Yuri Anime: Winter 2006 – Kagihime Monogatari Eikyuu Alice Rondo

January 27th, 2006

I actually considered starting today’s review of Kagihime Monogatari Eikyuu Alice Rondo with a symbolic fit of hysterical laughter, but decided that it would be more trouble than the anime is worth.

Instead I will start this review with a note that today is Lewis Carroll’s birthday. So it is somehow completely suitable, and yet somehow also an abomination that I am reviewing this anime today. ^_^;

I have been following the manga in monthly Dengeki Daioh for over a year now and frankly, I can make neither heads nor tails of what is going on. I long ago ceased to care, flipping through the pages mostly for the plentiful hot bunny-girl on bunny-girl action, and barely even glancing at the words. Yes, I’m kidding. I don’t even like bunny girls.

So, basically, the manga is the kind of thing I’ve come to expect from Kaishaku – a nonsensical story with gratuitous Yuri servce thrown in to ensure that the fanboys won’t care. Which is why you have not seen a review of the manga here.

So now we have an anime. Let’s look at some of Kaishaku’s other work, shall we? Just to get a basis from which to compare:

1. Kannazuki no Miko, which was meaningless, self-contradictory, had giant mecha andYuri

2. Steel Angel Kurumi, which was silly, had androids, no resolution, shota and loli, and Yuri

3. UFO Princess Walkure, which is meaningless, unresolvable, has aliens from another planet, heavy-duty loli, with a light frisson of Yuri, if you’re inclined to see it. (Also Ogata Megumi, but despite that one plus I still can’t watch this.)

And now we have Alice, which has bunny girls, incest, loli and Yuri. The manga has non-consensual lesbian sex, but I don’t know if the anime will. From what I *can* tell, the anime is not exactly like the manga, which seems to revolve around a female character, not the male character of the anime. (Or, probably more correctly, the art is so bad, I simply can’t tell the difference. But all the characters I’ve noticed in the manga have breasts, which is *usually* a good indication. But of course there are obvious exceptions.

Alice has a transformation scene reminiscent of Walkure, where the girl’s breasts grow larger and their butts get perkier, and a plot reminiscent of Kannazuki no Miko, by which I mean it makes basically no sense at all.

To sum up, in a bitter and sarcastic manner:

Those people who have “Alice Power” (who are primarily female) fight to capture each other’s “books” (aka, heart crystals, souls, Rosa Mystica, you know the drill). Somehow, if all the books are obtained, the “Endless Alice” will be written. In some way this is supposed to be connected with the third Alice book that Lewis Carroll never wrote, but is purported to be in existence, partially completed. (My wife, who is an obsessive Lewis Carroll fan, has never heard a rumor about any such third book – and some basic research brought up nothing on it. It is, in fact, made up for this story.)

The hero of the story, whose name completely escapes me because I don’t care (and because he is repeatedly and irritatingly referred to as “oniiiiiii-chaaaaan!!!!” by his obsessed little sister, something that makes my brain go off-line,) is a fan of the Alice books, and wants to write his own Alice book. He somehow has the ability to get into the magic space where all the Alice Users fight, and copy down the girls’ books. So – he decides to copy down all their stories, and that will be the “Endless Alice” – which is the third book Lewis Carroll didn’t complete.

Did you follow that? No? Good. You are sane.

Anyway, in the anime, the Yuri comes in the form of a unhealthily obsessed friend of the little sister (whose name is the unfortunate Kirihara Kiraha). Friend becomes a fighter to erm, protect, erm, something something something.

I don’t know if we can expect the mass Yuri that the manga offers or just this pale shadow of Yuri. And frankly, more Yuri won’t make this a better story. But perhaps there may be some points of interest later on.

Or not.

Ratings:

Art – 4
Story – 3
Characters – 3
Music – 3
Yuri – 4
Service – 8

Overall – 4, but I’m being generous

10 Responses

  1. doink-chan says:

    A couple of weeks ago, doinkies synchroed (MSTed) the first episode of this donkey dung with some friends. One of the friends’ blogs has a perfect summary of Kagihime:

    “In this show we have a bunch of girls – that all have perfectly round and rotund, basketball shaped excueses for breasts – whose hair colour seems to be their major distrinction. We also have the token male (or harem lead if you like) complete with clinging and jelous imouto-chan (younger sister). Imouto-chan has the wonderfully unique ability to whine “ONIISAN” (older brother) with professional gutso.

    I can’t remember the token males name (actually come to think of it, i can’t remember the names of any of the characters in this anime) so i will just call him Doink. Doink wakes up and goes and sees two weird girls fighting. After an ‘oopsie’ (what i call it when a guy accidentally ends up tripping over something, falling on a girl and touching her breasts) one of the weird girls is penetrated with a rather long key (can anyone here say phallic?) by the other girl.

