DESCRIPTION

CAST

SPECIAL ActionHidan no Aria - Butei ga Kitarite Onsen Kenshuu
NOVEL ActionHidan no Aria
ANIME ActionHidan no Aria AA

REVIEWS

• 

  APortInAnyStorm

  55/100
  The paragon of its genre, and hence as average as you can get.

  If you've watched anime regularly for the past ten years or longer, you'll remember the sudden boom in trashy harem light novels that occurred in the early 2010's, as well as the rush of anime adaptations that accompanied them. The plot for every single one of them went pretty much the exact same way: a boy with a hidden ability, who appears inept and hapless at first glance, meets a powerful, usually red-headed girl who is at the top of her class in every aspect and has a personality as fiery as her hair color. Their first encounter involves a fortunate accident of some sort, following which the girl calls the boy a pervert / sexual harasser / other words to that effect, and swears to remove him from every plane of existence. Yet as the boy's hidden power is unearthed, and his unwaveringly honorable and occasionally kind personality comes to the fore, the girl's smoldering grudge slowly burns into a blazing romance. Throw in some gratuitous fanservice, enigmatic enemies and a generous smattering of jealous childhood friend, and you have Aria the Scarlet Ammo.

  And Campione. And Chivalry of a Failed Knight. And Bladedance of Elementalers. And Sky Wizards Academy. And so on, and so forth.

  In the end, what makes Aria the Scarlet Ammo stand out is that it doesn't really stand out at all. It doesn't try to over-complicate things, or be more than what it needs to be. You shut your brain down, laugh at the stupid things, cringe at the cliches, and smile at how cute the girls are. In that sense, this anime is the best of its kind, but also the worst of its kind.

  Premise (2/5): The first paragraph of this review tells you everything that you need to know, though the minutiae of the premise are still somewhat interesting in their own right. Aria, an S-class "Butei" (the series' term for a teenager who somehow knows more martial arts and gun fu than most action movie stars), is trying to clear the name of her mother, who's been sentenced to jail for so many crimes that her total jail time is set to last just under a millennium. Which, in a world where criminals run so rampant that the police alone can't be trusted to bring all of them in - hence the need for Butei - doesn't seem all that crazy. The Japan that's depicted in Aria the Scarlet Ammo looks remarkably peaceful for a place that's supposedly plagued with wrongdoers, but not much of the setting itself is shown, so one can only speculate about what goes on beyond the characters' purview.

  Aria's struggles to free her mother and find those who framed her eventually pit her against the mysterious criminal organization known only as "EU". I don't think Aria the Scarlet Ammo is Brexit propaganda, so I still have no idea what EU stands for - though I suspect that question would be answered if I read the light novels, which I don't plan to do. Along the way, it's also revealed that the characters are actually all descendants of famous fictional literary figures: Aria is Sherlock Holmes' great-granddaughter, and the descendant of Arsene Lupin, alongside the immortal Count Dracula himself, also make appearances. Which makes absolutely no sense, given that the characters' lineages have little to do with the actual substance of the story, but it is what it is.

  _Another day, another bedroom destroyed by your murderous girlfriends._

  Characters (1/5): Tsunderes are an acquired taste. Tsunderes who can actually kill you, probably even more so. If not for the guns strapped to her thighs and the swords on her back, Aria would give off the air of an angry kitten which you can't help but love even if it keeps trying to scratch your eyes out. I was more than fine with how she was, mainly because the other girls in the show were, to put it bluntly, mostly quite boring. Riko, a salacious anti-hero with a badly-explored traumatic past and the inconceivable ability to manipulate her hair without touching them, was perhaps the most interesting member of the rest of the cast, but the plain truth was that there simply was not enough time in the anime to elaborate on all the characters' backstories. Aria the Scarlet Ammo does its best with what it has, and I couldn't really ask for too much more.

  The main male character, Kinji, has the ultimate harem protagonist power: his beleaguered mind houses a smart, savvy, slick operator of an alter ego who only comes out when he's aroused. Thus, a lot of the anime involves Kinji getting horny in his hour of need so he can actually be useful when the shite hits the fan. Most of the time, he's a wet-blanket failure of a Butei with nothing remarkable about him whatsoever. The main antagonist, who is apparently the manifestation of Count Dracula - although I don't remember Count Dracula being a werewolf - spawns out of the body of the students' hot homeroom teacher and takes little over half an episode to kill. Sounds stupid, but again he feels like a victim of the poor characterization caused by the short overall series length.

  Horrible, I know. But what else did you expect?

  _The angriest kitten._

  Audiovisuals (3/5): For an anime that's clearly more about fanservice and eye-candy than the actual story, Aria the Scarlet Ammo pulls a lot of punches. That's not a bad thing, as I don't particularly like fanservice, and it means a lot of resources are devoted to other, more substantial things. For example, the action sequences are surprisingly decent, and the character designs are cute - though they may be off-putting if you're not used to seeing eyes that stretch halfway across a character's face, or absolutely humongous foreheads. (Just early 2010's anime things, I guess.)

  The soundtrack was alright, though special mention has to be given to the OP and ED, which were great both audially and visually. Hearing the instrumental rendition of the OP playing during the climaxes gave me chills, and I appreciate the anime being tasteful about its use. All in all, the audiovisuals served their purpose, which is good enough for me.

