MAI OTOME
More insane lesbians blowing stuff up! Sweet!
Review by: M.H. "Not a fanboy! Really!" Torringjan
Length: 26 episodes
Genre: Action
Watched: Entire series, subbed
As I'm sure you're all aware, I really enjoyed watching Mai HiME, due to its strong plot and emotional content, the nice artwork, the overall production value, and the great action scenes (and the hot chicks with strong lesbian, or at least bi- undertones helped, too). So you can imagine I was appropriately excited, i.e.- jumping up and down like an idiot, when I heard that they were making a sequel series of Mai and the gang. High expectations generally breed discontent (which is why I generally avoid expecting anything good from anyone), and in this case, that rule sadly holds true.
Plot summary: Windbloom is a peaceful city, ruled over by a bratty princess Mashiro, protected by the flying maids with superpowers, Otome (hey, I was willing to go with mechanical monsters appearing out of thin air, why not hopped-up maids?), and in peaceful relations with their neighbor countries. A young girl, Yumemiya Arika, comes to the Otome academy, Garderobe, seeking answers about her mother's identity and decides to become an otome after seeing an Otome (Shizuru) battle. Things seem to go well for a while, until a sinister force begins to move, as all good sinister forces do, in the shadows to break down relations between the countries. Will Arika and her friends be able to maintain peace and create a better world? And where the hell is Mai in all of this?
Artwork: The quality of the artwork in the series is about on par with the previous series, in terms of crispness and colorfulness. The monster designs are slightly less imaginative than in the previous series, and the Children have all been lost (except for one, which may surprise you). The character designs for the original characters in this series are much less distinctive than in HiME, although most of the characters from HiME show up in one form or another and are effectively the same, aside from outfits. The backgrounds in the series are okay, but nothing special. Overall, nothing much changed from HiME to Otome, so give them good marks for that.
Music: So, you heard the soundtrack from the first series? Okay, then you're good to go. Wait, you didn't? Have you heard anything of Yuki Kajiura's work recently? Okay, then you're still good to go. For some reason, I want to say that the filler music was less interesting than in her previous efforts, but their decrease in quality is accounted for by the always-present techno-action tracks.
Characters: This is an extremely long list, since as previously mentioned, all of the old characters are back, as well as some new ones. I'll keep it to the new ones for brevity's sake. Yumemiya Arika is a cheerful young go-getter who comes to Garderobe to find her mother/become an otome. Always the optimist (sometimes to a fault), she befriends her classmates and endears herself to her teachers because of her involvement in the mysterious happenings around the academy, as well as her out-of-the-ordinary acceptance to the academy. One of her roommates is Nina Wong, the adopted daughter of Major Sergey Wong (who looks mysteriously like Tate Yuuichi). Nina is a straight-laced, by-the-books girl who doesn't like Arika's attitude, or the fact that she's been eyeing daddy dearest (*adopted* daddy dearest, I can't stress enough). The two learn to live with each other slowly, as would be expected from the Mai-X steup. Erstin Ho is another cheerful girl who lives in the same room as Nina and Arika. She starts out shy and reserved but becomes more open and friendly with Arika and Nina as time goes by. Mashiro Blan de Windbloom is a carry-over character, but she might as well be from another world. She is the princess of Windbloom city who wasn't just born with a silver spoon in her mouth, it was surgically implanted in her throat. She always gets her way and rules the city for her own whims, oblivious to the people's obligatory economic plight. Sergey is the father figure (one more time, adopted father figre) for Nina who sponsors Arika in the Academy and works for Prince Nagi Artai (ever the manipulative bastard). He seems to have an idea of what's going on, and wants to remain loyal to his master while doing what is best for the girls he's taken into his care. Overall, they developed some decent new characters for the series, and combined them with the decent old characters to make one big decent cast. A little bit too big? You can be the judge. However, I can say that I was not happy with how they minimized some of the roles of the characters from HiME. Shiho is made into a running gag (and a bad one at that), Takumi and Akira are given an episode and a half, some other major characters have bit parts. While a 26 episode plot is a bit too short to give all thirty-to-forty-something characters appreciable screentime, perhaps their roles could have been thought out a bit better to make better use of them is all I'm saying.
Plot: Now, this is where I have the most gripes with the series. I will begin the section with a disclaimer. I understand that this series is not Mai HiME 2. I am aware that the two series are independent entities and that the merits of one should possibly not be held beside those of the other. Much like gold and bauxite or, say, Moon-pies and Little Debbies, these two things are only vaguely related by general genre terms and a few similar components. That being said: Mai HiME was so much better. Not that the plot itself is bad; they have a nice, deep plot line set up with potential to have every bit as much emotional intensity as HiME had, if not more. While at times, the series shows signs of living up to this greatness, there are a multitude of times at crucial moments where the series backs off and doesn't go to the lengths to which it needed to go to make the series a great series. For some unknown reason, specifically, this series has an aversion to killing off characters that its predecessor did not have, which goes to the length of having someone who falls unprotected from a few stories in the air survive unscathed. Nanomachines or no, there's only so much a person can take before they die, and characters repeatedly reached that limit only to survive. Finally, with regards to the depth of the storyline, there can be a bell-curve to the graph of plot complexity versus plot quality, and this series has gone a bit past the maximum plot allowable for a really good series. It reached the point where the backstory was interesting enough that it needed to be addressed, which took time away from the main plot, resulting in a rushed, unsatisfying resolution.
CHICKS!! Ah, this makes me feel much better after the downer plot section. Although numerous state and federal laws prevent me from talking about the Garderobe students (under 17, that's a no-no! Although I will say that some of them look much older than they're supposed to be), I can still go on all I want about the HiME girls! Natsuki plays the role of the headmistress in this series, assisted directly by her long-time "friend" ("cousin," perhaps?), Shizuru. The two are much more comfortable around each other in this series, and their personalities haven't changed much, making the pair desirable to people who love smooth-talking lesbian seductresses and tough-talking, but soft-hearted bisexuals who could kick your ass (possibly a niche market, but great for the guy who's got it cornered!) Nao is still kind of frightening, but good for the BD fans, and just as hot as ever. Yukariko is more assertive in this series, which is a real plus for anyone who wasn't happy with how much of a wet-rag she was in HiME. With respect to overall chickage, I was extremely pleased that they gave an officially sanctioned reason that all of the otome had to be lesbians (or else lose their powers). That probably earned them ratings points alone.
Overall: This series was a great ride for the majority of the way, but some major missteps as the series rolled on really kept the series from being the block-buster follow-up to one of the best series of last year that it could have been. While I will not recommend against watching the series, I will say that walking into with expectations based on title alone will only lead to disappointment (which, admittedly, may have produced some of the negative feelings on my part towards the series). It was recently announced that an OAV was in production for Mai Otome. It is my sincerest hope that they will remember the writing skills that made the original series of this pair such an intense, enjoyable ride. And finally, as a parting treat, a screencap of the reason most people watched the series: two lesbians rubbing each other down with suntan lotion!
In a nutshell:
+ Same characters
+ Still good artwork
+ Great chickiness
- Too much story
- Not willing to kill
Final score: 7.5/10
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