    Blah blah blah things happen, later at school the new girl turns out to be one of the weird magical girls (complete with nude transformation sequence) that fought the night before. She challenges Doink’s imouto-chan to a fight (the sister is also a magic girl). So they fight, and this time its the imouto chan that gets penetrated with the key, only this time Doink rescues his younger sister. He wishes they could all work together, and the two girls agree. The end.”

    Man, Kagihime was so stupid, and doinky, and stupidoinky. Kashimashi ~Girl Meets Girl~ is pretty stupid too, but at least it’s enjoyable. doinkies hopes that Simoun will be good, at least…(or at least not another Kannadoinky).

  2. gregory says:

    This is one of those shows that feels like in a different form I might really like it. I think the concept is kinda funky, collecting a story from people’s hearts. But the execution is just, bleh. I’ve watched three episodes and will probably watch more until it truely annoys me.

  3. Anonymous says:

    I agree with you on most of your comments. My only disagreement would be that Kannazuki no Miko is awesome! Everything else by Kaishaku is crap. Saw the first episode of Kagihime and I just cannot like it no matter how much Yuri will be put into it. Just utter crap.

  4. Serge says:

    Wow, now that I know what the plot is supposed to be, I’m so glad I didn’t download any more of this. I don’t think even Touga (Takehito Koyasu) could save this one.

  5. punistation says:

    1. I’m pretty sure STEEL ANGEL KURUMI didn’t have loli.

    2. Ask your wife if I’m right in remembering that Lewis Carol’s inspiration for Alice was loli. I remember being freaked out when I saw a B&W photo of “The Real Alice”. She was, like, 8 or something.

    Kisses XXOOXX
    Jen

  6. Jen wrote:

    1. I’m pretty sure STEEL ANGEL KURUMI didn’t have loli.

    In the first series, the Master was a slightly pre-pubescent boy – in the second series the Master was a girl, also pre-pubescent.

    2. Ask your wife if I’m right in remembering that Lewis Carol’s inspiration for Alice was loli. I remember being freaked out when I saw a B&W photo of “The Real Alice”. She was, like, 8 or something.

    Alice Lidell, was about 7, yup. Lewis Carroll befriended her and did indeed take some photos of her and other young girls. It’s an ongoing discussion – but the current commonly held interpretation was that Carroll was not a pedophile. This changes as generations and interpretations change.

    I think we can say he was a fan of Moe.

  7. doink-chan says:

    Yeah, I think that we could probably say he was a moe fan too. In fact, many other people in Victorian England were what we would today consider “moe fans”.

  8. Anonymous says:

    Oh come on… Why do some people feel the need to bash Kannaduki(and its fans) again and again? Sure, the manga is bad, but the anime is not. It leaves us with one of the most romantic endings in anime.

    Of course not everything can be everyone’s cup of tea, but bashing something all the time is a bit much. What did the poor series do to you? :( First two episodes, and then stopped watching?

    Oddly enough, over here where I live, Kannaduki-anime is quite liked especially among female fans, yaoi liking or not. For the romance. The guys usually complain about lack of mecha. Which, if you ever saw that stupid series called Gundam, you’ll easily pass off as parody(this goes into the attack names, which are exxagerating these of Gundam). Of course the series could have been handled better(which is true for most series, including Utena), but it definitely is not utter trash. It has a reason a lot of people like it, and that reason is not fanservice(then they’d like MaiHime more, THAT is a fanservice series. And I also wonder why you claim Madlax to make more sense… or MaiHime. Now THAT is funny xD. Hime has silly pokemon summons, Kannaduki dumb gundam mecha. Hime has that zomgevil villain dude, Kannaduki that despair dude. Not too different in quality, just that in hime, that story was a point of the series, and in Kannaduki, the story was just background) or mecha.

    I think you pass it off as bad mostly because it is by Kaishaku. But they were only involved with the anime, they did not decide everything. The anime does not even have the awful Kaishaku style(read: tinywaist). They took a rather odd manga, and turned it into something really beautiful and remarkable. I’ve seen arguments claiming this anime series to be shoujo, with some shonen-parts to try to make it appeal to guys. In the later part, they failed, as it is, obviously, not appealing to guys at all. But in the former? They suceeded very, very well. Not saying it to be utterly flawless, but then, what is?

    I am not saying everyone has to like it, again. I would never do. But please stop bashing it whenever you have a chance. These who like it aren’t just a “bazillion young’uns” as you once called us. We’re fans of similar quality than you are. We like it because it is a wonderful romance. Not because we are stupid or clueless about Yuri.

  9. Anonymous says:

    wow if you didnt get the plot of any of the animes that he made, you must really be retarded. Most of his animes are great and what the hell is an anime with meaning? There is no such thing!

    P.S You really suck

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