  _Barebones eye-candy._

  Execution (2/5): Like a lot of light novel anime adaptations, Aria the Scarlet Ammo only gives viewers a taster of the whole series. Most of these adaptations are little more than glorified advertisements for the light novels - which is a shame, since I could see myself watching more seasons of this if it were animated, but I simply can't be bothered to chase the story via the light novels. The light novels are still running, which shows amazing longevity for a series like this, but I suppose it's not the most difficult thing in the world to make such a straightforward premise last as long as the author needs it to.

  In any case, many of the aforementioned problems are purely down to the anime not being long enough. Nothing is really explained all that well, and so the story keeps tripping over its many deficiencies. Characters constantly shift in and out of focus, and a few of them end up serving little to no purpose. There probably is an elaborate and fascinating plot hidden in there somewhere, but nothing I've seen suggests that that might be the case. Aria the Scarlet Ammo is mindless fun, but its self-imposed limitations mean it can never be any more than that. Not that it really tries to be, anyway - I enjoyed the humor and the action wherever I found them, and the anime's linear and uncomplicated structure lent itself to that enjoyment.

  Expect anything more than a cookie-cutter superhero harem story, and you'll inevitably drop the anime and watch something else. Expect nothing from Aria the Scarlet Ammo, and you'll never be disappointed.

  _A dumb show with dumb characters, but it has its moments._

  Overall: 3/5

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• 

  Ciaora39

  41/100
  When people talk about the hatred of tsunderes, this anime is the epitome of it.

  

  Putting any gimmick into your average action show with romantic comedy has been a staple of a tradition for quite some time. Some succeed, and some don’t. Which, in most cases, doesn’t work because it is nothing more than a gimmick in hindsight. So what better way than to plaster guns into your generic romantic comedy in the title and artwork and pray that action fanatics might have some slight interest. Look no further than Hidan no Aria to fill in another entry in the wrong category.

  Nevertheless, it is not necessarily the shallow spectrum point in the category. For all I know, there are some apparent intentions of becoming a straight-up action show, and it succeeds somewhat in that department. There are some impossible logic drops scattered throughout most of the action. But for a show that is this inept plot-wise, there isn’t any reason to bash it any further. It wants its effort to be flashy and fast-paced. So by those standards, there are plenty of engaging conceptual scenarios they put into them.

  

  Like any show that stars Rie Kugimiya as the main heroine and a tsundere non-surprising, there is bound to be light-hearted comedy thrown in for good measure. When I mention “good measure,” I mean that haphazardly. When the humor is right in Hidan no Aria, it is put together and hilarious to watch Aria’s reactions to anything lewd. But man, when the jokes do not work, they fucking die horribly. It’s not the fact the quips themselves aren’t humorous, but the way they pace it together feels dragged out far too long than it needed to be. There’s even one instance where Aria calls Kinji a baka repeatedly for almost 8 seconds, and it becomes tedious to experience.

  These comedic interactions also falter because most of the characters are cardboard cut-out characters of different stereotypes and add nothing significant to them. All we can remember about them is the typical gags written for them. Shirayuki is a creepy childhood friend who has an intense crush on Kinji and gets jealous whenever a girl is close to him. Then there is Riko Mine, who somehow has an attraction towards Kinji that is never given much context as to why she wants him to begin with. No amount of layers upon layers of depth could be seen in any of them because of this fatal flaw. If you're going to show these girls in these positions, that is perfectly fine, but don’t expect someone to latch onto them for just those assets.

  

  I’d put some forward analysis on our male protagonist, Kinji Tooyama, only because there is something that needs to be said about protagonists typically written in these types of shows. We’re all familiar with the general romantic comedy protagonist who gets flustered and becomes idiotic. It is a redundant trope that we have gotten used to over the years; except with Kinji, he is not a character that possesses this trope. You’d think that would lead to him being likable, right? Well, the answer to that is yes and no. Nothing really to him makes him inherently riveting to watch in guiding through the plot, what little there is, to begin with. Just like the main female cast, all we’re shown about him is what his role is in the story and nothing else.

  Usually, I’d like to talk about a show’s plot in the first paragraph, but for Hidan no Aria’s sake, I won’t even give it the time of day for that honor. Not only that, but it almost seemed as though the plot was very second nature to the show’s intentions. Even though it looked like it wanted to, based on how it tried to put in a severe tone what seemed to have been a plot, it provides very few attempts to weave in a coherent story. The story is not only uninteresting but also difficult to follow because of the bad transitions to mindless comedic moments.

  

  With Rie Kugimiya on board with the main project, it’s always apparent to at least talk about the voice acting in the show she appears in. However, Aria is not one of the big highlights of her career. I say this from someone who may not be a huge fan, but I at least respect the range and energy she puts into her roles. It’s one of her roles where if you absolutely can’t stand her voice, Aria will not turn you into a new convert for her fanbase. Her iconic “baka” is probably the most thrown out in this show, more than any other show she’s been in, so that right there should signify whether you want to stomach through that or not.

  No expectations were any higher than medium when I went into Hidan no Aria. Still, I was surprised to say that its negatives don’t overshadow the positives too much. That, however, can’t make it a recommendation by any stretch. It won’t appeal to the people who want an insightful anime-watching experience. But it’s not going to be an easy sell for the action crowd. Don't expect much from it if you think you can repeatedly handle the screaming “baka” lines and the other nauseating character interactions.

  Grade: C-

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