Kämpfer, never a fighting chance

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.

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.