I know I’ve said it myself, but every time I hear or read, “[this show] is not for everyone”, I wish for a new way to express that. Don’t mind me, I haven’t had my eight cups of coffee yet. Onto the anime I saw last week: Air Gear v3, Kanon v4, and My-Otome v6.

Air Gear volume 3

I guess it’s funny enough to keep renting it, but I find the anime unattractive compared with the manga. I know it’s a bit much to ask for the animators to replicate the hotness that Oh-Great! gets in his line work, but the character art in the anime just doesn’t grab me that way.

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I’ve been so busy lately that I actually have a backlog of everything, not just anime, but my other loser activities as well. Times like these I go for funny and junky stuff like My-Otome, that admittedly, is not quite as good as taco rice (an Epic Win), which is actually healthy while still being junky, and that’s enough to rank taco rice higher than My-Otome, a show that probably isn’t healthy at all. Still, I think I’ll take My-Otome every time, no matter how much trans fat it may have.

Poor cheeky monkey. Far away, yet so close.

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Having seen My-HiME, it’s impossible not to compare My-Otome with it, especially since in the eight episodes released so far on region one dvd, My-Otome drops plenty of HiME references and character revisions. I have a lot of fun with these references, so they’re having the intended effect. The character revision that made me laugh the most was what became of Alyssa. Still, this anime is it’s own beast and in spite of the bonus items for fans of My-HiME, Otome should be able to entertain without getting the references, so I’m trying to avoid comparisons. Just going by the reactions of a friend watching this with me (and bugging me every couple of weeks about the next dvd), My-Otome can be a lot of fun for those who’ve never seen HiME.

(Mildly spoilerific rambling follows.)

Volume two starts off with Arika’s first day of school and the chatter she generates when the administration discovers that her uniform was up for sale at Back Stage, an off-color store that caters to uber fans of the Otomes. The store sells figurines, posters, models, and used articles of Otome clothing that customers prefer unwashed. Back Stage is a funny jab at real life fans, which I resemble to some degree. Really, anyone who owns an anime figure or writes a blog has crossed the line to the dark side of fandom. Anyway, what we learn here is that while Arika has some friends and generates a lot of interest from everyone around her, some people really don’t like that at all and decide to take her down a peg. Arika appears oblivious to the hate though.

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Over the years anime studios have come up with scores of variations on the cutie weapon. My-Otome continues the tradition of girlie armaments with an earnestness that has me wanting to tell Sunrise and Bandai, please make more. I love this franchise. It feels like it does exactly what it meant to do, and that’s provide some action, cheesecake, and drama.

About My-Otome

Synopsis from the Bandai Entertainment site:

“They possess the powers of a lost era, serving as the peacekeepers and protectors of the numerous kingdoms on the planet Earl; they are the Otome. And for Arika Yumemiya, the dream of becoming a Meister Otome has brought her through the desert to the Windbloom Kingdom where she hopes to train at the prestigious Garderobe Academy.

However gaining admittance at the academy won’t be as easy as she thinks it is. Not only will she find herself rescuing the soon to be Queen of Windbloom, fending off a giant mechanized warrior, and discovering her latent powers as an Otome, she’ll also have to win a battle against an established Otome in order to be admitted. And even if she makes it in, how is she going to pay those school fees?”

Arika Yumemiya is a bumpkin trying to scratch her way into an elite academy where the best and brightest learn to become Otome, kick-ass weapon chicks. The first four episodes on the DVD does a pretty decent job of setting the stage and hinting at a darker plot brewing. Mostly, it sticks to getting to know the characters as they are before all hell inevitably breaks loose.

My-Otome has a lot of characters to know. Some anime take twice as long to introduce half as many characters and only do it half as well. Otome handles the bulk of the introductions in one episode as Arika literally runs by them all. The characters get about five seconds to let us know the key to their personality and for the most part Sunrise nailed it, sparing us some of the drudgery of character intros.

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