Synopsis
Mai Hime was extremely hyped up when it first came out, but man those first three episodes sucked something spectacular (aside from the initial battle scenes between Natsuki and Mikoto). Thankfully, as the show settled into a groove, Nagi toned down his annoyance level, the various secondary characters became extremely engaging, and Mai treated us to some great angst. The ending did revert a little too much to the cheese and dopiness of the first episodes, but not enough to strongly penalize this series.
What Mai Hime did especially well was weave a tight web of mystery and drama during the middle-latter half of the series that turned out to be even more beautifully crafted with a second/third/tenth look. If you’ve rewatched any part of Mai Hime again, you’ll spot a bajillion little clues that all hint at the answer to some later mystery in the series. In fact, almost every single insignificant fluff detail actually foreshadows an important discovery later on (except for Mai’s red scarf, which had almost no role in the entire season). This quality gives Mai Hime a strong rewatchability factor that many similar series lack.
Another of Mai Hime’s strengths was the cast. I initially believed that such a large cast would be hard to manage, but almost every single cast member got significant time and story material to make you care about him/her. Sure there were some really annoying characters, but the cool characters more than balanced them out. Mai gave us plenty of female angst, which is a little less common than cold bishie angst, and Midori provided us with plenty of… sentai. And of course, almost all the characters were in some way related to a legend or piece of folklore that shed a little more light on the character’s inner workings. For those with more eclectic tastes, there was also plenty of shoujo-ai, tentacles, bondage, and ninjas.
As for the other aspects of the series, the art was quite strong throughout, and the production values were good (although Kagutsuchi and Duran did have stock footage for their short attack/summoning scenes). I thought the music was fine, although not the most memorable. Overall, the strength of the plot and cast overpowered the weak beginning and occasional silliness of the series. Also, I hear there is to be an interesting sequel of sorts coming soon.
If you haven’t already done so, you should definitely check out the manga after you watch the anime. The flavor and plot is almost completely different from the anime, and the whole thing reads like an omake, or a parallel universe.
Kabitzin’s Rating: 5/5
*kabitzin's a seaslug site founder
manga download
Mai-HiME - Chapter 1 [ Filesize: 9 MB ]Mai-HiME - Chapter 2 [ Filesize: 4 MB ]Mai-HiME - Chapter 3 [ Filesize: 3 MB ]Mai-HiME - Chapter 4 [ Filesize: 3 MB ]Mai-HiME - Chapter 5 [ Filesize: 3 MB ]Mai-HiME - Chapter 6 [ Filesize: 3 MB ]Mai-HiME - Chapter 7 [ Filesize: 3 MB ]Mai-HiME - Chapter 8 [ Filesize: 3 MB ]Mai-HiME - Chapter 9 [ Filesize: 3 MB ]Mai-HiME - Chapter 10 [ Filesize: 3 MB ]to be continued...
