Anime Series of the Genre: “Harem”

Rosario to Vampire Capu2 – Anime Review

Thursday, 10 May, 2012

rosario-vampire-capu2

Now that the summer is over, it’s time for Tsukune Aono and his friends to return to Yokai Academy. This season is set in the fall semester following the student’s freshman year. Upon returning to school, the Newspaper club member’s find much fan mail awaiting them, and one of Moka’s fans plans to kill her. These hilarious beginnings of a new school year set up the season with the introduction of a new character, and bring a much more relaxed feeling to season two. Many loyal fans might not be pleased with season two, when it breaks away from the manga after only the first episode. Viewer beware, this season is definitely rated Mature, featuring nudity throughout most of the season and much more strong language.

I admit, Rosario + Vampire Capu2 completely lived up to my expectations. Although it doesn’t follow the manga nearly as well as season one, it does offer up some of the best episodes of the series. The character development becomes much deeper, and the final few episodes are quite emotional, bringing out everyone’s true character.
Rating: 8/10

Sekirei – Anime Review

Friday, 5 November, 2010


Review: Minato is very disappointed to have failed the college entrance exams twice, but his failure life style is about to change as he meets Musubi, a mysterious girl who is suddenly attacked by two other girls using weird lightning powers. Minato decides to help her and finds out that she is a sekirei and part of the sekirei plan, an unknown operation planned out by the MBI Corporation which controls this whole city. There are 108 sekireis and Minato seems to possess the Ashikabi gene to become a master of sekireis and awaken their powers to the fullest. Musubi now is his first sekirei, but being a peaceful guy he cannot understand why sekireis have to fight each other. What will he do?

Sekirei is a harem fanservice comedy action spectacle with a plot that isn’t too shabby for this kind of genre. Being a big fan of the Sekirei manga I had my doubts whether this anime will live up to my expectations. But unlike many other recent manga adaptations, this time they did a pretty decent  job. Animation and script are of a quality adequate for telling the sekirei story. However, those who read the manga will certainly find a few things that are missing or are not presented adequately, to say the least.
Rating: 8/10

Kanokon – Anime Review

Friday, 5 November, 2010


Review: Kouta Oyamada is a short and shy high-school junior. On his first day a beautiful second-year girl called Chizuru asks him to meet her alone in the music room after school. There she confesses her love and without wasting any time tries to seduce him. Poor Kouta doesn’t think this is appropriate for high-schoolers, but they are interrupted as he finds out that Chizuru actually is a fox spirit. As Kouta isn’t as shocked as she expected him to be, she falls for him even more. Now she is trying to get intimate with him on the way to school, at school, at his home and simply everywhere she can think of. Kouta can hardly hold her off and now that yet another spirit girl has taken a liking to him, his classmates can’t fail to misunderstand and think of him as a womanizer. How will this go on?

Kanokon is yet another romantic comedy with lots of fanservice and fine animation quality pretty much like ToLoveRu. It’s not very original but still pretty funny and entertaining for those who don’t hate excessive fanservice.
Rating: 8/10

ToLoveRu Trouble – Anime Review

Friday, 5 November, 2010


Review: Yuuki Rito is what you would call the usual clumsy high school boy, and he never seems to success in confessing his love to the girl of his dreams, Haruna. Suddenly, out of nowhere a naked girl called Lala appears in his room and claims to be a princess from another planet. She is on the run from her father and all the husband candidates he arranged for her. Seeing a girl in trouble Yuuki can’t turn his back on her and helps her escape from the agents who followed her. In the process Lala falls in love with Yuuki and decides to marry him. Actually without knowing, due to a weird tradition, Yuuki was the one who proposed marriage and now with all the pressure how will he be able to turn her down? And what about his crush on Haruna?

ToLoveRu is a romantic comedy about Yuuki and his intergalactic problems. This show basically lives from its hilarious situations and its fanservice. As the manga it’s based on is pretty long and popular this show has plenty of story to work with. It’s not exactly the newest artistic and original masterpiece, but if you like harem comedy shows with lots of fanservice, this show is what you’re looking for.
Rating: 8/10

H2O: FOOTPRINTS IN THE SAND

Friday, 5 November, 2010


Review: After his mother died Hirose Takuma moved away with his father to live in a small rural town. For an unknown reason at some point of his childhood he lost his eye sight. That’s why the classmates of his new school help him out a lot. On the other hand there’s Kohinata, an outsider girl, who is bullied and beaten by her classmates and lives alone outside of this town. Hirose cannot understand this unreasonable behavior of those people who treat him so kindly and he wants to help her. Unfortunately as an outsider he doesn’t understand this towns past and the relationships between those people. Suddenly on his second day living in this town his eye sight returns and he can see again. Will he be able to help Kohinata and uncover this town’s history and secrets?
Rating: 5/10

True Tears – Anime Review

Friday, 5 November, 2010


Review: Shinichiro is a young highschooler who lives in a big house and even employs a few servants. For a yet unknown reason they have adopted Hiromi into the family. Shinichiro was already friends with her before that and his classmates tease him saying they should make out with each other, but there really isn’t anything going on between those two and for some reason their relationship became rather distant after the adoption. At school by chance Shinichiro gets involved with the cute, energetic but also mysterious girl called Noe. His classmates become interested in their relationship, and so is Hiromi.

I know many already have had enough of this flood of dating-sim adaptations that we saw for the past years, but True Tears is yet another example for the recent trend of more and more outstanding decent quality shows from this harem genre. The animation is not only flawless, but the cars, school buildings, school grounds and simply everything is designed so realistic that you could actually think you are looking at an animated version of a real contemporary small Japanese town. The character personalities and reactions are just as believable as the animation, but still manage to be original and interesting. Even the few anime clichés that are picked up are presented in a credible way. So far I have high hopes that this story will be interesting.
Rating: 8,5/10

Goshuushou-sama Ninomiya-kun – Anime Review

Friday, 5 November, 2010


Review: Shungo seems to be a normal high school student living in an extraordinarily big house together with his sister. At school he is the, as he thinks, unlucky victim of all the girls teasing and sexual harassment. One day his sister tells him the new transfer student Mayu and her brother are going to stay in their house. The weird thing is they are both Succubus, which are demons who are no different from human despite their ability to hypnotically attract the opposite gender and suck their life energy by body contact. At school Mayu is the center of all the boys attention; her only problem is her androphobia, which means she is very afraid of being near to men, which is a rather ironic mental illness for a succubus. As Shungo somehow seems immune to Mayus constant incontrollable hypnotism his sister assigns him to the task of curing her of her androphobia.

Goshuushou-sama Ninomiya-kun can be considered a romantic harem comedy with plenty of fanservice and enjoyable characters, but it`s a little different from the typical harem anime shows as it is based on a light novel instead of a dating-sim game.
Rating: 8/10

Da Capo II – Anime Review

Friday, 5 November, 2010


Review: So here we go again with the third installment of the popular Da Capo series based on a game of the same name. Again the story is set on this mysterious island where the sakura trees never cease to bloom, but this time it’s 53 years in the future. We are following the daily lifes of all the first season cast’s grandchildren and our new protagonist already gets confessed to in the first episode. Yet I find this series to be rather weak in every aspect. There just isn’t anything special to it anymore. Continuing a finished project just because it was a little successful is ok if you have creative heads who think of new ways to go and not just on the potential profits of an already established brand. I didn’t play the games, so I don’t know if I should be angry at the game company or the animation company for messing it up, but what I’m certain of is that this anime is just a weak shadow of it’s first season, but still maybe worth watching for fans of lighthearted harem anime shows.
Rating: 6/10