I knew when I gave that 7,5 as a temporarily verdict that I was trying to use some esper power trying to make this a good series. Unfortunately though the producer had premeditated homicide in mind.
Now I know it's never fair to judge an anime against it's manga counterpart, because depending on what you read or saw first it will influence the opinion you will have of what you read / saw last and usually that influence is not positive. And anime often getting the short end of the stick so the speak as with a manga you often have had more background and the average graphic quality because of it's relative cheapness to produce is often better the the anime counterpart.
Still one would argue that as long as at least they honestly try and do as much justice to the original story as possible then both can basically be equally good ... in their own right. The keys words being "honestly try" as really, there is no way that's the case here. I higly suspect the producer getting all the current volumes of the manga in single sheets, threw them off a 12 story building and based the story on what landed directly before the front entrance ..... and that in the order he picked the sheets from the ground.
I just finished Kämpfer yesterday (last december I had a month in hell thanks to my job so I am even more behind then ever) and let me start by giving you a sincere warning. Make that 2 warnings. 
One. Do NOT, I repeat, DO NOT for any reason watch episode 12. In fact, do not even download it.
Seriously. Don't. It has nothing to do with the story at all and can only be considered as a bad joke for a christmas special in which the entrail animals switch places with their respecitve owner. The producers must have eaten some ill prepared poisonous blowfish and had a collective delerium tremens to come up with this retarded excuse for an episode and that's all the time I'm willing to spend on this.
Two. Like I suspected in my first post about this series there is no conclusion whatsoever. Nada. Zilch. Niente. In fact, with my knowledgde of the clusterf*** that is episode 12 everybody's reaction would be to wonder where the rest of the episodes are as you're being marooned in the middle of the story.
On with the final analysis. Oh man, where to begin.
Warning, spoilers, for both anime and manga are to follow
I do have to admit that I'm a little in the dark about how far the manga has gone. There are 15 chapters that have been translated making up 3 complete volumes. The thing is that quite a lot of what makes up the anime isn't in those chapters and I gather that the anime is based on the light novel that was based on the manga. In any case the anime and manga differ almost day and night from each other with the anime coming out on the losing side.
What the manga and anime both have in common is that early in the series Shizuku kidnaps Kaede in order to force the blue Kämpfer to fight her. Shizuku looses the battle though and while Akane is all business and wants to finish Shizuku off, Natsuru prevents it and makes a deal with Shizuku that she'll be spared if she leaves Kaede alone and he also doesn't like the idea of killing Shizuku. It's one of the few moments I actually approve of Natsuru (more on him later).
In the manga we still haven't got a clue as to why Kämpfer should fight however in episode 11 of the anime we learn from the first original entrail animal that Shizuku stole from Kaedes house that they fight as proxies for 2 parties somewhere in the universe that have become locked in eternal combat. The moderators managed to have both parties agree to pick representatives (the Kämpfers) to fight for them. Having learned that I couldn't help noticing a glaring plothole because Shizuku herself told that she defeated enemy Kämpfers so it seems that if a Kämpfer is defeated then another is picked .... in essence one could argue that the eternal struggle continues but on a smaller scale. So much for resolving the issue.
Another difference is that in the anime the childhood friend of Natsuru (Mikito) becomes the 2nd red Kampfer which being childhood friend and all is hardly surprising. What is surprising though is that in the manga a completely other girl becomes the 2nd red Kämpfer and that this one remains hostile and is in the end defeated. Well, Mikoto might end up as red Kämpfer after that, but at the moment in the manga we're back with Shiziku being the only red Kämpfer again. In the manga we also get an answer to what happens to defeated Kämpfer .... they are erased from existance.
Also in episode 11 of the anime we get confirmed that Kaede is either in league with the moderators (possible a moderator herself which is more likely) or is controlled by them. I honestly can't say which, but as I don't want to think to badly about Kaede I opt for the latter. From what I gather it seems she intended to make sure that either the red or the blue team would take the opposing team out after which her white Kämpfer would finish of the remaining team. As it would seem the moderators have their own agenda. However because of the red and blue team refusing to fight that plan went out the window and 'Kaede' now wanted to use the female Natsuru to reinforce her and her white Kämpfer because, hardly surprising, it seems like feelings of love enhance the Kämpfers combat abilities. With 'Kaede's' ability to control Natsuru and force him in his female form Kaede could use Natsuru to enhance her powers and of the white Kämpfer to defeat Shizuku, Akane and Mikoto who need the male Natsuru.
