BUSOU SHOUJO MACHIAVELLIANISM

DESCRIPTION

CAST

MANGA ActionBusou Shoujo Machiavellianism
OVA ActionBusou Shoujo Machiavellianism OVA

REVIEWS

• 

  Necokeniii

  85/100
  Cute girls showing off their strength and techniques!

  I remember when I found out this anime was announced I was SO HYPED! I loved the light novel and the anime made me love the series more than I already did. The opening and voice acting was SENSATIONAL, I never felt the need to skip the opening or tab out when an episode aired. The beauty of this anime lies in the themes, fights and music, I got the vibe of freedom and peace is a constant choice you make by seeing what the MC went through each episode. I love anime fight scenes and each one in this series had this WOW factor to it that made you want to pay attention like you were spectating.
  Now to get into the plot, a guy transferred to an all girls school were the girls are allowed to use weapons, so all the boys there fear and respect all the females. Our main character nomura, simply just wants to be free to do as he pleases,which lead to him getting expelled at his previous school.So he was transferred to a private school that just became co-ed, where all the boys fear the girls.Nomura not seeming to care about this situation,leads to the strongest girls at the school wanting to deter nomura from setting a bad example for the rest of the school. Nomura gladly accepts the challenge because he loves himself a good brawl despite just wanting to relax and be free. Nomura learns to get the freedom to leave the school anytime he feels like it he must defeat the five strongest girls at school and get their stamps. Which leads to funny situations where the girls fall for nomura but he's focused on gaining freedom, so they try to get him to admit his feelings. All the girls in their own right are best girls, but I never did get tired of their antics. Nomura seems to favor at least one girl in particular, but my guess is he doesn't want to pick and then get attacked for his own decision. This anime is interesting due to how each of the girls having their own unique fighting style and influence on the school, when certain girls do actions that would normally be enough to be expelled the principal turns a blind eye to. Nomura's attitude and fights with the Supreme Five Swords leads to nomura becoming public enemy number one for all the students and attracts the most dangerous and unpredictable monster at the academy.

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• 

  APortInAnyStorm

  70/100
  A jack of all trades that offers more than its share of silly fun.

  I'm personally not a huge fan of absurd comedy. My tastes align more along the situational side of humor, where the laughs are strategically placed at seemingly normal and unassuming points in the plot, rather than having the entire setting take on an abstract and irrational form in order to accommodate its comedic elements. Nevertheless, both forms of comedy have their respective merits, and when the shackles of rationality are off, the possibilities become endless.

  When I first looked at the summary for the anime series Armed Girl's Machiavellism, I thought I knew what to expect. The main character, a problem student from another school, transfers to an academy where all boys are forced to crossdress in order to safeguard the girls from the ostensible toxic masculinity that emanates from the opposite sex, whilst the girls themselves are armed to the hilt so they can defend themselves from the already much-oppressed boys. At the onset of the anime, our main character is given a choice: crossdress and conform, or leave.

  The summary made no mention of whether he accepted those terms, so I assumed that he did, and that the series would turn out to be something akin to Himegoto, where the effeminate crossdressing main character is constantly mistaken for a girl. I couldn't have been more wrong, and in hindsight I was actually glad that my initial assumptions proved to be incorrect, for the anime, in all its cringey and surreal glory, gave me a lesson in the joys of absurdity that greatly raised my appreciation for the wackier incarnations of comedy.

  (Each major aspect of the anime is given a rating in brackets, followed by an explanation of that rating.)

  Premise (3/5): On the very surface level, a brief glance at the synopsis will not tell you much about what makes the anime good (or bad). A mysterious main character arrives at a school run by powerful girls with abilities bordering on the superhuman (and in some cases fully embracing the realm of the unbelievable). The main character systematically defeats each of them and coerces them into joining his burgeoning harem, all the while making his way towards the ultimate evil: the Strongest™ fighter at the school, an equally enigmatic character who has dark ties with the main character's past. You might be forgiven for thinking that this sounds like the progression of pretty much every other magical high school harem anime, and in some ways that might exactly be the intention of the series: the most fascinating kinds of parodies are those that betray viewers' expectations where they least anticipate it, and Armed Girl's Machiavellism certainly achieves that to a degree. Depending on viewers' tastes, some may enjoy this style of satire, and some may think this particular attempt tries too hard to replicate the structure of something that it is not.

