Review: Kämpfer

Kampfer surely left a impression last season! Well, not a good one; but it’s better than leaving nothing at all. Or is it? Good or not, I think it was one of the most commented anime. Maybe because it was so ridiculous it was actually funny to talk about it!

I can’t even express how bad it was, really. But it’s one of those shit anime you can’t stop watching for some reason. Then, when you get to the end, you feel ashamed about yourself due to the fact that you did it and swear you will never do it again. But some people are even hoping for a sequel! I’d me lying if I said I wouldn’t watch a sequel… It’s just too…. bad to be missed! Besides, there would hopefully have more Shizuku! And don’t tell me you wouldn’t want more of Shizuku yourself…

Plot:

When I decided to watch Kämpfer, I expected for another history about students that, for some reason – usually to have their clothes ripped off and to show their pantsu - , fight against each other, like in Ikkitousen. The reason why the Kämpfers fight isn’t revealed so soon; so if you want to find out you have to watch until the end. And that’s what I did. I wasn’t even watching for the pseudo-yuri anymore, I was watching because it was funny and the plot presented us with some misteries and I wanted to know the answers for them. Because of these misteries I thought it had potential, even if it was pure fanservice. “Everything will change when these things unfold” I though. So in the 11th episode things unfolded. Everything at once.

Conclusion: The reason why they fight showed to be something totally surreal and nonsense and it was resolved so bad they shouldn’t even have tried. What or who Sakura is wasn’t explained aswell. All the revelations were “explained” in like a single sentence each. It was the most vague thing I’ve ever seen. They unfolfed in a crappy way and then were all put aside! In the end there wasn’t an ending. It was like “Hah! You all watched until the last episode for nothing, fools!”. I swear I was waiting the credits end to see something like this.

The plot seems promising in the beginning, and it could be; but because of this shitty screenwriter, it wasn’t. They should remake Kämpfer with a talended person.

Characters:

Kämpfer has two charismatic characters: Akane and Shizuku. The others aren’t important at all. I think Mikoto was the less worked character, it seems like she was in there just to fill the space in the harem. And I haven’t known a single person who liked Sakura. None of the characters has a story – with the exception of Shizuku’s little pseudo-background -, (and apparently they don’t have parents aswell), so they are build only on personality or the lack of it.

Akane develop a little; in the beginning she is shy and clumsy when she is not in her Kämpfer form, but as the episodes go by, we can feel her changing. She becomes more determinated – about Natsuru, since from all of them, the only person who is not toally fixed on Natsuru is Shizuku. Anyway, Akane in her Kämpfer form is alot more interesting. That’s when she becomes extremely charismatic. The way she becames differs alot from her normal self, it reminds me of Revy, from Black Lagoon. And who doesn’t love Revy? But, apart from her personality which is one of the good points in this series, she also doesn’t play a role in the plot.

Mikoto is that all happy and extremely comical character. I think this kind of humour works in Japan, but I think it is so pushed that it’s like when someone tells a retarded joke and even tho it’s not funny at all, you laugh just so he doesn’t get embarassed. She would be totally unnecessary in other anime, but as this is a harem series, they need women to run after the man, right?

Natsuru is the typical man in this type of anime: everyone hits on him, but he doesn’t realize. He is a nobody. Everyone there learns how to fight, but not him. He is dumb, dull, retarded. He is the king os the harem stereotype. In one of the episodes, a enemy tells him he plays a important role there. What the fuck she was talking about? If it wasn’t a harem anime, he could be discarded aswell.

Sakura, as I said, was hated by all since the beginning. Before she was hated because she seemed to be a totally boring and annoying stalker and everyone wanted her to dissapear. But in the last episodes she revealed herself as a pseudo-important character, that had a role in the plot. But, as the plot went to hell, it doesn’t even matter. The only thing that matters is that she also had a harem, a female one; so they could actually focus on her harem instead of Natsuru’s!

Shizuki is the top favorite character for most of people. It’s actually the reason why alot of people kept watching this. And she is the main character in Kämpfer, not Natsuru. Proof? She is the only protagonist who has a goal in the plot; is the only one that, even though she also wants to seduce Natsuru, she is not exclusively focused on that like all the others, and she is the only character in the anime that has a background (it is shown in a crappy way, but still)! She is the character who makes the plot goes on. I mean, if it wasn’t for her, the series would be all about Kämpfers fighting each other forever without knowing why, while trying to get Natsuru. She was also the character with more personality and it’s the only one that cannot be discarded.

Animation:

The animation is nothing extraordinary and the fight scenes are simple, the opening and the ending are wierd. The characters are bishoujo and even the most nerdy is hot. There are some bizarre goofs I’ve never seen in anime before…

Sound:

The soundtrack is medicore, the only music I found kinda of cool was the instrumental that plays in the fight scenes, the opening and ending musics are so retarded you might even get addicted to them. The only seyuu who caught my attention were Shizuku’s and Akane’s; mostly Akane’s, where Yu Horie dubs the character in a totally different way from others character she’s done (like Yasuna from Kashimasi and Kyouko from Aoi Hana).

Yuriness:

First, Kämpfer is a gender bender and all the girls, with the exception of Sakura, are in love with Natsuru’s male form. Sakura is the only lesbian there, she even has a harem of masochist slaves and there is a scene where Shizuku kisses Akane and that other scene where the female Natsuru is kidnapped, tied up and abused by female students. The yuri isn’t much and it’s pure fanservice.

Entertainment:

Kämpfer has a terrible plot but it is funny (or I’m retarded enough to find it funny). I liked it even more than some yuri from this season (Aoi Hana, Sasameki Koto) but I think that who made it possible to watch it until the end were Akane and Shizuku. They are characters you like to see, and it kinda of gets addicting. I recommend Kämpfer as a comedy so bad it’s actually fun, but I do not recommend it as a yuri anime and I advice you to watch it only until the 10th episode. Forget about the 11th.

Editor’s Review

Visitor’s Review

Filed Under: Yuri Anime Reviews

Tags: Action, Gender Bender, Kampfer, Yuri Anime, Yuri Anime Review, Yuri Fanservice