Hidan no Aria

There was a time when I, too, had faith in J.C. Staff. I still do, actually. I’m stubborn. But try as I might to cling fondly to the days gone by, to classics like Azumanga Daioh and Excel Saga, even guilty pleasures like Shakugan no Shana, it seems that J.C. Staff is relentless in their efforts to drive me away. An admirable mission, that.

So here is Hidan no Aria. I’ll confess. I was excited. I have a soft spot for action harems, loathe though I am to admit it. I’m one of the last cynics in anime fandom who doesn’t completely loathe Rie Kugimiya (she’s ... not bad, she’s got range; it’s not her fault the squeal is what sells, and everybody’s got to pay the bills). Takashi Watanabe of Boogiepop and Shana was directing, and early promotional artwork looked…well, not promising, but certainly not the worst of the genre. I didn’t get my hopes up, but I expected the kind of show I could guiltily binge on and then tell all my friends I hated to keep up the elabourate façade that I am a man of taste.

All this is just so you know that I gave Aria a fighting chance.

With all that said, it’s bad. I mean it’s really bad. Not Togainu no Chi bad, but nowadays my attention can only be diverted from erotic fanfiction and 80’s movies to tear an especially terrible Japanese cartoon a new arsehole, because I like easy targets. So that’s the terminology we’ll settle on—especially terrible. And it is. It is a new low for J.C. Staff.

But I’ve beat around the bush long enough. Let’s get to the point.

The world of Hidan no Aria is one where the Butei, an elite international martial organisation, trains its members at the high school level. That’s right. In this world, international treaties on child labour are unheard of, and hundreds of parents see no issue with sending their children to a school where the use of firearms is not only commonplace, but required. Furthermore, the students of Tokyo Butei High—quite unlike my high school classmates, most of whom, by the time graduation rolled around, had yet to master the delicate art of pissing straight—perform incredibly well in this environment. Oh, but it’s not just the coursework they have to worry about. Butei High students must apply their lessons to real life when they are targeted by the Butei Killer—a criminal who sends high-speed Saw-esque murder puzzles after the teenage students. This individual has yet to be apprehended, as Butei graduates and all other law enforcement agents have better things to do than bother with a serial criminal with a rigidly-defined M.O. who regularly targets minors, and endangers civilians in the process. Yep.

Now, I wouldn’t still be watching anime if I had issues with suspending my disbelief, but would it really have been so hard to age the cast up four or five years, to college-age? The plot would remain practically untouched, and, really, it’s got nowhere to go but up. But I digress.

The rest of the plot involves a lot of looking at girls’ underwear (whether it is on their bodies or off), and some nonsense about Sherlock Holmes and other fictional characters (and at least one out-of-place historical figure) that is so astonishingly, mind-numbingly stupid that I have no words for it. Aspiring writers, hark! Don’t always stick with the first idea you get, because it is usually righteously fucking ridiculous.

The animators seem to stumble over the character designs despite the fact that they are not terribly complex. Characters are frequently off-model, and their movements are stiff and awkward. Their hair moves bizarrely, even by anime standards: when disturbed it jumps up suddenly at an odd angle and waves around for a while before jumping back into place. Fabric works much the same way. Inbetweens are practically non-existent, leading to movement that looks like jumpy cardboard rather than a fluid transition from one position to the next. Furthermore, all of J.C. Staff’s recent productions have had this weird kind of Gaussian-blur layer over every frame, making the outlines blurry and subdued. The animation isn’t awful, per se, but it’s mediocre at best.

I don’t have much to say on the show’s score. It’s boring. The themes are fast-paced, but forgettable and generic, while most of the background music kind of blurs together. The purpose of a soundtrack is to elicit emotional response and set the mood for a scene. Aria’s music is just kind of there because they had, like, way too much money and thought it would be cool to buy a composer. The vocal work is...well, you know what you’re getting. Rie Kugimiya puts on the sort of performance she is infamous for, Junji Majima is a forgettable harem lead, and the rest of the cast could all switch places and I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

The real beauty of Aria (and I mean that in the most bitter, sarcastic, miserable way) lies in its titular character. Aria H. Kanzaki is evil. I really mean it. She is a special kind of sadistic, childish evil, unfettered by the cautious try-hard some authors exhibit when writing adults. She is rotten to the core. She is spoilt, murderously violent, infinitely selfish, and utterly loathsome. If she were the antagonist, I might even be giving this show a positive review. I would be forced to tip my hat to an author so skilled at manipulating his readers that he can craft a character that summons such immediate distaste in everyone. I’m not a violent person, but I’d say she needs a bit of discipline in the form of a high-speed baseball bat to the mouth.

