Forum - View topicREVIEW: My-HiME Complete Series BD/DVD
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Keichitsu0305
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And yet this is one of the few anime where a character, the badass Haruka, calls out Shizuru spoiler[on her manipulating/raping Natsuki]. Granted, spoiler[they still ended up together with Natsuki committing lover suicide since they were each other's "special someone"] but, I was glad that it wasn't completely ignored.
Back in high school, I had a friend rip the fansubs series online so I could watch them on my portable DVD player (years before I had my first laptop) and I remembered the fansubs would list out each Child and what mythological creature or legend it referenced. Like how Kagutsuchi is the children that burned the creator goddess Izanami no Mikoto, causing her to die and head to hell. Really loved that aspect of the series and that made me more curious about non Greek/Roman mythology growing up. The My Hime franchise was one my first fandoms that I really loved as a teen. SO much that I even bought those weird Anime First manga from Tokyopop but, sadly I sold those years ago. I didn't like them that much since Tate was the lead in a psudeo battle harem retelling. Plus, they had princess (I think) that were the enemy of the Hime and the massive boobs of the main girls were kinda distracting. My favorite Child/Hime duo is Midori and Gakutenou mostly because of Midori's big sister/tomboy attitude. |
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Rogueywon
Posts: 263 |
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This one's a classic. There's not been much to keep the franchise in the public eye since the My-Otome OVAs wrapped up, so it's probably not as well known today as it really ought to be. But I'd rate it as one of the best shows of the '00s.
The characters are where it really shines. Pretty much every named character, including relatively minor non-HiME classmates, have multiple layers to them. The show really rewards multiple viewings, as there are a lot of small, neat touches to develop minor cast members that you're likely to miss first time through. Those "silly" episodes are also important: they let us see the cast outside of a grimdark setting and are used to flesh out personalities outside of crisis situations. That kind of tonal variation is one of the hallmarks of a good 2-cour show. The review sums up the other strengths very well. I rewatched this last year and the art has indeed dated a bit in places, but it was an attractive show by the standards of the time and has aged gracefully, for the most part. In terms of the genre, My-HiME feels like a bit of an evolutionary bridge between the '90s magical girl shows which were primarily aimed at children but took on darker themes (e.g. Sailor Moon S) and the adult-oriented, hyper genre-aware Dark Magical Girl shows of the '10s (e.g. Madoka, Yuki Yuna, Magical Girl Raising Project). It's very much not pitched at children (way too much fanservice for that, if nothing else), but it doesn't flaunt its genre riffs anything like as hard as the modern shows do. The successor, My-Otome, is a decent show in its own right but never hits the same emotional heights as My-HiME. |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18396 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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For the record, My-Otome and its OVAs will also both see separate reviews eventually, and I will be commenting at length on their connections to this one at that time. I have a couple of other series to do first, but expect those reviews sometime in March.
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4755 |
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I remember seeing this show pop up all over the place in promo material during the early days of my anime fandom, but I never really knew much about it. Sounds like it might be worth my time. Hell, I own a staggering majority of the Sunrise-produced series that Bandai released over here (RIP), so I might as well add to the pile.
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Otaking09
 Posts: 637 |
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It's a good series.
I was a bit too harsh towards it when I first watched it because I was seeing the parallels between this and Madoka a bit too vividly. But ultimately, I think I would buy it due to the fact that I strongly believe it handles that teen angst x be careful what you wish for angle much more honesty, tonal balance, a better defined cast (not to mention, an actual cast), and with a decent adherence to the mentality each character follows by leading to the climax arc. That being said, I do indeed find the ending too tidy, and the lore surrounding everything was just too myopic in implementation for my liking. The real surprise though was how my lukewarm reception to this lowered my expectations for Otome so much that I was very much surprised with how clever that spin-off was... TBC. |
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pajmo9
 Posts: 630 |
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I almost ordered this on Blu-ray a few weeks ago but I wasn't sure if there was enough of a difference between my old DVDs and the new Blu-rays to justify spending the money.
It really is a fantastic series. I especially liked the pacing after the halfway point. I thought they did a really good job of making it feel like everything was falling apart and spiraling out of control And there was nothing any of the characters could do about it. It also has one of my favorite Yuki Kajiura soundtracks. |
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hissatsu01
 Posts: 963 Location: NYC |
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Assuming it's the same upscale from the Bandai Visual JP BD released in 2010, it should look great. IMO, the early Bandai Visual upscales were the best upscales ever done for anime releases, before anybody got ideas about making "improvements" with noise reduction and algorithms to create details that were never there. It was a definite improvement on the DVDs. Though of course it will look brighter then the JP release, because Funimation releases still do after all these years–long, long after any technical reason for it ceased to exist.