Speaking about Natsuru. Our male protaganist annoys me .... a lot, a whole heck of a lot up to the point that I'm actually to be ashamed to be a guy myself. For someone who suddenly has to fight for his life he is not taken things even remotely serious and only the fact that he is the male lead prevents him from being killed half a dozen times over. Also his, beyond stubborness, going after Kaede makes me want to scream. Hell, in episode 9 Kaede tells his female form in no uncertain terms that she has absolutely no feelings for the male Natsuru and that he basically is apperently to stupid to notice that she isn't interested at all. Any man with a shred of self dignitiy would call it quits after that, but not this guy.
Sigh. As icing on the cake, even after Natsuru learns from the entrail animal Shizuku stole from Kaede that Kaede is either not who she pretends to be or being controlled by the moderators, he still goes over Kaede's place, not being able to belief the broad as daylight evidence. He promptly gets possessed by 'Kaede' and is almost forced to kill off Shizuki, Akane and Mikoto. As usual it's a small thing (in this case a cell phone chain he gave Shizuku on their date) that makes him come to his senses and alltough he still loves Kaede (wtf?) he chooses for the other 3 girls instead as he loves them as well and doesn't want to hurt them.
As for the other lead characters in this anime and I'll skip Mikoto as she has hardly any screen time.
I can't get my head wrapped around Kaede. Is she being controlled by a moderator or not? I have a dual feeling about her that makes me think that some of her actions are outside her normal behaviour. Her freaky hobby of collecting stuff from the animal entrail series is not helping either and while in the beginning I was on her side as her being the cute childhood friend my cheers went quickly to another girl when Kaede became obsessed over the female Natsuru.
After Kaede I turned my attention to Akane, or to be more precise, her Kämpfer personality. While spewing vulgarities like a marine drill instructor in Kämpfer mode she is really, really cute. To bad that her normal looks aren't half as good and what after a while got kind of old was her somewhat odd personality. Mistaking almost anything for an ecchi remark, but never able to follow things through because of her shyness. And while shyness has some merit, sustaining it doesn't score points allthough in truth she finally manages to land a kiss at the end.
If anything, my viewing experience was saved by the chair lady of the school and the first red Kämpfer, Shizuku. God knows why, but after the initial fight between them Shizuku takes an interest in him. I suppose it's refreshing for her to meet a boy that's not returned to a puddle of drool in her company and who is not immediately head over heels with her.
She is devious, underhanded, a tad mean, as she quite regularly gets Natsuru into trouble (one teases the one you love, ne?) but also honest, sweet and caring and, which works in her favor, there is basically no difference between her personality as chairlady and her being a Kämpfer. She is the most honest about her feelings and also does ACT on them.
Alright, time for me to be wrapping this up.
If you have read the manga you can only wonder like I did how people can massacre a potential interesting story. It almost defies belief in how badly this was executed. Even if the manga perhaps wasn't fleshed out enough storywise it could have been so much better if they had actually done something with the basic setup instead of using it just for planting a guy between girls.
Also there a couple of scenes in the anime that are .... lame I guess is the word I'm looking for. Most memorable would be Kaede's stage performance during the beauty contest with her godawful entrail animal story. The other one would be in episode 11 with the red and blue Kämpfer entrail animals singing by way of supporting them during their fight against the white Kämpfer and Kaede. Seriously, I wish I could unsee and unhear those parts as even as I'm typing this now it still makes me want to bang my head on my desk.
As for the characters. Kaede is an engigma to me, Mikito gets way to little screentime and Akane is for almost the entire series stuck in her shy-mode. Natsuro is an indecisive blind idiot who really doesn't deserve to be even on the same planet as Shizuku who is awesome, but not even she can save this trainwreck of a series. Still, if it weren't for her I would have rated this 2 points lower that's how awesome I think she is.
Final verdict 1: 5 out of 10.
WillTRiker
0 comments:
Post a Comment