Saturday, June 4, 2016

Anime Review: Hundred


***DISCLAIMER: SPOILERS FOR THE ANIME ARE INCLUDED IN THE REVIEW***

Parental Rating: TV-MA (IMDB)

Synopsis: "Hundred" - the only weapon capable of fighting the Savages, mysterious life forms attacking Earth. Hayato enters the battleship university Little Garden in hopes of becoming a Slayer... but his roommate Emile Crossfode, who seems to know a lot about him for some reason, awakes a sort of unsettling nostalgia within him. What's more, right after he joins the school, the strongest Slayer at Little Garden, the "Queen" Claire Harvey, challenges him to a duel!

Genre/Theme: Action, Comedy, Science Fiction/Alien, Harem (Anime News Network)

Staff and Cast: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=17063

Episodes/Episode Time: 10/~30:00 minutes

Streaming On:

  • Crunchyroll - http://www.crunchyroll.com/hundred/videos

Review

Surprisingly, I saw this through my notifications I get via Crunchyroll's Twitter account. Episode 9 had just been added, so not that long ago actually. That episode, titled Dragon Type, made me think that this show was going to be a militaristic mature version of Pokemon. Frankly, I got a completely different vibe after watching the first episode, Little Garden. The introduction made it seem like God Eater and Anti-Magic Academy: The 35th Test Platoon had sex and this is their child. And I honestly loved it. It took more than one episode to grow on me, but I gave it a chance. 

Claire Harvey (Left), Hayato Kisaragi (Center),
and Emile Crossfode (Right) donning their
Little Garden uniforms
Characters: Hayato Kisaragi, the male antagonist, seems too bland in my opinion. Brave, selfless, sick sibling that he can't take care of so he goes to a militaristic school in order for her to get treated, and a mysterious past that immediately gets answered by meeting a person that shared a horrible fate with him aka Emile Crossfode. Emile, or Emilia, is a more interesting character, knowing about this past she has with him in Gudenburg. She disguised as a male when joining Little Garden and got into the same room as Hayato so they may talk about their past together. The third and final character who I label a main character judging by their character development over all the episodes so far is Claire Harvey. The "Queen" and person in charge of Little Garden and keeping her (as in the ship) secret's like LiZA, the ship's intelligent "artificial" brain, being her younger sister who was infused with Savage blood when she was still in the uterus of their mother. She seems to be a main competition of Emilia for competing in Hayato (but is more of a third wheel at the moment if you ask me) and his affection. All three of these main characters are a part of an elite group of students called Selections, which include side characters Reitia Saint-Emilion, Fritz Glanz, Liddy Steinberg, and Erica Candle. 

Story Progression: The progression of the story moves fast, and frankly I think it can deal with a few more filler episodes that bring more lore, or at least backstory into characters and locations. Like the Zwei Islands for example. If you are going to make this a science fiction Earth that is advanced, you can at least explain where these islands are. Are they new? Are they current islands that we know of like the Hawaiian islands? Even if it isn't lore or backstory of the character, at least side arcs in the story that are exclusive to the anime and not the manga. Because from my research, the manga is WAY behind the anime. Only now in the latest issue I was able to find, Hayato and the rest of Selections had only JUST destroyed the Trenta-sized (if that is what they classified it as) Savage. That is halfway through the Zwei Islands arc. That means you have the second half of the arc left to put in, along with the beginning of where episode 8 is, with Selections going off to a country that had savages land in recently. 

Results: 3.75/5 Stars - A would recommend for a person who is already into anime, or at least someone who doesn't know what Hentai is as there is a lot of mature content. I look very forward to seeing how the anime goes, and when it is over, do a review of it again. The show has potential if it doesn't fall down the same path of being generic with its characters. The story could also use real-life locations as from my own knowledge of watching other animes who follow closely in these exact genres and themes, don't include real life locations. That will get the show talking.

Until next time,           

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