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jr240483
 Posts: 4430 Location: New York City,New York,USA |
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i wasn't a fan of that either. i believe its probably the reason why they changed natsuki and shizuru's relationship for the manga. sure she was still obsessed with her, and natsuki was still a massive ice queen, but at least she thawed somewhat after falling for tate which pleased fans of the love triangle storyline, but definitely pissed off those shizuru x natsuki shippers. which is the reason for my otome, they made those two an actual couple. also that part in the anime was rather tame. however it was a lot more graphic in the manga which was why it deservedly got that M for mature audiences only rating. |
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Zeino
Posts: 1098 |
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Pretty good series overall (minus Shizuruspoiler[ the easily forgiven rapist. ] But I never understood why the ending is so controversial. It basically does the exact same thing as Madoka Magica and no one has a problem with that undoing most of it's tragedy.
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Mew Berry
 Posts: 187 |
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Despite being a general magical girl enthusiast, I've never seen My-HiME or really known much about the plot. Looks like a good time to rectify that.
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DangerMouse
Posts: 3991 |
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Very nice, good to see the new releases of this getting reviewed and getting some spotlight again. Looking forward to those Otome reviews.
I liked the show quite a bit and the second half really gets quite gripping and it had a pretty good balance of content since I expected the amount of romance/romantic comedy/romance drama to make it more of a chore to watch since there was more of it than in the shows I usually really like, but there were a lot of interesting elements, action, and mysteries to the show and how it had both lighter and darker parts during its run and some good regular comedy.
Yeah, the blu-rays are nice.
Yeah, not that shorter shows can't or haven't done it but this kind of thing where they had the time to naturally shift tones and go deeper is something that I especially enjoyed about how originals used to be able to be designed as 2-cour shows from the start more often (or 4-cour shows in the case of Gundam or the other rare ~50 eppers we used to get like E7). Of course that came with its own caveats as sometimes there wasn't enough story for 26 episodes so some could feel stretched or more often they'd slow down too much at some point and then find themselves often having a somewhat rushed feeling finish. I do feel like recently more shows, both adaptations and originals, are starting to get much better at navigating the 1-cour at a time process now that it's become more of the norm that they have to deal with. Also, I'm currently loving Garo: Vanishing Line for this kind of classic 2-cour variation and thoroughness that feels great and natural that you talked about. Even the side characters get to make nice impressions. |
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Daizo
Posts: 139 |
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To give you an idea: Mai-Hime is one of the approximately three series (out of hundreds) that I've watched where just thinking about the ending still makes me angry and which basically retroactively ruins the entire series for me. A final episode that consists of nothing but "rocks fall and everyone dies" would've pretty much been a better final episode than what we actually got, spoiler[which is quite literally a last minute deus ex machina asspull to have an overtly happy ending for everyone.] |
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BadNewsBlues
Posts: 6239 |
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I know I did too weird ending aside.
....While somehow supplanting Sailor Moon? |
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Animegomaniac
Posts: 4147 |
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No, it was spoiler[a three hundred year plan by Mashiro to get revenge o the Obsidian Prince; Nagi never said that anyone would die, only that they'd lose their loved ones and Mashiro, being the last surviving Hime from the previous battle, needed and wanted to give all the Himes the happy ending she didn't get. They live, she... and Nagi, can't leave him out... move on, finally.] It was set up since episode 7... did you ever consider why Nagi was there? "I told you..." rather than "I told her." The biggest... sole... asspull was spoiler[Alyssa Searrs ending up in the pillar rather than her father... I first thought the biggest problem was she was dead before that but she wouldn't be the first Hime/loved who ended up in that state... but since the whole complex was being powered by Mashiro directly... the first key image in the last episode was Mashiro being freed from her three hundred year imprisonment... it's safe to say that any chance Nagi and the OP gave her, she'd take and they honestly thought anything she could do was futile because it was all Fated to happen. Miyu had the tech she needed because Searrs built her as a safety device just in case he got pillared but in order to get Miyu to undo it after Alyssa died, Mashiro needed bait to lure Miyu to the site. So in goes Alyssa, out goes her father.] Two actions and everything's undone. But that was because the villains were more focused on Mai, the new transfer student who had all her fees taken care of by Mashiro. Seriously, you didn't go "Ohhh..." when spoiler[the Obsidian Prince said that Mai's Child was the same as Mashiro's? And did you notice that all the other ones were said to be Orphans that connected to Hime and then developed while Mai''s Child was directly sealed? Well, there was one other sealed but it's not like Miroku played a part in the finale.] It's all there in the show. |
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johnnysasaki
Posts: 944 |
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I find it strange how people are calling Shizuru a spoiler[rapist],because,if I recall,the scene is left ambiguous and is even played from differents points of view,right?For all we know,all she may have done was spoiler[laying down naked beside Natsuki(which is still questionable,of course)kissing her Sleeping Beauty style,and that was it]
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