But she’s not the antagonist. She’s not even an easily-overlooked secondary character. Her name’s in the title. And we are supposed to love her. We are supposed to pile our disposable income on Blu-Rays and posters bearing her visage, on models of her likeness to sit precariously upon our shelves so that we can steal a peek at her plastic panties.

Aria H. Kanzaki is really the lowest the tsundere phenomenon can go. I don’t have anything against tsunderes, really. In fact, when written carefully and realistically, they are some of my favourite characters. Aria is not a tsundere. She’s a psychopath and a bully. She is hysterical, she is capricious, she is downright mean—she is everything that might lead a man (were he so inclined) to roll his eyes and scoff and say, “Women! Am I right?”

Which is a good segue into my next point.

I’m not mad at Aria, because she is a fictional character, and that would be silly. I am mad, however—frothingly so—at the author. Chuugaku Akamatsu has written a character who he believes to be a sympathetic woman. The audience is supposed to watch her temper tantrums and violent fits the same way we might watch an angry child, despite the fact that Aria is more than old enough to know better. Her fits of rage aren’t horrifying—they’re cute! This sort of behaviour is just the thing the author—and, he perceives, his audience—expects out of a woman.

Now, we could say that Aria’s temper—and, by extension, the exceedingly childish behaviour of most of the rest of the female cast—is just the author clumsily trying to write a realistically flawed character. People aren’t perfect, after all, and violently temperamental women (and men) do exist!

But I’m not stupid, and, hopefully, neither are you.

The author’s intent matters. The target audience matters. The moe phenomenon matters. Japanese society and its views on women matter. The context matters.

Look. I’m not saying that you’re a bad person if you enjoyed Hidan no Aria. Do what makes you happy. I’m not saying that you’re a bad person if you enjoy any fiction that carries some unfortunate implications in its characterisation of women, people of colour, GLBT people, or any minority—it’s perfectly possible for a story that is otherwise well-written to stumble a bit when it comes to political correctness (and I hate that fucking term, because it implies that treating other people like human beings should be done out of obligation and not common sense), and this is okay, as long as it is discussed. And I’m not trying to take away your titty anime. There are plenty of shows that reward the viewer with gratuitous unmentionables while at the same time sporting a cast of realistic, relatable, well-written female characters. In fact, if Hidan no Aria was a good show that happened to have a horrible female lead, I might not even mention it. Well, maybe in passing.

But Hidan no Aria is bad, and I hate it, and writing this review feels like a weight off my shoulders after nearly five hours wasted on this garbage. So I will mention it. And I did. And I think I’m done now.

This is bad, guys. I mean, it's really REALLY bad!

'Hidan no Aria' has just about every cliche harem elements in the book. The premise focusing on a special occupation to try to be unique, the characters strip and trip randomly for fan service, violent retribution for accidental infringement, archetype heroines, obvious tsundere stuttering, ordinary high school student with hidden special powers, protagonist is surrounded by girls who are crazy about him for no reason... I can go on and on.

The core premise is somewhat interesting. It's set in a school that trains mercenaries, and the students undergo various lethal training and get credits through actual ... missions. However, there are also a lot of stupid concepts going on, like all them being "butei" (combat detectives), the Hysteria Mode, and the fact that almost every character is descendent of a famous historical and fictional figures - Lupin the 3rd, Sherlock Holmes, Joan of Arc, Tooyama Kinshirou, Himiko, Count Dracula... it gets embarrassing to watch after a while.

The story consists of one improbable event after another. The character and villain's actions rarely make any sense. It gets so bad that a good guy would point the gun at the bad guy and say something like "there's no escape now", and the bad guy just runs without getting shot. I had no idea why this series needed to be about "detectives" as there were almost zero thinking going on. It's more like charge in first and see what happens next. It's also pretty absurd all the characters were carrying the gun and shoots around in the school campus, and of course, everything is bullet proof so no one gets hurt. The jokes get repetitive, with the protagonist getting into ecchi situation with random girls, and seen by one of the yandere/tsundere heroines and gets "kaza-ana".
Worst of all is the protagonist's "Hysteria Mode", which gets triggered from sexual arousal. This is the stupidest activation trigger I have ever heard, and serves only as a tool for fan service.

