Author: Yuya Kurokami
Genre: Action, Comedy, School
Episodes: 9/?
Introduction
To be honest, I anticipated that this anime was going to be like those generic “high school harem action” anime. Y’know, the ones where the main protagonist goes to a school filled with girls who are experts in combat but go all lovey-dovey when they’re around the protagonist. And normally, that would be the case considering the title itself has the words “Armed Girls” in it. But, surprisingly this anime sort of differs from the usual. How so? Read on to find out!
Story
After having a giant fight with some guys from his old school, Nomura Fudou, a delinquent skilled in the arts of swordsmanship, was transferred to The Private Aichi Symbiosis Academy. Formerly a high class girls-only school, when the school became a co-ed school the girls were frightened by the boys. This forced the female students to request the use of weapons in the school, leading to the creation of the “Supreme Five Swords”. The Supreme Five Swords are a group of five girls who “correct” misguided students. The series follows Nomura Fudou in his quest to obtain 5 stamps, each from individual Five Sword members by defeating them, in order for him to leave the school grounds during weekends.
At first, the story might seem like the usual but there are a lot of factors that make this differ from the norm. There isn’t some kind of omnipotent power that the main character gets and the goal of the protagonist is something simple instead of, let’s say, having him defeat an entire army of flashy looking students in some kind arena festival or whatnot. The story does sound cliche at first, however. You could also argue that the romance genre could also fit into the story but the romance isn’t relevant enough for it to become a genre for this anime.
Animation & Art
For art, I’d rate it as an 8/10 for characters but a 6.8/10 for backgrounds. Character designs are really colourful and creative for the main cast. But for smaller minor characters it’s hard to differentiate them from the crowd. There’s literally a whole cast of 34 people with the same design and colours.
Backgrounds are a little underdone here though. Colours seem very gloomy and bland compared to the characters. Even greenery feel boringly gloomy. Backgrounds and characters also have this sort of blur to them that makes things seem even gloomier. As for animations, special visual effects look amazing and really well done. However, this can’t be said for the overall quality of the animation. Scenes are sometimes poorly done and you can really see the frame skips here and there making this anime look like one that was done in 2015 or 14.
Sound & Music
I really enjoy listening to the opening theme of the anime. It’s a little different from most openings nowadays with its sort of combination with old reminiscent songs from the age of evangelion and modern pop songs. The ending theme is also pretty nice, but is pretty generic. Voice acting is quite decent, and that’s a lot to say considering the current generation. What I don’t really like is that one of the characters is constantly speaking bad French. We see these kinds of characters everywhere nowadays but heck do I never want to hear another “MERCI” again.
Characterization & Powers
Characters here are quite generic in my opinion. You have the demonic tsundere master swordswoman, the foreign blondie that speaks better japanese than her own mother tongue. A lot of generic characters from the action genre and you could even find some from the romance genre if you tried hard enough. Characters are still entertaining nonetheless though, since the main character is entirely different from most other protagonists. Each main character uses their own signature sword style, whether it be a combination of multiple schools or to use the art of ninjutsu. The main character has the unique ability to launch a “Spirit Bullet” by contracting and moving parts of his muscles, he also calls this a type of “sword” style.
Conclusion
Even with the abundance of amazingly stunning anime to watch for this season, Busou Shoujo Machiavellism definitely doesn’t fall short off the list. It does seem like a generic anime but the feeling you can get from it is entirely different, at least in my opinion. But heck, do watch it and try to prove me right.
