First Impressions / Series Introduction / Snapshots

OP Sequence

OP: 「Break your world」 by 佐咲紗花 (Sasaki Sayaka)

「摩天楼に立つ忍者」 (Matenrou ni Tatsu Ninja)
“The ninja that stands by the skyscraper”

This is not an anime about ninjas. I don’t know who might have told you otherwise, but there are no ninjas here. No. Really. Stop looking for ninjas damnit! Well… alright, so it is sort of about ninjas, but that’s not the point. This is a show born from the idea that giant anime breasts are what make the world go round (perhaps they do?). If it manages to excel in any other area, this is no more than a bonus.

Errr okay, quick discourse on plot… plot… what was it again…? Oh right, modern day secret ninjas who take on jobs out of a seemingly mundane school that is in no way suspicious at all, no sir! Hanzou Academy is just your totally average school! This particular episode really only serves to introduce our characters and central premise, with a rather pacy and enticing opening segment to hook in unsuspecting viewers who may not realise that this is not the primary purpose of the anime. Excessive levels of shadow aside (I guess it works given the theme), it was actually pretty cool!

Now at the forefront of our core quintet of student ninjas we have the unbelievably unskilled, granddaughter of a legend, Asuka (Harada Hitomi), who barely manages to restrain herself from telling everyone her entire life story. Of all the ninjas, she seems the most prone to disaster, perhaps even more so than the unbearably clumsy Hibari (Iguchi Yuka). Yagyuu (Mizuhashi Kaori) takes the stage as the prodigy of the group, with Ikaruga (Imai Asami) playing the role of the prim and proper ‘class president’ type, and Katsuragi (Kobayashi Yuu) as the crazy molester lesbian who gropes everything that moves. Based on the OP, it’s probably safe to assume that everyone apart from Hibari has a ~dark past~.

Of course, there are other ninjas out there, specifically the bad ones. These come in the form of Homura (Kitamura Eri), Yomi (Kayano Ai), Hikage (Shiraishi Ryoko), Mirai (Gotou Saori), and Haruka (Toyoguchi Megumi). So far, we have no idea what exactly makes these the evil ninjas (other than the unprovoked ambush), but it’s fairly safe to say that there’s a huge contrast between our heroes and these others. To the former, being a ninja is about fun, games and probably groping. To the latter, it’s about being a goddamn ninja.

Naturally, fan-service abounds… wait… no god no wrong cap wrong cap oh lord Fate/Zero is ruined for me forever! Mental scarring from Kiriya-sensei (Fujiwara Keiji) aside (I’m not going to sleep tonight!), most of the fan-service tends to be on the slightly more tasteful side, with nothing quite as excessive as say… Hagure Yuusha no Estetica. While I expected masses of beams of light to provide censorship (and there were masses of beams of light which were admittedly slightly annoying for an entirely different reason), it turns out there was really very little to be censored in the first place. I’m not sure whether that’s something to be disappointed over or not. Yay, no horribly hackneyed censorship I guess? Surprisingly for an anime that prides itself on its oversized breasts, the animation for the objects in question was not always great. Some of the combat wasn’t bad though, and the transformation sequences, while not as racy as expected, were certainly pretty awesome to watch!

If you want breasts, fan-service, no ninjas, transformation sequences, a brilliant cast of seiyuu, and some fantastically surgical stabs to the part of the brain which manages nightmare fuel, this could well be your anime of the year!

tl;dr: @MoombaDS – Boi~n. That is all. #kaguratv

Random thoughts:

  • Hmmm… what could be in this box? Oh. Of course.
  • What kind of ninja is scared of garden variety delinquents?
  • I feel terrible for saying this, but I actually kind of like the ‘evil‘ ninjas more…
  • Best transformation sequence award goes to Hibari!

Full-length images: 02, 05, 11, 12, 16, 20, 22, 23, 28, 30, 33, 34, 39, 40.

