Yesterday as part of my continuing project to catch up on all the anime I want to watch/have fallen behind on I marathoned the first 11 episodes of Kämpfer. Did I expect to be wowed by superb writing? No. Did I expect to be thoroughly entertained? Yes and I was.
Despite the generally generic feel of the show it had several things going for it as far as I was concerned. For one the concept of gender-bending is something I find highly amusing especially in the context of former-guy-now-girl x girl relationships. As such I came in with hopes of yuri fanservice and the show delivered plenty of that with NOMAD’s high-quality animation. Second it had a surprisingly excellent voice-cast and capitalized on it with seiyuu-jokes which I have a soft spot for being a tremendous seiyuu fan.
More importantly and the main reason I like Kämpfer is my attachment to Red Kämpfer Sangou Shizuku. As President of the Student Council and one of the Three Beauties of Seitetsu she is both smart and sexy. She’d rather not fight with the other Kämpfer and would rather be nice and mostly reserved toward her friends. Maybe she’s a little too friendly as she claims Natsuru as her boyfriend and shows no shame in proving it with flirtatious moves and passionate kisses. She’s such a tease but at the same time she’s quite innocent and cute. As she said herself, “I have never been arrogant about my looks and intelligence, though. I have no interest in my own appearance or guys who like me. That is why I am outwardly attacking him. But I still can’t win him over…” That quotes pretty much sums up why I like Shizuku so much especially since I highly value intelligence, modesty and hard work. Now that I think about it I also love other characters with similar cool personalities such as Komachi Tsugumi (Ever 17), Kohinata Hayami (H2O) and Yatsushiro Nanaka (Myself ; Yourself). (But why do they all have hime-style haircuts?). I seem to have a penchant for picking a favorite character and making that my primary drive for enjoying a series.
Would I actually say Kämpfer was good? Probably not but I did enjoy it for what it was. Maybe I’ll check out the manga for more Shizuku goodness though I wouldn’t get my hopes up since I don’t actually read manga much at all.
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>>(But why do they all have hime-style haircuts?).
It does seem like a prerequisite, no? Long haired kuu-dere, with beauty, charm and wits to match. It helps when said girl likes to show off her long hair by lifting it up and letting it flutter down in the wind… Ahh~
Yeah, Shizuku fanboy here.
Anyway, somewhat looking forward to a sequel, though we all know what happens to sequels of good anime…
The manga has pretty much the same excitement as the anime, even better in some parts. There are plot twists, hijinks, troubles, ecchiness, or whatnot, though I don’t think it’s as blatant on the fanservice part as the anime. The manga still needs a few notches up for that.
As for Shizuku, maybe the enigmatic x charismatic character persona kind of gets an attraction in a way. Her status as the school council president added more to her initial charm, too. I just didn’t like her going all dere-dere on Natsuru because I don’t think Natsuru’s even worth gunning for.
.-= Shance´s last blog ..Kara No Kyokai: The Road Does Not End Here =-.
I can’t imagine who can like anyone but Shizuku. I mean Natsuru’s just pretty retarded and dense, Akane’s just too perverted, Mikoto didn’t have enough air time to gain appeal and Sakura’s just a bitch to begin with.
And yes, you’re right, Kämpfer’s not one of those series we would call good. But you have to admit, it was pretty entertaining while it lasted.
.-= 7´s last blog ..12 Moments in Anime ‘09: No.03 – Felli Kick =-.
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@meganeshounen: Not really complaining since I do love kuudere and wish I had long hair like that too.
@Shance: The whole Shizuku x Natsuru thing seemed to come out of nowhere so I can understand. I just focused on the Shizuku part of the relationship and ignored the rest.
@7: You pretty much summed it up although I thought Akane was alright too.
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