Art in this series is decent. The female characters are attractive, though extremely generic design. Character movement is very stiff and apparently low budget, but there are some nice slow motion action scenes that it's at least average quality in terms of animation.

The voicing for Aria is absolutely horrible, a stereotypical tsundere voice with zero distinction. Not only that, it gets seriously annoying after a while. Other characters' seiyuu were average at best. BGM is quite insignificant, and OP/ED were average.

There is nothing in 'Hidan no Aria' that sets it apart from hundreds of other harem series. It's obvious why a certain fansub group would trollsub a series like this, and in fact, the sound effects guys in this series started trolling in latter part of this series, like inserting sheep sounds at the mention of 「執事」, a word meaning "butler" but has similar pronunciation to Japanese word "sheep".

Admittedly, Riko's character was extremely hot both in design and personality, and ecchi in this series was decent. It's one of those series you watch to kill time, and see how bad it gets. B-But it's not like I enjoy watching this series or anything!

SPOILERS INSIDE.

This is not a show you love or hate. This is a show you’re bound to regret watching. It’s extremely clichéd, mediocre quality and a money-maker, and above all – annoying. But so ridiculously it sometimes is amusing.

Still, two things make this series for me:
1. Aria’s hairpin which is sadly gone after a while,
2. Kinji’s Hysteria Mode.

Beyond that, there is not much to see here. But then again – what can you expect from a series that was already highly overrated by the Japanese fans even before it aired? I should probably have said otaku instead of Japanese fans, excuse me, but that’s what happened, with ... this series being the most anticipated one of Spring 2011 season. Why, yes – in Japan. Don’t they love Kugimiya.

Story- and character-wise, what’s in it? Tsundere (but not the likeable kind, the I-have-seen-this-how-many-times-now kind) female lead – check. Male protagonist being useless 95% of the time – check. Veeeeery unexpected plot twist in early part of the show – check. A bunch of supporting characters that are there just to try to fill us in on the backstory and still fail miserably – check. Great. The two protagonists attend a mostly ridiculous school where teenagers are trained to be detectives - or rather super agents - and so far the plot has been focusing on how cute Aria is. But she is not. She is another Taiga/Louise/Shana clone created just to please the fans. There are moments when she is bearable; yet that is mostly when she is not talking at all. And the Holmes crap? I thought Lupin the 4th was quite funny, but they had to add Holmes the 4th into it. Wow, just wow. UPDATE: they also tossed Jeanne d’Arc in. I thought that nothing could surprise me anymore.

And what about Kinji/Ryûji? The 5% he’s not useless is when in Hysteria Mode, which he is reluctant to enter because it makes him act retarded. In his opinion. It does not.

In terms of visuals J.C. Staff did just reasonably. I like how the opening and ending sequences are animated, plus the fights - the fights are great eye candy. The rest is not something we have not seen yet. I’m just quite surprised that they do not animate the protagonist loli particularly well. Low budget? No way. Laziness? More like it. Little can be said about the art of “Hidan no Aria”. It’s not bad, it’s just nothing spectacular, and given how new anime can look, I’d call it a tad disappointing.

The sound is a different story. Good background music, that’s certain; OP and ED, just fitting for this series, are average; but for once I must complain about the voice actors. Rie Kugimiya – if it was not for Kagura, she could disappear completely from the face of Earth. She does not create her characters. She IS them. Very, very disappointing. She brings nothing new into yet another show. I used to like her voice, but damn, isn’t it annoying. Now it’s just painful. Boring, too. Just remain Kagura, that’s what you do well (and Taiga, for that matter). Going on with the list: Mariya Ise was a good Stocking, but performs just typically as Riko; Junji Majima is Ryûji, end of story.

Somehow I managed to watch the entire thing. SOMEHOW. The second half gets far worse than the first, which, frankly, is an achievement. Just do not watch it. At all.

Very not recommended.

Girls with guns and fiery explosions tailing behind. That statement alone should sound pretty awesome, right? ... Right?

Unfortunately, this is not the case. Oh, on everything that is sacred, is this not the case. But, it's not enough to say that this is a load of crap that deserves any and every amount of ridicule that it gets; this needs to be broken down, bit by bit, to expose it for the grim piece of bloody, scarlet-colored turd that it really is.

With that said, let's begin with the opening song--the thing the audience hears at the start of every episode.

