Kämpfer

Gah. I've been at this article for 3 days now and rewritten it twice and I'm STILL not really happy with it, but I'm starting to think I never will so here goes.

Poor Natsuru. The girl he has a crush on, Kaede Sakura, likes him. Or to be more precise, she likes his female side ..... I'll let you reread the previous line and let that sink in a little.



Still there? Excellent. Let us rewind a little and see how this came to pass.

The series starts off with Natsuru Senou having a weird dream in which one girl is being pursued by another girl. The chase ends when the first girl falls / leaps / is shot off (take your pick, but I vote 2) of the top of a building and just before the girl hits the ground, a voice is heared telling that the bracelet the girl is wearing is proof that she has been chosen by moderators to become an elite fighter, a Kämpfer (german for fighter) and that she has to fight.

Waking up doesn't exactly improve things as Natsuru Senou finds himself being turned into the girl he dreamt about (luckily for us guys she is damn pretty good looking) and his plushie Harikiri Tiger talking to him to boot. His tiger explains that he is a messenger from the moderators and that Natsuru has been chosen to be a Kämpfer. Also he is informed that all Kämpfer have to be female so that's the reason he has been turned into one and that his bracelet will glow before he transforms. Natsuru thinks he is still dreaming and goes back to sleep.



Oookay .... I suppose it's time for a gender bender series again with a shaky setup, but never mind that. Cute girls and violence with, I suppose, some harem elements, might be worth checking out.

On with a little more of the setup.

The next morning Natsuru thinks he has dreamt really weird, but is very quickly dismissed of that idea when the girl he has a crush on, Kaede Sakura, notices that he is wearing a bracelet (how the hell he missed that himself is beyond me as he did check to see if his 'little friend' was back, but doesn't check the other obvious sign?).

Things are going rapidly down hill for Natsuru as his bracelet starts glowing indicating he is about to transform. Before he does though another Kämpfer, the other girl in his dream (later introduces herself as Akane Mishima), shows up and starts shooting at him.



During the small altercation that follows they are disturbed by Kaede who has followed them looking for Natsuru. She actually finds him, but ofcourse doesn't reckognise him in his female form. When Akane wants to take out Kaede for getting in the way, Natsuru saves her which makes such an impression ... well, look at the first picture again and you can guess what kind of impression.

More about this series along with some of my comments inside the spoiler tag as I'd be giving away to much otherwise as it's based on having seen episode 2 and 3 as well.

[Spoilers]Actually Natsuru makes an impression on both girls it turns out, but while Kaede likes the female Natsuru, Akane is more into the male Natsuru and isn't happy AT ALL about Natsuru (the male one, you're still following this right?) having an intrest in Kaede. So we have 2 girls liking basically the same person. I suppose some kind of tag team is out of the question right?

/Sherlock Holmes skill +1 ..... yeah, right. It doesn't take a genius to see that the messengers dolls, the Harikiri Tiger for Natsuru and Black Seppuku Bunny for Akane, are dolls from the same series (what's with those charming names anyway?) and it stands to reason that every Kämpfer has one. In episode 3 though we learn that all these plushies in fact have been handed out by Kaede. I don't think however Kaede is aware of the nature of her gifts. It's also very convenient as it (so far) keeps all the Kämpfer close to together so they're very likely to bump into eachother.

And to add another 1 to my Sherlock Holmes skill, or rather not having to subtract 1 for the common sense skill; as soon as I learned about the strict seperation between boys and girls at Natsuru's school I knew that it was purely done for the excuse of female Natsuru getting over there. And lo and behold, in the 2nd episode he already sneaks into the female side and at the end of the 2nd episode he even gets transferred to it permanently. To Natusuru's defense I have to state that it wasn't his idea and he is not to happy about it .... and with good reason and you know what I mean when you have seen episode 3.