Eyecatch: A-part, B-part

 

ED Sequence

ED: 「Fighting Dreamer」 by 原田ひとみ、今井麻美、小林ゆう、水橋かおり、井口裕香 (Harada Hitomi, Imai Asami, Koyabashi Yuu, Mizuhashi Kaori, Iguchi Yuka)

Preview

51 Comments

  3. I really want the game to come the U.S, lol…the maker has already said he’s interested in getting it on the E-Shop…now it just has to come. =D
    Anyway, good episode, lotta bounce…bounce….boing…
    -cough-
    Erm, yeah. >_>;

    Silivious
    Reply

  9. Apparently there’s no nipple shown so it seems like a waste for what’s clearly an anime about big boobs (always a possibility for another episode I suppose or for OVA shorts on the Blu-ray extras)

    @Moomba

    Do you plan to review this every week or was this first episode enough for you?

    mrecchiman
    Reply

  10. meet asuka who past through a test now arrive at hanzou academy school which is secret ninja school with include a ojou ninja, doobi grab feeling blonde, one eye girl, & clumsy girl all 5 of them main ninja girl group.

    with master who pop out of smoke bombs tell them to do mission to stop school bullies so on the mission go while asusa got distract dark girl she met on boat.

    the other 4 main ninja girls battle the bullies but it turned to be bunch of puppets cue ninja battle zone & beat the puppets.

    while asuka came late with rest wonder going yea the dark girl that asuka meet is part another ninja female group that also behind puppets cue the challenge is on.

    senkag
    Reply

  11. Its very difficult to hate a series that is incredibly honest about what it is. When its premise put forth boobs and ninjas, that’s exactly what I got. In fact its seems that all the fanservice is on the boobs, there’re surprisingly minimal panty shots, usually only provided by Katsu.

    What I did like though is that this show is downright silly, and seems to to be aware of that so it focuses on being fun. Its like a fanservicey version of AKB0048

    fragb85
    Reply

    1. Agreed. It’s hard to hate a show that knows what it is, revels in it 1000%, and is clearly having fun doing it. So what if it’s not serious? It’s not taking itself seriously, so neither should we!

      Stilts
      Reply

  15. I have no illusion about what this anime is about, having seen video clips of the 3DS game, it even makes no shame of admitting being a “bouncing boob” title itself in its promo videos.

    Which is why I’ll be watching this as my “Guilty Pleasure of the Season”. 😀

    Though the first episode lacks the “exploding clothes” gimmick which made the video game notorious. (If you discount Asuka removing her top to escape her pursuers in the opening scene)

    Kinny Riddle
    Reply

    1. Don’t forget that producer Kenichiro Takaki came up with the idea for the game because “one of the things people want to see the most in 3D are breasts.”

      And the game might come to the west in 2013, as one of his tweets last year was “I’ll wrap the world in happy boobs next year.”

      Zannafar
      Reply

  24. I can find more of a story plot in hentai than anime recently. The sad thing is that im not even trolling im dead serious. Am i the only one who’s noticed that hentai is starting to have more of a story plot than anime now?

    Im being serious here so try to think about it before bashing me because your a dedicated fan of ecchi. It seems like anime is starting to regress in terms of story because they can make more off of an ecchi anime than one that’s completely dedicated to plot. (sex sells) On the other hand hentai seems to be making strides in story telling. Yes there are still a lot of cliche ones coming out but some really amazing ones are starting to pop out more often now. For instance i just read a hentai called stopman and it was comedy gold! (also awesome hentai scences) Funnier than most if not all moe/all girl anime in a long time.

    It wouldn’t surprise me if one day hentai and anime switched places (or at least meet somewhere in the middle ground) since their starting to adapt to the other

    Allen Walker
    Reply

  33. First I wanted to say it is the best product I know on downloads and I wanted to ask you to please follow up images of Senra kagura as it is a very good series. Thanks for reading my comment and hopefully Senra kagura rise again. arigatou gozaimasu

    boostkai
    Reply

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