I, personally, have nothing against May'n. ... However, this song began to get annoying after a while due to the immediate pretentiousness that it brings along. The gun and firing sound effects, the cathedral with a picture of (what I assume to be) the birth of Jesus, front-and-center, and then Aria, the heroine of the show, staring at the audience blankly in the face--it speaks for itself.

Oh, and need I remind everyone that Aria's supposed to be the main character here? With all of the sarcasm in every fiber of my being, I don't think the opening made it clear enough! There needs to be even MORE Aria! Her shooting a bullet at the audience's faces? Perfect!

Anyway, what are all of the guns about? Well, let me explain as frankly as I can.

Apparently, in our modern-day world, it's perfectly okay and only natural to give teenagers, who are still going through emotional and psychological development, a vast assortment of armaments and weaponry and virtual access to anywhere in the world. Not only that, they're also taught how to use said weaponry to great detail and are sent on missions that could potentially endanger their lives.

And they're accomplishing all of this... wait for it...

... in a Japanese high school.

Forget all of the legal trouble that would cause, how something as ridiculous as that would even get off the ground, and even the idea that such a thing may be better-off in the hands of ANYONE older by just a few more years; just use your suspension of disbelief, everyone!

The first episode starts us off with the usual Kyon-type character, Kinji Tooyama, who isn't really the main character, but supposed to simply act as support. What is his aspiration for the future? Why, to live a normal, everyday life! Wow, really pushing the limits of characterization here, aren't you, J.C. Staff? I can't wait for him to live out his everyday--no, wait, he gets attacked by the villain of the show before the audience actually gets to know him. Pfft, so much for his goals!

But, when he thinks that he's nearly dead meat, stuck in a death trap that will surely cost him his well-being, there goes the true heroine, Aria H. Kanzaki, to save the day! And this is pretty much the only time that she gets to be cool before becoming the laughing stock of all that is "tsun."

Why? Because the Kyon-type character gets a raging hard-on from seeing Aria in her underwear after saving him and becomes the actual hero, stopping the baddies because he's too cool for school. Really. That happens.

Kinji monologues later that he has a special ability known as "Hysteria Mode" that actually makes him an instantaneous, top-ranked assassin everytime he gets a boner; I'm not even joking. This happens quite a lot throughout the series because Kinji just can't keep it down, and nearly all of the female characters lose their dignity to this because it's the only thing that makes him worth anything in this show.

Hey, it's not like this could be Black Lagoon or Kara no Kyoukai where a woman kept her dignity, was a central character AND completely awesome. Come on, Hidan no Aria! I don't think there are enough breasts flopping around or widescreen panty-shots for the audience!

But, wait! I've spent all of this time talking about Kinji! What about Aria, the shining, tsundere selling-point of the show?

Well, that's really all there is to her. Aria is a tsundere to the nth degree. She even initially calls Kinji her "slave" and lives with him, very similarly to ANOTHER show made by J.C. Staff. Heck, she's so tsundere that she becomes unlikable mere seconds after she speaks because of how much a squealing, raging runt that she is, and her gimmick is that she will constantly fire her guns at Kinji while screaming at him that he's either a pervert or stupid. The girl even admits that she doesn't have any friends. Hmm, I wonder why!

Oh, and I nearly forgot to mention that the show tries to be cute by adding in references to fictional detective characters, such as Lupin and Holmes, stating that the "H" in Aria's middle name stands for "Holmes" and that she--a whiny, putrid, pink-haired good-for-nothing--is his descendant.

And by "good-for-nothing", I mean it. Aria is supposed to be a top-ranked assassin--even given the nickname "Aria the Quadra" for her use of four weapons--and yet, she's always needing saving, doesn't have any regard for human life other than her own, and has the attitude of a spoiled, indecisive, quickly-amused child.

Why is she regarded as the "best" again? Why is everyone putting the most difficult missions on her shoulders? Why couldn't the crazy world that this story encompasses just trade her in for a better lead character?

Oh, yes, I almost forgot BECAUSE MERCHANDISING DEMANDS IT.

Not to mention, the audience, as does Kinji, is clearly supposed to find her physically appealing, too. Sorry, but personally, I can't find a hateful, loathsome numb-nut attractive. I'd rather go with the blonde chick who's into eroge and frilly dresses that also appears in this show, thank you.