Also bonuspoints for getting the german words actually to sound like german and not butcher it like almost always happens when a japanese speaks english. Bonuspoints stripped though for not being consistent as why calling magic Zauber? sword Schwert? but gun is gun? Details people, details. Feurwaffe would have been the most correct, but a little awkward to use so Pistole would have sufficied as well.

I'm torn between which girl I like best. Kaede is the typical sweet and cute girl and ofcourse one of the school idols. There isn't really anthing that be said other then the fact that she is quite bold in going after her love interest, but I actually like seeing a girl going after her boy ... err ... girl.

On the other hand there is the rather plain looking and shy Akane, our glasses wearing librarian. Shy as she is though she is really quick in interpreting stuff in an ecchi way. Usually while totally misunderstand things. It's rather in line with her loud badmouthing Kämpfer personality so I guess we could say that her Kämpfer personality is normal Akane surpressing herself. Her Kämpfer looks though however increases her attractiveness A LOT.

My last thought is about what exactly would happen if a Kämpfer is killed. I doubt to be honest that in this kind of series, which is more about comedy and romantic entanglements because of the gender bending then actual battles, that there will be some actual killing. Having said that; the Kämpfer Akane would have left behind a path of bodies if her violent tendocies weren't surpressed by Natsuru. Still, would a kill mean the end of the Kämpfer alone or would it kill the original human as well? Question, questions. No choice to watch more to see if they are answered.

Groan. This is one of those animes that you shouldn't like, but still do.

It's defenitly a series for guys as the whole setup is so that it's basically one giant excuse for having almost exclusively girls (all cute ofcourse) in sight with one guy in the middle. The school uniform for girls therefore are as usual more like belts then a dress that covers something .... allthough, I haven't seen a panty shot yet, which now that I think about it defies all logic.

Having a guy turned into a girl ofcourse is almost a guarantee that at one point we'll probably have the obligatory onsen / swimmingpool episode, but oh well, it's not really a punishment to look at cute girls.

There are two things that irk me about this series. One of them being that it's a little over the top. Well gender transformation in itself is already pretty well over the top, but my reservation is directed at how the female Natsuru Senou is treated by the female side of the school when she transfers to it at the start of episode 3. I know this is anime so the reality factor isn't a real debate here, but please can we have the girls act a little more realistic? I sure hope that things settle back to being a little less over the top soon which also would do wonders for getting on with the plot.

An even more glaring plothole in my opinion though is that the Kämpfer don't know the reason they are supposed to fight and in fact neither do their stuffed mentors (and for whatever reason, the moderators aren't telling). I don't know, but even if you're asked to fight I would be damn sure that I know the reason I'm supposed to do battle and perhaps even kill or I wouldn't move a finger. In that respect it's odd that apparently it never occurred to the battling Kämpfer to ask eachother why they are fighting, because if they would, any fighting would be over as neither would have a clue as to why they are fighting. This part is a little addressed in the 2nd episode when Akane and Natsuru defeat their student council president who turns out to be an Kämpfer from the other side and basically decide that they all want to find out what this is all about.

So where does this all leave us?

We have a boy being able to turn into a girl stuck with a 2 way love intrest (3 ways if you also take into the account the childhood friend who shows up in small intermezzos sending him letters all over the world telling him she'll be back). One girl is vying for the love of the female side of the boy and another girl is vying for the male side while all being 'stuck' into the all female part of the school. The artwook is pretty good and the girls are all cute and there is quite the number of sexually related double entendres which provide for the comedy part. The weakness lies into the core story as I fail to see why they are made Kämpfers and why they are supposed to fight eachother and I suppose it will be left unresolved (even unexplained) and all this will turn out to have been is a cute girl watching fest.

Well, there is no rule that you have to have a deep / good plot in order to watch a series and seeing I'm a sucker for the romance genre I'm curious enough to see how it will turn out. I'll lay odds though on the unresolved ending, both in the romantic department als the battle department. Since I consider myself still relatively new I'm generally quite lenient in my grades so:

Temporarily verdict: 7,5 out of 10.