Mai-Otome

The only review I could find of this show elsewhere fervently despised it, yet I gave it a try anyhow. I immediately found this to be a fun, easy to watch show. Somehow the keywords which came to mind would be "Silly-Action". I'm pretty sure I correctly guessed the identity of the true princess of Windbloom right from the start, yet the plot as a whole seemed pleasingly unpredictable--maybe because I hadn't seen any of Mai-HiME. The characters are distinctly likeable, even the ones who are initially out to get Arika, like Princess Mashiro and Nina. The ED song has to be the most perky, upbeat tune I've heard in a long while. I didn't know how serious the series would get, but I still can't help smirking when I recall the image we're shown when Arika is described by her nickname "Antsy"...

Mai Otome actually has quite a complex plot, involving "Otomes", "Meistars", "Robes", "Slaves", "Aswald", the "Harmonium", etc, etc, and I frankly never had a chance of keeping track of all the subplots and countless characters. The writing was really pretty slick--I thought the tables-are-turned lesson Mashiro got about what a lousy ruler she had been was cleverly done. This show has a sort of fairy tale feel to it, yet I didn't feel I was being particularly patronized. People seldom get killed or seriously injured, but when they do it's handled in a startling, moving manner--for instance when Arika stumbles across a dead body, which felt genuinely frightening. Perhaps the writers were intentionally managing the amount of violence they dealt out, so as not to trivialize it, but rather to make it as powerful as possible. Seeing as virtually all the characters are female, there were some lesbian hints here and there--not that I'm complaining. Considering how few of the subplots I was able to keep track of, I felt the series had a neat, feel good ending that made sense (for the most part), was fun, and was genuinely touching. My only problem: why was a certain character, who seemed to have gotten impaled, still alive at the end? Nevertheless, a fun, engaging and heart-lifting series that turns out to be much more than it would seem at first glance. In general, I wouldn't say Mai Otome doesn't take itself seriously, but it definitely doesn't take itself too seriously!

5/06

P.S: After watching the first episode of Mai Otome 0~S.ifr~ and enjoying it, the thought occured to me to rewatch at least an episode or two of Mai-Otome, partly to refresh my memory and partly for nostalgia's sake. To my pleasant surprise I enjoyed it so much, even as a rerun, that I'm currently rewatching the series as a whole. The sheer "coolness" of the first episode left me with a grin on my face. This show is a lot of fun; it may not be completely original, but I think it skillfully employs tried-and-true storytelling techniques in a manner which one cannot help enjoying. It's not hard to see how a whole sub-genre has sprouted from this show, with omake, a sequel and a prequel. Arika is a character you can truly root for, being cute, honest, friendly, determined and a bit naive. The story is making a lot more sense the second time around, perhaps because I'm watching an episode per day rather than an episode per week. I'm certainly not getting everything (like what exactly is the "Harmonium", who built it, and why is it shaped like a musical instrument?), but the wide variety of colorful characters and the smoothy interwoven plot strands are such fun that I don't have to understand everything in order to enjoy myself. Plus, this time around I can recognize the Mai HiME characters, whereas I hadn't seen that show yet last time. I read a comment that this is basically a shounen fighting series, even though the characters are almost all female; if that is true, it's a good shounen fighting series, because those usually leave me bored and disinterested in a hurry. Besides, who doesn't enjoy a good cat-fight, and a little Yuri to boot? Actually, the majority of the characters have an admirable sense of honor and duty, which kept this from getting kinky; that must be one of the reasons they're so likeable. I get the feeling that the basic plot might have been familiar to somebody who read books several generations ago. As for the conclusion, no, I didn't miss something critical, unless it was so well hidden that I missed it again. I guess a first-rate Otome would have fantastic recuperative powers, so she could shrug off something as trivial as getting run through (but wouldn't that have killed her master?). No matter; Mai Otome left me strongly smiling at the end, and eager to watch the various spinoffs.

My favorite Otome? Haruka Armitage, definitely.

My favorite line: "Materialize!!"

With the surprise success of Mai-HiME, I suppose it is no wonder that the studio would want to do more. However, how can you continue a series that ended? How about a spinoff title that uses similar characters (same names/faces), but on an alien world? And we'll make it a similar story. Yeah, that'll work.

In order to be unique while retaining the popular characters of the original series, the writers made the character's names and seiyuu the same, but put many of them in different roles. While this mostly works, the animators kept characters that should look like adults looking like their high school counter-parts in Mai-HiME. So it is difficult to believe that one character is a Major with a daughter, another is the school principle, another is the ruler of a nation, and others are adult Otome. I felt those characters should have looked older to make them more believable.

The series starts out pretty good and is much lighter in nature than its elder. So it has more of a comedic element which I enjoyed. The first 16 episodes are mostly episodic in nature with hints to Arika-chan's past and the like. So the big story isn't neglected during those earlier episodes, but it doesn't have the dark overtones. The story opts for fun instead along with some intrigue.

Starting roughly episode 17, the story becomes more serious. Even with this serious part of the series, the writers still inject humor at times to let us know they still aren't taking things too seriously. While the humor is fine, the weakness of not taking the story too seriously is that there are elements that are neglected. For example, what brought everyone to this planet? I would have liked to have known more about the technology too, but that may be asking too much.

Others may complain about the ending much as they did about the ending of Mai-HiME, but it didn't bother me. Let's face it, this is a lighter, happier series and as such, that's the kind of ending you are going to get.

Bottom line: some flaws here and there with the overall story keep me from rating this a "Buy," however I will rate this a strong "Rent" for the fun I had watching it.

Last updated Wednesday, April 12 2006.

The first episode is out as a fansub!!

Wow, a different world with a very different story, but all of the same characters (but in very different roles). I loved the Mai-HiME series, (it is a BUY) and the first episode of this (different) series starts off with a fun roar!