Moving on, when it comes to the plot itself, it's not even anything worth sneezing at. Many of the plot-twists are those anyone could see coming from a mile away, the characters also pull-off stunts that are near-impossible (if not, completely impossible under human conditions), and some characters appear only once or twice for plot-convenience and are never heard from or seen ever again (i.e., Reki, Jeanne d'Arc, etc.). There are even some points in the story that are barely touched upon, such as the supernatural powers that come forth numerous times.

The art is bland and one-dimensional, and the animation is typically stiff all of the time. The soundtrack is completely unnoticeable for the most part, save for the opening and ending themes, which are simply okay at best.

Overall, without giving too much away about the plot, this was painful--just downright painful. It has a plot and setting that would make Swiss cheese blush and horrible characters that are unsympathetic, stereotypical, and--more than often--outrageously annoying; not to mention, a pretentious presentation of nothing special that is of a (hopefully) dying breed.

If anyone else managed to sit through this garbage until the end (like I did), they deserve a medal. I can only hope that with such a low bar set, J.C. Staff will make their upcoming series, Kamisama no Memochou, an aspiring improvement.

Please don't bother twiddling your thumbs with the possibility of a second season, J.C. Staff; otherwise, I fear the worst--that everyone will just stop caring~

*Updated on May 30, 2011*

Most of us can recognize tropes and cliches from a mile away, well consider this the picture book for tropes and cliches, which you can look all you want and if you've seen this "book" before, it won't be much for those whom seen it already, despite the fact it's one of those books where you can hide a gun in.

*The first review is a first episode basis review, after that it's the real deal.*

EPISODE 1 REVIEW: It starts out with a teenage boy named Kinji riding his bike at ludicrous speeds that would make bmxers envious appears to be chased ... after right off the bat by a...?
A segway armed with an uzi and a speaker attached to it? Weird.
But at least there's a better reason for him to speeding the way he is, there's a bomb under his seat, literally, and it is set to blow up if he lowers his "Speed".
Lucky for him a young, long haired, flat chested (Whom's breast will be the butt of many ecchi jokes no doubt) girl named Shana! Er...Taiga! Oh wait, Aria, who comes to his rescue with CG gunfire.

But this is what happened before any of this; the main character is getting ready for mercenary school (With guns, bullet proof vests, and all sorts of cool shit) while listening to his hormonal friend cry about everything the main character does or say making her instantly annoying (While the main character tries his best to keep a "whatever man" attitude), but she has big boobies and all is forgiven.
Meanwhile a teacher at said school is giving out an introduction to a class about the school and mentioning a criminal who is out killing the students (The teacher really doesn't seem bothered by this so the adults in this anime probably don't give a shit).

The anime then fast forwards back to where it left off and the two characters are in an awkward sexual position and the main freaks out and takes the chance to check out his companion who has issues with her bodily proportions whom also freaks out accordingly.
But the antics come to a close as a pack of blood thirsty uzi segways starts to shoot up the place, but unfortunately for the segways the main character has the ability to abruptly swap out his character for a total badass who then, after chasing the segways away with CG animation gunfire, starts putting the moves on Aria who he thinks is a middle or elementary schooler (Who'd blame him? and creepy), but of course she's in high school (Obvious as hell)!

After that the main character proceeds to school while nonchalantly explaining that his family genes is the reason he can swap to a more fun character to watch called "Hysteria mode" (Oh I see, it makes sense now, I guess?), then when he reaches his homeroom, Aria is there and everyone calls them lovers.

Afterwards Aria moves in with him out of the blue, the end.

My obnoxiously massive sarcasms aside, this anime has many routes it can go judging off the first episode, but many of those roads may cause a severe case of dejavu for many viewers who at this point couldn't care less about another ecchi or harem anime, but for those who don't know the tropes and cliches or feel comfortable watching familiar elements will most likely enjoy this anime the most.
_____________________________________________________________________________
REAL REVIEW

*I'm spoiling a lot, but frankly, I don't give a f**k*

What's popular isn't necessarily good, but what's good isn't necessarily popular, Aria painfully falls into the former.

STORY: J C has made some of the most popular anime out there, Shakugan no Shana, Toradora, Azumanga Daioh, and Toaru Majutsu no Index are all great examples. So obviously they want to continue the trend train with another runaway hit, right?

Well this is the good example of "Animate whatever random light novel that's out there, no matter what it is," syndrome, which is now common for many animation studios.