  I'll admit that it was the crossdressing part of the summary that intrigued me the most, though it somehow turned out to be one of the more irrelevant parts of the story. Past the initial uproar over the main character's refusal to crossdress, the rest of the series actually progressed relatively smoothly - or at least as smoothly as you might expect an absurd comedy anime series to.

  Characters (4/5): Fudou Nomura is a straight-talking, no-nonsense main character, the sort that I appreciate the most, especially in a harem anime (pseudo or otherwise). He makes it his life's goal to collect a stamp from each of the Supreme Five Swords, the five girls who maintain law and order within the campus, whereupon obtaining all five stamps he would be able to leave the school grounds on his own terms (as opposed to getting kicked out for the heinous crime of not wearing a skirt). Despite his rebellious delinquent past, he has a strong sense of honor and an admirable determination to right the wrongs of the restrictions imposed upon the male students, making it quite easy to sympathize with him and his quest.

  The Supreme Five Swords themselves are a collection of easily-recognizable cliches: Rin is the uptight and self-righteous tsundere who falls in love after a single kiss; Mary is the blonde, busty foreign beauty whose dignified exterior is easily breached; Satori is cunning, psychopathic, and sometimes downright evil; Warabi is the petite little girl whose closest companion is an anthropomorphic bear several times her size; and Tsukuyo is the quiet, serene figure whose unassuming features belie a breathtaking aptitude for swordsmanship. As with most comedies, the power of the stereotype lies not in the characters' interactions with each other, but the fact of the stereotype's presence in itself: the cliche is there to be laughed at, rather than to help the viewer feel familiarity with the subject. The series succeeds in this respect whilst also developing the characters enough to allow viewers to still feel some sort of emotional connection with the girls, however weak or nascent.

  But perhaps the most nonsensical and simultaneously interesting female character of the lot is the self-styled Empress, Kirukiru Amou, whose role in the anime is constantly teased until the final showdown. She is a mixed bag of conflicting emotions: love and hate course through her veins in equal measure. Ultimately, it is love that wins out, and yet it is also love that drives her away from that which she most desires, a fitting end for a destructive and contradictory entity such as herself.

  Audiovisuals (4/5): A series where the story is carried by its ubiquitous fighting scenes ought to serve up a visual spectacle for the masses to enjoy. The animation in Armed Girl's Machiavellism isn't at all bad, but a more cynical eye might think that it doesn't serve its purpose too well, as the action can appear stodgy in parts. Nevertheless, the character designs are cute, the fanservice is tasteful, the art is drawn at a relatively good level overall, and the frequent insertion of move names as a comedic device works as intended. The soundtrack is brash and violent, much like the characters in the series, and the opening + ending themes are catchy rock numbers that set the mood for the anime well. All in all, the audiovisuals are decently good, with some stand-out moments here and there. And that's all one really need ask for.

  Execution (3/5): Given that I often have a hard time appreciating the full comedic breadth of absurd humor, it proves somewhat difficult to give the execution of the satirical elements of the story an objective evaluation. Nevertheless, there are many other aspects that I can readily acknowledge, from the adorable romance sub-plots running through the plot to the moral lessons in struggling against a tyrannical hierarchy that the series seeks to convey. The series moves at a satisfyingly rapid pace befitting the nature of its story, flitting from arc to arc with no room for fillers, and even if you might find the humor difficult to swallow, at least you'll never be bored.

  The humor seems to pride itself on its cringe-worthiness, throwing up inexplicably absurd plot points to move the story forwards, such as the "Warabilympics" saga where Fudou engages Warabi's pet bear in a sumo wrestling match, or Mary's attempts at forcing Fudou into committing an act of sexual harassment against her, the failures of which somehow deepen her latent feelings for him. Whether you might think that the series is trying too hard to be absurd is, as always, purely a matter of taste - I personally enjoyed some parts of the humor, whilst feeling exasperated and uncomfortable towards other segments. There's a somewhat rushed feel to the way in which flashbacks are used to try and establish the link between Fudou and the Empress, though the flashbacks explain their secret relationship well enough that any lingering confusions regarding their interactions can quickly be worked out.

