Sekirei

Summary: >

Having just failed the college entry exams for the second time, Minato was thinking about what to do with his life when a girl falls from the sky and lands on top of him. She's known as a Sekirei - basically a human with super powers and huge breasts. Minato is chosen to become her Ashibaki: a human master allowing her to participate in the tournament between the 108 Sekirei to obtain a final prize.

Minato finds meets and collects more Sekirei, but finds others like himself who would prefer not to fight. As he becomes fond of his Sekirei, he doesn't want to part with them. it looks like te only option is to fight and win.

Thoughts: >

I dread encounters with titles like Sekirei, but if I gave up every time something seemed even slightly unoriginal I'd stop watching anime. Thus it's a matter of finding how it differentiates itself, usually by the story. 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 all of those doors remained unopened. It's an array of sub par generic anime stuff, which cripples Sekirei, 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 shows that did it better. Or perhaps for those into ginormous anime boobs - there must be a market for that considering Sekirei.

Sekirei is fan service heavy, with plentiful nudity, and breasts bigger than their respective owners heads, clothing torn to shreds, etc. I'm okay with some panty shots, but the nudity becomes detrimental to action sequences. A few times Musubi fights with one hand covering her breasts, which is totally lame. This concerned me at first, but Sekirei looks deceptively like a fighting anime, but there's hardly any fighting.

Characters have the potential to be something good, but none progress very far. Minato is the typical male lead loser, who ends up with his own harem (or Zeppelin airport if you consider the bust sizes in his Sekirei collection). I was especially disappointed that he's the same gutless wimp by the end. 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. They feel compelled to love him, and are drawn to him for reasons they can't understand. That's shallow even for a harem anime. As an aside, Minato cooperates with another Ashibaki named Kaoru who is FAR more interesting. Kaoru controls a pair of Sekirei twins, but their relationship is quirky and fun. Their approach to the conflict is far more engrossing. It's too bad this anime hadn't taken his perspective instead.

The story doesn't go anywhere, which confused me at the end as the anime drops in new developments continuously through the series. It looks like it's going to get cool at any moment, but worried me by episode 11 (of 12) with the number of loose ends left to resolve. The last episode brings closure to one small sub plot, but raises even more questions.

I'm wouldn't say Sekirei is terrible, but I'm not big on excessive fan service to begin with, so it was a tough sell for me. It looks nice, but doesn't have much in the way of action even if the setup suggests that's the focus. It does the usual harem comedy stuff, but has a habit of recycling gags to the point of nausium. In 12 episodes it accomplishes nothing, so I can't recommend this as it stands now. Could it get better? Maybe. But I'm of the opinion a story is best done with balance, and trying to drop a bombshell of a plot at the end almost never results in something very good.

Screen Caps: >