It is just after the end of the My Otome TV series, and Arika is a hero, but things aren’t any easier for her. School is still tough, she and Mashiro have a fight and are separated and, just to make sure that nothing is easy, a new, powerful bad guy appears. Welcome to My Zhime Zwei.

Sensibly, the bad guy takes out all the powerful, cool Otome first, leaving all the smaller fry (and not coincidentally, our heroines Arika and Nina) to take them on and win the day for all. Really, there’s never even the remotest concern that Good and Right won’t win. If you’re hoping for something like that, you’re totally watching the wrong franchise. ^_^

Because of the relative intelligence of the baddy, Shizuru and Natsuki are apart for the bulk of this series. Aoi and Chie have little time together, hardly sharing a panel. So for Yuri, we have to turn our attentions to the far more amusing comedy couple Brigadier Haruka Armitage and her President, Yukino Chrysant of Aries. In episode two they bring it, with fireworks and ticker tape and a really big megaphone. For the second episode alone, this volume is worth the cost. It’s full of big grinny Haruka awesomeness. If – and I mean that with a sense of complete certainty that it will not happen – IF, I were to ever feel compelled to write a Mai-anything fanfic, it would be Haruka, Yukino, some things that go ka-boom and awesome. Just like episode two of this volume.

Nina and Arika beat the bad guys, no one kills Nagi and everyone lives happily ever after. The end, until they come out with S.ifr here, or manage to come up with another anime addition to the set.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Characters – 8 Haruka for the win. Even as a block of stone she rocks.
Story – 7
Yuri – 4
Service – 5

Overall – 7

I want to express a sincere disappointment and frustration for the execrable quality of doujinshi for Mai Otome. I have a number of them, and they are all so very bad. I have developed a theory based on this, but don’t have energy to expound right now. Someone remind me next week to discuss it. I’ll call it “six degrees of service” as a mental reminder.

Many, many thanks to the sponsor of today’s feast, Okazu Superhero Ana M, for her kindness, generosity, and all around subarashii-ness. Ana, you’re da bomb! Or whatever tanks shoot. Shells, I guess, right? You’re an absolute shell. ^_^

As we begin Mai Otome, Volume 7, the world is poised for war; Meister vs Meister, Otome vs Otome, Garderobe and its allies lined up to do battle against Nagi and his forces of Chaos. What do we want most in a situation like this? We want *heroes*! We want the damn cavalry to come thundering down the damn hill and we want it to be shiny, and colorful and we want the horns of Rohan to blow wildly and we want it now.

Boy oh boy do we get that in Volume 7. ^_^

One scene after another, we think we (“we” being the good guys, of course,) have turned the tide in our favor and Nagi pulls yet *another* trick out of his ear, even going so far as to manipulate his own Meister by shooting Sergay and using Nina’s desire to save him to wreak havoc. (His manipulation-fu was a little weak and if Nina hadn’t been such a mopey sop, she might have noticed, but we needed her to just go with it to set up the final confrontation anyway.) Each time calling for yet another triumphant entry of the next wave of the good guys, accompanied by epic background music.

One after another, the Meisters arrive and add their strength to our forces, and time after time, our strength is neutralized until, in a gigantic display of Miyu ex machina all the contracts are cancelled, the Meisters set free and they can *all* take on Nagi’s last-ditch efforts to break toys and pull the wings off of flies.

Of course the world is saved by Arika. Were you worried?

And everyone lives happily ever after, even Tomoe who really should have died horribly. Several times.

Volume 7 also offers a mixed bag of Yuri for our various pleasures. While the volume attains utter fail for Shizuru’s and Natsuki’s completely unromantic and untouchy reunion, we can’t blame them too much, they were both a bit distracted by being in the middle of a war zone. We get a quick retrospective of Shizuru’s playtime with Tomoe (who assumably was a good girl) and for Ers x Nina fans, there’s Erstin’s moving letter to Nina upon which I am sure many a fanfic is based. ^_^ Of course there’s the climax of the whole series where an embrace by Arika brings Nina back from the brink of destruction, and although I am not an Arika x Nina ‘shipper, I know they are out there. Haruka and Yukino continue to be the best manzai government ever. Lastly, but not at all least, there’s Chie’s moving reunion with Aoi. (That’s everyone *I* can think of. I’m sure there are others, so feel free to add in whatever ones you’ve made up in your head to the list of those I’ve made up in mine.)

Mai Otome was never intended to be high art. It was, and remains, a very silly, action comedy-drama with loads of service frosting. A great time for the whole family…assuming your family is like mine. ^_^ (D’oh! I should have watched this with my Dad last time he was here – he would have loved it! Oh well, next time.)

Ratings:

Art – 8
Characters – 8 (We love you Miss Maria, oh yes we do…)
Story – 8
Yuri – 3, but with nuts and candy filling
Service – 5

Overall – 8

And *speaking* of heroes, all my thanks today goes out to the hero of the day, Bruce M, for his sponsorship of this fabulous volume of a lots o’fun anime. (My Dad thanks you too, although he doesn’t know it yet.)

It is entirely thanks to the kindness and generosity of Eric P that I am able to bring you today’s review, so everyone say “Thanks, Eric!”

Volume 6 of My Otome does something completely unheard of in the
Mai series to date…it begins to *answer* some of the questions asked in the earlier episodes.

Who is the true Queen of Windbloom?

What is the Harmonium’s power?

What really happened to Mai?

And more of your favorite hits in this volume of…

There’s a lot going on in Volume 6. The story is moving rapidly towards a climax that feels, at this point, as if it might *actually* climax, unlike other Mai series we could name.

The action comes fast and furious. Arika and Mashiro, having found themselves a haven, are ripped untimely from it and deposited safely in the bosom of the legendary
Black Valley, where they encounter a bunch of ridiculous legends which are all true.

Nina becomes the possessor of the Harmonium’s power through a gambit that I actually thought was incredibly clever and deserves the writers a pat on the kepi.

The Valkyrie squad is deployed. Tomoe jumps at the opportunity to crush people
she thinks are beneath her like a bug, which is to say, everyone. Chie plays it more cautiously, and finds herself in a lose-lose situation. But we trust that she’ll come out on the right side of it because, after all, she has 1000x lesbian power. The forces of evil seem to have the upper hand, but the forces of good are beginning to set their playbook up in the background. Meister we don’t care
about die, while ones we do care about seem to be hanging in there, biding their time.

Yuri comes mostly in the form of Tomoe’s fixation on Shizuru. And her…interests. We also briefly get a glimpse of Chie reunited with a presumed-dead Aoi. She was only mostly dead, apparently.

But Yuri isn’t the point here. The point is war. That’s what we’re gearing up for and that’s what we have to be ready to deal with next volume. We’re ready, I say.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Characters – 8
Story – 8
Yuri – 4
Service – 6

Overall – 8

And let us not forget the hallucenogenic effects of Maki-maki-ing.