  Overall (3/5): The value of a comedy series is ultimately rightfully judged on the level of entertainment it brings to viewers. Some comedies try and impart a message of some sort on its viewers, taking on more than just their burdens of distraction, whilst other series dispense with the formalities and go straight for the kill at every possible instance. Armed Girl's Machiavellism hangs somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, and ends up being neither. Its indecisiveness means that whilst its overall absurdity and subsequent comedic value suffers somewhat, it offers a greater emotional bite in terms of being more than just a series that people have to switch their brains off completely to watch. When it's at its best, it can both generate a few healthy snorts and warm the heart. Otherwise, however, it falls into the tedium of a story that isn't always sure whether to take itself seriously or revert to its comedic roots.

  Although this might seem like a fairly harsh view of an anime that I honestly enjoyed quite a lot, I felt that the inherent flaws of the series were significant enough to warrant a mention. Regardless, my imaginal recollections of the anime are wholly positive, the fondest of those mental screenshots perhaps being the blushing face of Rin Onigawara as she navigates her newfound attachment to Fudou. Love, it seems, is the answer to the "Machiavellism" (or rather, Machiavellianism) of the school's authoritarian hierarchy of discrimination and dominance.

  Armed Girl's Machiavellism is a silly, funny, and occasionally touching sight for sore eyes. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

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• 

  YildirimBuyucusu

  65/100
  An action series that you can have fun from time to time, you should not expect too much.

  
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  <img width='520' src='https://dg31sz3gwrwan.cloudfront.net/poster/348184/1285595-0-optimized.jpg'>
  
  __{This review has been translated using Artificial Intelligence translation.}__
  __
  It was a series that didn't have the time to focus on all the characters. Backstories were always shown in short. They wanted to process many characters in one season. But that means a lot of plot for a 12-episode anime. In the last episode, they made some scenes short to explain the subject quickly and finish it at a good point.__
  
  __The story is a little interesting, a little simple. Someone who is transferred to the school tries to defeat the Almighty 5 swords to get permission. Actually this is the story. There was an ecchi or something, but forget about the ecchi scenes towards the last episodes. Even ignore its romantic side. The only handheld is action. His comedy is not bad either.__
  
  <span class='markdown_spoiler'><span>__As for the characters. The romantic part wasn't really satisfying. We'd love to see something between him and Onigawara, but where. Our boy is trying to be cool. He's not the type who cares much about what the girls think. The main character development was very tiny. The change in other girls makes me say, well, that's it. I don't like the mysterious typed Amou character. I was afraid that the incident would be linked here. Otherwise, the events were very good. It was nice that Amou messed up and challenged everybody. "But was that the reason, the reason?" made me say. My favorite character is of course Warabi. I cannot say that I love the main character. I can't say that I love the other characters too. I was only able to warm up to Warabi Hanasaka and Tsukuyo Inaba.__
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  <img width='620' src='https://p4.wallpaperbetter.com/wallpaper/642/781/106/busou-shoujo-machiavellianism-anime-girls-onigawara-rin-tamaba-satori-wallpaper-preview.jpg'>
  
  __As for the visual, I think it had an average visual. Animations do not grin. Character designs look good. Some of them are very simple though. I'll tell him. We haven't seen much about environment design anyway. As you know, our boy tried to get permission to go out, so we didn't see much outside during the whole series. It feels boring to see the same animation all the time in the main character's special move.__
  
  __Sound effects were not bad. Music was good. Most of the music sit on the stage just like that. As for the sound performances. Ordinary. It's not so good, it's not too bad. That's average.__
  
  __Going to scoring.__
  
  __Story: 6/10
  Characters: 5/10
  Visuality: 6.5 / 10
  Music and Sound Design: 7.5 / 10
  Enjoyment: 7.5 / 10 (Despite everything, somehow I had more or less fun. I got excited at some points. So my pleasure score is a click high.__
  
  __OVERALL: 6.5 / 10__
  
  __Final notes: Maybe if they had processed 3 characters in a season instead of processing 6 characters, I think it would have been a better quality series. Also, we almost never saw the comedy and ecchi scenes in the last episodes. The last episodes were too serious. Trying to end the story at a good point brings up such a problem.__~~~

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