Too common for J C unfortunately, my guess would be that J C took one look at the titular character and thought, "Hey, she's underdeveloped physically, she's flat chested, and has long hair! By god, she's like the last couple of girls we animated, and even the novels she's in are popular! Let's animate this!"

Well, let me put my syndrome in this way: it's kinda like the pokemon games, it gets staler and staler with each and every game, same ole same ole.
Unlike the required updates for the pokemon games though, the anime J C puts out is lesser quality for this one, even Shana (An anime that's over 5 years old now) looks noticeably better than Aria, an anime that started in early-mid 2011, which anyone would easily be justified to call it lazy.

But let's look at the story now, that always compensates any lack luster animation, right?

Ehhh, it starts out being nothing special in the least, main male character starts to bond with Aria by doing small stuff like looking for a cat, or going on a date, though it was more babysitting than anything else. Though the male has his unique (Yet random) character trait that literally changes his entire character from typical main male lead who's just a tool for the ladies to mr suave lady killer bad ass, which is quite refreshing for that role... but he doesn't do it enough and just leaves you feeling more desired, though if it did happen more, the anime would just be a full on harem because he has to be (sexually) excited in order for it to happen.

But the on going plot has to do with a criminal called the butei (Butei, sounds a lot like it's pronounced "booty" in english, obviously not a lot of thought was put into this name decision) killer, who arranges EVERY life or death situation like the movie "Speed" by hijacking vehicles from segways to planes and setting bombs all over the place, doing it once was good enough for people to smile at and say "It's like that movie, that cool," but three more times? With each becoming more ridiculous than the last, like it's trying to out do it's self.

Then the anime immediately train wreaks by episode 4.

By that I mean character twists in that episode are embarrassingly ridiculous, one of the characters, the culprit (Who barely gets much screen time, that on top of her weak motives for doing the crimes) reveals that she is the descendant of Lupin, then reveals that Aria is the descendant of Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes vs Lupin, let it sink it and just try to convince yourself that this doesn't sound stupid in the least.
There was absolutely no sign of Aria's relation to Holmes. 100% completely out of the blue, and for no good reason for either character, with only Aria's middle initial and a silhouette of Sherlock himself in the opening animation as lazy hints clues, all the while it abruptly ends the first main story.
It's such a bad twist that even M. Night Shyamalan himself would facepalm.

And for some reason they start treating the whole thing like they solved an actual case... Seriously, at the end of episode 5 one of them says case solved out of no where, which was just damn stupid of them to say because the criminal reveals herself to them and even runs away as well, what the hell has been solved? My limit towards nonsensical bullshit?
She could honestly continue to rip off that movie to still cause mayhem and just because they know who she is, doesn't mean they can stop it, she did it four time or more and she can continue to do it again without anything to worry about, another person could just take over for her because that way of hijacking doesn't look hard at all to pull off.

And speaking of the culprit, she herself is the most ridiculous and nonsensical person of the whole bunch.
From revealing secrets to just seemingly making up whatever bullshit she wants, it'll just make you groan with irritation.
Not to mention that she performs feats of sheer nonsense, to using her hair as a weapon with no explanation until episodes later (Even the most mediocre shonen series would at least explain at the moment for whats happening in the context of it's world), to using her own clothes as a parachute.

Ridiculous, typical, looks cheap, and rehash, I'm sure there's more words to describe the mediocre anime that is Hidan no Aria, but that's just enough for me.

ANIMATION: The characters designs are really uninspired and just unfortunately are too similar to many of JC's past productions.
To be honest, Aria looks exactly what would a cross between Shana of Shakugan no Shana and Taiga of Toradora would look like, just a shana with green hair.
The animation is good, but not amazing, though I would be lying if I said the gun fights weren't exciting, but then again I've seen them done better (Little assassins, a famous outlaw, and an iconic hellish vampire comes to mind).
During many of the gun fights, CG animation is used, but I'll leave that to subjective views.

SOUND: The Tsundere queen repraises her role once again, and that's the only thing really noticeable, the opening is alright and ending sounds great, but leaves no impression.

OVERALL:
The Good:
+ Decent animation, outside of the CG stuff I mean.

Mixed:
+/- Rie Kugimiya voicing another tsundere.

The Bad:
- Retarded plot.
- Cliched like you wouldn't believe.
- The whole cast of characters are nothing more than the generic rip offs that are generic rip offs.
- Half the time the anime makes no sense.
- Episode 4, seriously that episode is bad from start to finish.
- Rehashes too many of it's plot devices.

