinda?), and I’d watch a second season just to see what they do next.

    Overall, Yukimura needed more screen-time.

  • Dual says:

    Bring on the second season, ARMS. NOW.

  • Mesousa says:

    Somebody forgot to add the color in a lot of scenes.

  • legion says:

    i love its novel plot more

  • Stockhausen says:

    This series was ruined for me right after Muneakira’s speech in the second (?) episode about accepting his punishment like a samurai. At that moment, someone flipped a switch and it became a very dumb, very bare bones harem, with all sense of danger or seriousness forever lost and zero plot development outside of introducing new characters, or the super forms of each of the girls (which were all turned into submissive, non-threatening women).

  • The Phantom says:

    This anime degenerated fast from the initial episodes packed with action and gorgeous visuals, to the last ones that were shameless harem fillers with lame and silly jokes. All that fanservice did not help either.

    Loved the char design and visuals however. I cant help but think that this anime wasted all the potential that it had, It certanly could have done much better than this.

  • kobester says:

    love conquers all, I guess?

    At least ARMS is thinking something unique even for an ecchi series unlike other studios who just throw some cliche characters and PROFIT!

  • Still, all said and done about this show, the Good Girl of the Year Award still goes to Jubei ;_;

  • Easily the worst wasted potential of the season. After the first episode I held out hope it was going to be awesome. Halfway through the second episode I knew it was going to be crap, and I gave up watching it.

    I’ve seen nothing since then to convince me I should change my mind.

  • TJ says:

    Yeah, the show just kept going downhill and never recovered. I suppose the finale was better than some of the fillers, but it was far from impressive.

  • Dude says:

    I hear it’s been selling well. Hopefully, it’ll get a second season that will actually accomplish something.

    • DMZ says:

      The issue is exactly that it’s selling well. Why would they change their formula of nothing happening when it worked for the first season? You can expect the second season to be just as bad.

  • bk47 says:

    so no one saved the “Spirited Away” girls from Yoshihik ?
    I know he is “good” now but he “Spirited them Away” experimented on them made them fight for him no one will call him on it ? btw if he was killed cant his sister do the job ? if not cant she have a son ? Yoshihik is made to look like a Shogun but all he is is a Student Council President and its set in 20-21 Century but if he is a Shogun had he been killed the Japan would not fall so all that talk in ep 10 was bull