Summary: >

Having just failed the college entry exams for the second time, Minato was thinking about where his life was headed. That's when a girl literally falls from the sky and lands on top of him. While she appears human, she's in fact what is known as a Sekirei - which is basically a human with super powers and huge breasts. Minato chooses him to become her Ashibaki - a human who becomes her master, and allows her to participate in a tournament between the 108 Sekirei to obtain a final prize.

Minato finds that Musubi isn't the only Sekirei around, and he ends up collecting a few more. On top of that he meets an odd cast of other Sekirei and Ashibaki, but not all of them are keen on fighting in this tournament. Many like himself would be happier to be left alone, but if Minato loses, he will have to part from the Sekirei in his troupe. As they've all become quite fond of each other, failure isn't an option.

Thoughts: >

Titles like Sekirei are something I dread, but if I gave up on every title that seemed even slightly unoriginal I'd stop watching anime. So mainly it's a matter of waiting for the interesting environment / plot developments that set it apart. And... there isn't anything. Sekirei is like a long hallway with many doors on either side that could open to something better, but by the end of the series all of those doors remained unopened. This along with an array of other sub par generic anime elements crippled Sekirei heavily, but it's not a total waste of time assuming your receptive to excessive fan service, and not bored by a title that reuses concepts pulled from various shows that did it better. Or perhaps for those into ginormous anime boobs - there must be a market for that considering Sekirei.

So lets start with the fan service. There's a ton of it, nudity, lots of breasts bigger than their respective owners heads, panty shots and at times clothes are torn to shreds. I'll be honest, I'm ok with some leering at underwear, but the nudity was unnecessary and doesn't add anything. On top of that it's detrimental to some action sequences. A few times Musubi decides to fight with one hand covering her breasts which is totally lame. As it turns out that doesn't matter much because Sekirei deceptively looks like an action fighting title, but there's hardly any fighting.

Nearly all of the characters have potential to be something good, but none of them progress very far. Many many things are hinted at, but most remain as shallow as their first impression. In the center of all this is the male lead Minato: the typical loser who ends up with his own harem (or Zeppelin airport if you consider the bust sizes in his Sekirei collection). Most disappointing was by the end, this guy was essentially the same gutless wimp first encountered at the beginning. Aside from being a Sekirei magnet, he's cited as being "nice" and "trying his best". His bond with the girls is due to external factors outside their control, meaning they feel compelled to love him and are drawn to him for reasons they can't understand. That's an hollow relationship even for a harem anime. As an aside, Minato cooperates with another Ashibaki named Kaoru who is FAR more interesting. Kaoru is in control of Sekirei twins, but their relationship is quirky and fun, while their approach to the conflict is much more engrossing. It's too bad this anime hadn't taken his perspective instead.

The story doesn't go anywhere either. This caught me by surprise as Sekirei drops many new developments continuously through the series, and it looks like it's going to get cool at any moment. By episode 11 (of 12) I started to have my worries because there were way too many loose ends to even tie up a fraction of them. So, to make a long story short, episode 12 brings closure to one small sub plot, but raises even more questions.

Most of the other aspects of Sekirei were adequate, but I'm not sure I'd go much farther than that. The character designs I think would have been good aside from the disproportionate boobs. With surprisingly little action, there wasn't much for me to say about the animation, but the occasional action sequences fared well. Comedy was passable, but Sekirei had a bad habit of recycling gags to the point of nausium.

I'm wouldn't say Sekirei was terrible, but I'm not big on excessive fan service to begin with, so it was a tough sell for me. The fact that this title didn't differentiate itself AT ALL, and then on top of that didn't even do anything substantial in 12 episodes means I can't recommend this as it stands now. It's not a lost cause (yet), because as I said; there are tons of hints that this could become something much better in more seasons. I'm not holding my breath though, because I believe any story with a fair length needs to evolve with substance throughout, not just tossing in a bunch of hints and dropping a bombshells at the end.