Combustible Campus Guardress

Summary: >

30,000 years ago the world nearly fell to chaos with the opening of a gate to the demon world. One man sealed the gate at the cost of his life. These happenings were lost in history, but it's a history about to repeat itself.

Demon leader Touta re-awakens, and begins gathering demons left trapped in this world. They grow in number, seeking the former gate now located under a high school. A chosen few act guardians protecting the seal, but the key is the reincarnation of the one who sealed the gate long ago: Takumi. His sister (not related by blood) Hazumi has duty to protect him, although she does so more out of love than duty.

As events take shape, they tend to mirror the past. Will it culminate in Takumi's death once more? Will Hazumi finally confess how she feels, and can she protect Takumi?

Summoned by the sky, earth and her beeper: the greatest warrior maiden Jinno Hazumi has arrived. Her sword can cleave entire galaxies!

Thoughts: >

Combustible Campus Guardress requires little context to understand where it's coming from. In the 80s and 90s, there was a steady stream of anime about saving the world from a great evil awakening. This became fairly tiresome as the plots weren't particularly complex to begin with.

Combustible Campus Guardress takes the usual "stop the demon invasion" premise, and turns it into a comedy. Yes, the impending doom of the world turned into a comedy. However saying it's only that would sell it short. CCG is exceptionally well animated, with plenty of bad ass fights and action, better produced than more serious titles. There is an level of quality making it seem this should be far more serious, or that it eventually gets serious - yet it never does. The comedy generally perverse, but I wouldn't say it stoops to the level of stupid many such shows would.

The voice performance of Kei Hayami (as Hazumi) is one of my favorites in anime. Hazumi has diverse range of emotion making it a treat all around, but one of the things I love the most about CCG are the wacky attack names. Hazumi has plenty, but pretty much everyone has a vast array of crazy attacks they call out.

• Unparallelled Beauty Ultimate Sword Technique
• Heavenly Lord Stroke: Comet Tornado Drop
• Super Technique, Single stroke giant white radish cut
• And yes even a Hazumi-chan Special!

Because fansubs were authored from Laserdisk (anyone remember those?), the quality is iffy. When I finally visited Japan, I made it a priority to verify this never made it to DVD. Which I did and I was sad.

It's hard to say what sticks with you, and know which titles will be among your favorites over the years. When people ask about my favorites, Combustible Campus Guardress remains among the top - even though I've seen so much anime it's kind of scary, and even though first watched it so long ago. Due to the perverse nature of the humor, and the slightly old school parody take, it's a niche title. I couldn't name another anime has the same mix the way this one does. It's fun, it's bad-ass, it's silly, it's perverse, it's awesome.

Screen Caps: >