Possible sign of things to come?
Premise:
Based on a series of light novels by Akira Suzuki, Hyakka Ryouran takes place in an alternate version of modern Japan where the Tokugawa shogunate still rules the land, a various female students named after famous people from the Sengoku period battle for supremacy at a giant academy at the bottom of Mount Fuji.
It's always good to carry a camera around as you never know when photo opportunities will show themselves.
Summary of the first two episodes:
Muneakira Yagyuu is hired by childhood friend and student council vice president Sen Tokugawa to be a kendo instructor at the Buoh Academy under Mount Fuji, but Muneakira gets mixed up with Sanada Yukimura and Matabei Goto, two "rebels" who oppose the student council. The three become the target of Hanzo Hattori and her ninjas who are under Sen's orders to catch Yukimura and Goto. While escaping from Hattori's forces, Muneakira notices a naked girl appearing from the sky. The girl drops into Muneakira's arms and kisses him, and seconds later she transforms into a powerful warrior (a master samurai) and introduces herself as Jubei Yagyuu.
Kissing power-ups seem to be popular these days.
You may have you helicopter skirt, but I have my floating ink platforms.
That's definitely over 9000.
In a brief battle, Jubei toys with the outclassed Hattori while Muneakira is held down by some dark energy. Muneakira manages to break away from the dark energy, and at the same time Jubei returns to her initial naked state just in time to save Hattori from being killed. Muneakira, Jubei, Yukimura and Goto are taken back to Sen and Muneakira uses his charms and status as childhood friend to weasel the group out of any immediate punishment. Sen reveals that she was instructed by her brother Yoshihiko to capture Yukimura and Goto and it has something to do with Yukimura's fortune reading about a cloudy future, but Sen doesn't know the reason behind Yoshihiko's order. Later, Muneakira and company learn that Jubei has no recollection of the battle or any memories of her origins. Hattori, Goto and Yukimura decide to examine Jubei for the mark of the master samurai. Jubei escapes out of embarrassment but she runs right into Muneakira who is outside the door, and Muneakira spots the master samurai mark above Jubei's breasts.
Time for a name change.
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I thought it was a fairly decent first two episodes. The girls are pretty; the male lead is not a wuss; the comedy isn't bad; the action scenes were surprisingly well animated; and there is some semblance of a plot. Can't really ask for much more for a "hot girls fight (while clothes get shredded)" type of show, although no clothes were shred in these two episodes. There were fan service shots, but all the naughty spots were covered up and thereby making this show tame compared to the likes of Sekirei or Queen's Blade.
The thing that stands out the most about Hyakka Ryouran is the the art style with the thick, inky lines and the ink blot effects. This series comes from the same studio that animated Queen's Blade, but the animation appears to be considerably better especially during the action scenes, although a part of that is probably due to the stylistic touches. The ink blots and swirling lines are neat at first and the blots serve nicely for covering up the naughty spots. However, these visual effects are slightly overused, as the blots are used in various things from explosions to transitions.
As for the rest of the show, I'm not getting my hopes up for the plot, but if Hyakka Ryouran can string up something that's not exceptionally confounding or stupid then it can be overlooked for the fan service and action. The action scenes in these two episodes looked promising, and hopefully there will be longer fighting segments in the future. I won't be blogging this show, but I follow along at least for a couple more episodes.
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