This week in anime… Kampfer!

This is an anime from 2011 or there abouts… so another one I’ve had for a long time… and another I like to revisit from time to time. I’m familiar enough with the story that I usually just pick out an episode or two when I’m looking for something fun to pass the time, but this week I re-watched it in its entirety so I could write something about the entire series.

This is an unusual one in that I don’t think it’s particularly well regarded. I think it’s fair to characterize it as a fan-service heavy harem comedy, but it has a few twists that make it a bit unusual. I suspect Sentai didn’t think it’d be very popular, hence the absence of an English vocal track. Still, it was popular enough to get a release of the follow-up OVAs (2 episodes) as well as a Blu-ray re-release of the entire collection. I’ll bet if they had done an English dub in the first place it would have been quite a bit more successful. It’s probably a good example of the U.S. licensee miss-reading the appeal.

That’s not hard to understand when you consider the show over all… set in high school, it’s about a boy who turns back and forth into a girl throughout each episode and the collection of girls romantically interested in him. It’s complicated by the fact that some of them are after the boy version, one is after the girl version and one seems willing to take whichever one she gets (and in fact goes both ways) although she does express a preference. So there’s a straight harem element confounded with a yuri element. There’s also a heavy “magical girl” element, complete with mascots and transformation scenes… but the mascots are full-on comic relief and no one takes them seriously… not even their respective “magical girls” who are atypical since they really have no discernible mission or guiding principles. Let’s put it this way, they’re certainly not “warriors for justice” or anything like that. In fact, the show makes quite a point of having the female fighters effectively have no clue what they’re supposed to do or why, and a good bit of time is spent with them trying to figure out why they exist at all.

There’s sort of a villain, but it’s pretty ambiguous. Really the show may be more “slice-of-life” than anything else, although there are fight scenes in almost every episode, it’s not really a fighting show. As you can tell, I have a pretty hard time pinning the show down to a simple one-sentence description that tells you all you need to know, and that’s probably it’s greatest weakness… If you can’t put it in a box that a sub-set of fans “know” they’ll like… you can’t guarantee a certain level of success.

Anyway, it’s still a great show to me… I’m watching for the comedy. To me, all of the other elements are either irrelevant, or are contributing to the comedy. For example, the magical girl transformation scenes don’t really add anything for me, but they don’t detract either… but the magical girl mascots are often hilarious and the show definitely wouldn’t be the same without them. The same goes for the fan service… most of the time it’s effectively irrelevant, but occasionally it plays into the “guy in girl body” for a joke you just can’t have without that dynamic. In fact, the trans-gender aspect of the main character is the foundation of a lot of the comedy… but not in the ways you may typically expect. It’s not all about “how do I use the restroom” jokes, but about the extreme behavior of the other characters as they interact (i.e. Boy (in girl form) to girl: “Watch my back while I use the restroom.” Girl: “OK, if that’s what you’re into.” Boy: “No, I mean keep a lookout.” Girl: “Oh, don’t scare me like that!”)

And really, while the central character is the boy who keeps transforming into a girl, the cast of girls in his “harem” are the real stars of the show. Each generally fits a stereo type, but they are played very well for all the comic mishaps they’re worth. The dialog is a hoot, especially with the word-play and assorted verbal miss-understandings. That’s why it’s a shame it didn’t get an English dub. I can just imagine the voice cast of Highschool DxD and what they could have done with these roles. I’m sure they would have pushed it over the top and made it even funnier than it already is to an English speaker.

So… this is a great series, but as with most comedies, there are hits and misses, and unfortunately, there are entire episodes that are better and worse. When I re-watch, I tend to go straight to certain ones, and frequently skip others entirely. Since I re-watched it this week in it’s entirety, I’ll comment on each episode. If you haven’t watched this before, I’d encourage you to give it a try in its entirety… But it’s pretty old… either you’ve already seen it or you’ve already decided it wasn’t for you for whatever reason. Still, I’m gonna give you my preference for episodes in case you want to re-watch select ones, or dip your toes in the water without the commitment of the entire thing.

Warning: There is a “mystery” (I’ll call it that, but it’s not terribly well hidden) that plays out over the course of the series and if you skip episodes you’ll miss some of the clues as they are revealed. A good reason to give the whole thing a try… but if if comes down to all or some or none, I’d suggest you try some rather than none. Just watch in order since the story’s progressive.

Episodes 1 & 2: Essential and very good. It establishes the premise and the relationship between the male (sometimes) lead and the three main girls vying for his attention. Akane’s personality swings are fun and funny. She’s presented as two characters because while Natsuru’s transformation is entirely physical (from male to female), Akane’s is entirely mental. She looks effectively identical, but behaves like a completely different person. Shizuku establishes herself solidly as well… it’s Kaede that doesn’t really get much fleshing out here and really starts off as a straw man more than a real character.

Episodes 3 & 4: Skip. All you miss here is the setup to have Natsuru in the girl’s section (segregated) of the high school, Kaede’s growing interest in Natsuru, and an obligatory lingerie shopping and karaoke trip. It moves the story forward, but isn’t terribly rewarding.

Episodes 5 & 6: Watch. The obligatory school cultural festival sets up some pretty funny stuff… Natsuru and Akane are put through a fan service fiesta by their own female classmates to ostensibly prepare for the school’s beauty pageant, but in fact, it’s to finance the student government. Then the actual beauty pageant goes sideways in a way reminiscent of the fantastic theater scene from Fairy Tail (one of my favorites). Then there’s a ‘”maid-like” maid cafe’ scene on the second day of the festival in which Natsuru is again exploited by her classmates… and finally we get the introduction of a new kampfer… which is hilarious.

Episode 7: Skip. A sleep-over situation that reveals a little about the overall plot and introduces a mysterious new enemy (which is a motivation in future episodes), but kinda forgettable.

Episode 8: Maybe. The Shizuku and Natsuru date episode gives more time with Shizuku which helps her out a bit (as a character), but it’s generally just an average episode… the best part is how Shizuku keeps telling Natsuru one thing, but he keeps hearing another… building the misunderstanding up to an amusing conclusion with the other girls.

Episodes 9-11: Watch (probably). This is really the conclusion of the story, where the “villain” is revealed and lots of the mystery is resolved (to a degree). Most of it takes place at an amusement park, we get a fight between the new enemies and the gang, There is one scene in the hotel (before the fireworks) that’s priceless, and a few other good ones, but this is really less about the comedy and more about the drama (yes, they threw that in as well). It’s worth a watch, but mainly for the conclusion.

Episode 12: Skip. This is really like an OVA tacked on to the end of the regular season… the story was really wrapped up in 11. Some body swapping shenanigans and a Christmas theme aren’t enough to save this from being classic filler.

Episode 13: Watch if you watched 9-11. The OVA (with OVA levels of fan service) picks up right after the last real episode (11) and continues the conflict played out there.

Episode 14: Maybe. Again OVA levels of fan service but we’re back to the comedy shenanigans with a group date at a bunny cafe where Natsuru is working to earn money for a new bra. Some funny stuff… but this is more on the filler side than anything.