Rail Wars

Summary: >

Naoto dreamed since a young boy of becoming a train engineer, so he was eager about his new job at the Japanese National Railways. Unfortunately he was assigned to the security division. He becomes friends with three of his new coworkers, with two of them interested in him romantically. Who will win his heart? Busty Haruka, hot headed Aoi, or the sexy eight axle EH500-68 that just hit the tracks?

Thoughts: >

The term otaku refers to a borderline obsessive hobby culture, revolving around a nerdy topic. Americans use the term inferring "anime fan", but there are many other kinds of otaku. In recent years, anime has attempted to tap other otaku cultures, so it's not surprising an anime for train-otaku would surface sooner or later. Rail Wars doesn't have much going for it, but it does do a good job pandering to train-otaku (or pandering in general). It includes parts I could only describe as "train porn". That aside, there are problems, but if you can overlook them Rail Wars isn't too bad. IF you can overlook them.

Rail wars isn't completely fluff, but has enough girls and fan service to feel like a harem on rails. While pleasantly designed and ample busted, the girls lack flavor. Aoi is an unusual choice in the primary love interest, being hot headed and aggressive which is refreshing. Unfortunately the other girls contribute little and tend to get in the way.

Rail Wars takes place in an alternate reality version of Japan, which has terrorists and actual crime to fight. It attempts something like You're Under Arrest, but lacks the intelligence, charm, or good story. The train theme seems cool, until it struggles to put this concept into practice in a way not completely boring. Attempts to spice things up often become incredibly stupid.

Every episode has at least one huge logic hole, and often many smaller logic failures. Naoto applied to the national rail service hoping to be a train engineer, but gets assigned to the security team. Because those jobs have nearly identical requirements right? Body armor and swimsuits... Hello? If flaws of this sort annoy you, I'd probably skip this all together. On the other hand if you like to see stupid crap in anime just to get a chuckle out of how dumb it is, Rail Wars is amusing that way. For most it's a matter of ignoring nonsense, but for what? Generic harem stuff. AND TRAINS!

But I'm okay with that. Trains are cool, and it doesn't take place in a high school. The story and characters function well enough for Rail Wars to squeak by as watchable. It has its moments, but not enough to go out of your way to pick this up.

Screen Caps: >