You really can't blame me for reading too far into the anime, and it is kinda entertaining in it's own way, well it's stupid as entertainment (You can play a nice drinking game for every stupid element to help you get through it).
You can say it's a whole new Shakugan no Shana, but the story is just too incompetent to even make that statement, even Aria herself has no redeeming qualities.
I'm sure they could've redone the story in a way that would make more sense, plenty of anime companies have done so, but this one is just an obvious cash in.

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-

Judging from Hidan no Aria's credentials, it is a safe assumption that it is a run-of-the-mill rom-com with a tsudere at its core and a heaping helping of action. On the other hand it might be a surprise, using genre conventions to its advantage, as Toradora did. As it turns out Hidan no Aria is a surprise... a very unpleasant one. Constantly bombarding the viewer with an endless stream of cliches while throwing in ridiculous plot twists in order to "spice things up", this is a far worse experience than your average generic rom-com.

The show seems to be banking on J.C. Staff's previous successes. It ... is directed by Takashi Watanabe, who had previously directed the popular Shakugan no Shana; plus has the voice of that show's star, Rie Kugimiya, as the show's heroine Aria. It also has Kugimiya's co-star in the massively successful Toradora, Junji Majima, as the male protagonist Kinji Tooyama. This in of itself feels like a cheap trick in order to win an audience. However, with such considerable talent, you would expect the show to at least be halfway decent.

The story itself starts off decently enough, though quite predictable. Kinji finds himself in a life-endangering predicament and is saved by the petite but fierce Aria; a bond is formed between them as to be expected. The settings of the story are actually pretty interesting, with Kinji being enrolled in a school for armed forces, which explains why there are such heavily armed teenagers, albeit a rather silly explanation. Kinji himself has an entertaining gimmick with his "Hysteria Mode" which turns him from low-key and cynical to smooth-talking and arrogant. However, that is about the extent of praise that can be given, even this early into the show. Aria is the most annoying tsundere imaginable, falling straight into the pitfalls of the character type, and capturing none of its charm. Not even the queen of tsuderes herself, Rie Kugimiya, can safe this poorly constructed excuse of a character. Outside of hysteria mode, Kinji is just a typical, boring male lead. The rest of the cast is equally unimpressive, consisting of tired archetypes such as the possessive childhood friend, the stoic sniper girl, the impish antagonist, etc.

What really makes this show a stinker, though, is the completely asinine plot. It is not just horribly written, it is actually insulting to the viewers' intelligence. Characters' motives are poorly justified, often cliche or just plain stupid. Sub-plots pop up right and left, just to come to train-wreak conclusions, or remain unresolved. The big bad crime syndicate, called the I-U, seems to be a group of gung-ho individuals who claim to be associated with each other, but show no coherent signs of being so. Really, it is more of a gigantic nonsensical mess than a plot. Most criminal of all is the shows use of historic figures and classic fictional characters as the reason behind everything; the list of names disgraced include Sherlock Homes, Arsene Lupin, Joan of Arc, and Count Dracula. All whom are concerned must be rolling around in their graves.

The show's technical merits are the aspect most worthy of praise. Takashi Watanabe does his damn best to try and make this dreck entertaining, and to some degree succeeds. The actions scenes are generally exciting and the comedy scenes, while hardly ever working, at least feel like there was some effort put in by the production staff. The artwork itself is bland and generic; yawn-worthy, really. The music pumps up the excitement of the action scenes, but is otherwise pretty unnoticeable. This is the high-point of the show, and honestly... it is not all that high.

The preview of the final episode features an in-joke, in which Aria seemingly forgets Kinji's name and calls him by Yuugi, Saito, and finally Ryuuji. Yes, this is a cute and funny in-joke for all who get it... but it is also a reminder of why shows like this are even created. It seems the modern anime fan is happy to consume just about anything, so long as it has established names attached to it. Really, why else would such drivel even be conceived?

It's one thing to produce an anime that turns out badly, but it's another thing entirely to produce an anime that showcases a complete lack of effort put into production. Hidan no Aria is merely but another step into failure by the largely hit or miss JC Staff, but what really manages to tick me off as a viewer is the complete lack of care and effort put into the production of this anime.

Now listen. I had nothing against the initial setup of this anime, I originally started watching it (And kept doing so for who knows what reason) merely because the premise seemed to ... be fun, although ridiculous. It was something for me to just watch for the shits and giggles, a guilty pleasure if you will.

