Mai-HiME Review

 

            Mai-HiME was an anime I watched on chance. I’d heard a lot of things about it and it had sounded interesting to me. At one point I remember Throughhim413 suggesting it to me and I made a mental note of it. It wasn’t until I saw that there would be a sequel/spin-off airing this fall in Japan that I gave it serious thought. Then I noticed that it was in Throughhim413’s top 10, and since our tastes seem pretty similar, I decided to get it right away. I’m glad I did.

 

Story:

       Tokiha Mai and her sick brother Takumi earned a scholarship to the famous Fuka Academy. However, on the ferry to Fuka, Mai becomes entangled in a battle between two girls using supernatural powers. She manages to survive the encounter, only to learn that she too has those powers, the powers of a HiME. She learns that Orphans, monsters of unknown origin, are attacking the school and the area around it, and only the power of the HiME’s can stop them.

 

Plot:

       The plot of Mai-HiME seems simple enough at first. The HiME’s with the power of their “Children” fight the Orphans who are attacking Fuuka Academy and the surrounding area. However, the plot manages to get a lot more deep by the midway point and gets really dark in the final 10 episodes. And those final 10 episodes really caught me off guard. The show combines a lot of elements from a variety of genres: Mahou Shoujo, Romance, Drama, Comedy, Action and does a good job of blending them together. The ending does a big swing in the mood of the show and a lot of people weren’t big fans of it, but despite being overly clichéd, I thought it was a good ending and wouldn’t have had it any other way.

 

Characters:

       The characters in Mai-HiME are the key to everything in it. I found Mai to be a very likeable character right off the bat and eventually warmed up to Natsuki and Mikoto, the other two main characters. Another thing about the show is its large cast of different character personalities. I personally found it rather easy to like most of the cast and got pretty attached to them really fast. While there are very few male characters compared to the females, the main ones are pretty well fleshed out in their development. But of course, the real focus is on the female characters, specifically the HiMEs. Each HiME has their own Child, a creature that fights alongside them. While some of the Children get more time than others, they each have their unique forms, including a wolf, a hydra, a giant knight chess piece, a frog, some plant thing with tentacles and spores and my favorite, Kagutsuchi, which looks like a cross between a dragon and a phoenix.

 

Music:

       I found the music of Mai-HiME to be pretty enjoyable. While not all the songs may immediately jump out at the viewer, there are quite a few that do. I found the opening theme and ending themes, Shining Days and Kimi ga Sora data, to my liking and they’re some of my favorites. The battle music is also well done, and a particular favorite of mine is Duran Shoukan, the song played when Duran is summoned. The ending theme for episode 15, It’s only the fairy tale sung by Miyamura Yuuko, who voices Alyssa Sears in the show, was another favorite of mine. The series also sports some nice, calm music for when things aren’t so hectic in the show. I found the OST to be very enjoyable overall.

 

Series Information:

       Mai-HiME runs for a total of 26 episodes. It is produced by Sunrise and Directed by Masazaku Obara. Bandai Entertainment has licensed it in American, though there are no details on a release date. There is a manga adaptation that just recently finished in Japan, but it is significantly different in some aspects from the Mai-HiME anime. Mai-HiME has a sequel/spin-off called Mai-Otome, which so far appears to be in an alternate universe from Mai-HiME, though many of the characters from HiME have already appeared in the first episode or the opening. If there is a connection between HiME and Otome aside from some characters, it is unknown at this point.

 

Final Thoughts:

       Mai-HiME caught me quite a bit off guard. While I liked Mai right off the bat, I assumed I wouldn’t like the show a whole lot for one reason or another. After the first 8 episodes, I was really enjoying the show, and by the midway point I was hooked. This led me to watch the last 13 episodes all in a row at once. Make no mistake, this is part of the reason I loved it so much, was because I saw those last episodes all in a row. If I hadn’t, I doubt most of the emotional impact I felt would’ve been there had I been watching an episode a week. I’ll admit, I cried more than once, though nowhere near as much as Full Moon wo Sagashite had me crying. My grade will most likely bother some people and its more of a personal grade I think the show could only get should you watch the last half of it like I did. It seems most people would give the show a 7 or an 8, but because of the circumstances and how much I just plain loved watching the show, I give it a 9. Regardless of the grade, I still think it’s a show that a lot of people would find enjoyable.

 

Rating:

 

   

   

 

   

   

 

   

   

 

   

   

 

 

 

(This review/pictures made by Sushi-X)