I never expected tons of depth or complexity in this anime, but I did expect to be entertained. I wanted to see an anime that would be almost the equivalent of a summer blockbuster action flick, which while certainly the highest quality entertainment out there, it still manages to be a fun little experience.

Clearly, JC Staff had other things in mind. Instead of just trying to provide straight forward entertainment, Hidan no Aria was very roundabout with its approach. An incredible amount of the show's time was devoted completely to fanservice and the usual anime tropes. Ranging from the main heroine Aria, who is yet another Kugerie Rie voiced loli tsundere from JC staff, who does nothing but treats the half spineless male lead like a slave, to the yandere childhood friend Shirayuki who dots on the main protagonist in a severely annoying manner, there was almost no character here that felt genuine or likable. I say the male lead is half spineless because supposedly whenever he gets a boner for one of the other girls he enters "Hysteria mode" and changes into some super skilled fighter with an arrogant, charismatic, and overbearing attitude. No joke here either.

Honestly, I feel like I'm writing about some action comedy, but the worst part about it all is that this plot takes itself fully seriously. There are several supposed "dramatic" moments in the series where we are expected to sympathize with each girl in the main character's little harem, especially Aria. There are several times in this series where one will be subjected to Aria's toddler tantrums because of things not going her way, and we are expected to sympathize with her when all she does is slave driver the main lead with a leash.

But hey, even if the characters suck, maybe the action and plot is entertaining... Well one of the major facets of the plot is how these famous people in the world are often direct descendants of famous figures like Holmes, Dracula, Lupin, etc. Each of them bears their own pasts and problems, but really, it's just really, really stupid. I think by the end when you see that the Dracula descendant is a werewolf you will also realize just how stupid this plot line is.

The action itself is often very lackluster. JC Staff's continual budget slashing just makes the show look like utter crap. Nothing about it stands out, and there's not enough of it at all. Not to mention that tons of of the action scenes are marred by again, fanservice since our main lead needs a boner to do anything productive. For some reason he is also relegated to support roles as well.

But I digress. What's clear to me, is that there is a clear lack of effort put forth by JC Staff that is pervasive throughout the entire anime. The fanservice is hardly stimulating, especially when most of it is from a loli pink haired girl. The action lacks punch, and there is far too little of it. And worst of all, each and every character is an anime archetype or trope executed in a very uninspiring manner.

If the creators of the show aren't even trying to make me like this, why should I?

If you don't like reading and just wish to know my opinion on whether or not you should watch this anime, my candid answer would be: "No, No, No, don't fall for the trap i did and just watch something else because Hidan no Aria is mind-blowingly bad".

You're still here?
Well then, lets get into the nitty gritty.
By the way, there will be SPOILERS HERE, I know I'm not supposed to, but I can't write a review on how bad the anime was without 'em, so TEEHEE

So, lets start with the characters,
There is the VERY average anime male(Kinji), who holds the typical traits of ... an anime male, who is the protagonist, which is rare because in most anime he'd be 20 feet from the camera and is rendered blurry cause he ain't worth attention. Now, he is exceptionally normal except for the fact he has a specially ability which I call the "boner ability". When he achieves a boner, he basically bones all enemies and becomes super smart, super brave, and super duper duper stuff.

There is the short girl(Aria), who plays the average short girl routine which is embarrassed about her height and bra size, and is apparently licensed to shoot anything without repercussion because she doesn't hesitate to dual-shoot anything. Also she is somewhat related to Sherlock Holmes but it give her anything.

Then there is the rest of the characters, few male companions of Kinji who are also very average, Riko, Hotogi, the sniper, jeanne, and vlad. none of which were important till the end.

Now the worst bit- the story
I liked where the story was headed(which is why I watched the whole thing) but it ended in another direction which got me disappointed and wilted.

All the characters are part of Butei a school for free lance police that fight terrorists.
-But seeing that the terrorists are aimed at the Butei, and Butei shooting up and bombard areas just shows how they improve their society which is to say of a negative effect.

But never-the-less they are fighting crime, which is till ep 6 where Aria decides to use the Butei for her personal gain and try to free her imprisoned mother who is sentenced to 900 some years(no im not kidding).

Then we find out that Riko is Lupin(which gives her the ability to use her hair like hands) and Aria is Holmes(nothing) and they must fight because fictional English books affect Japanese anime in more than just humor.

Somewhere here Aria and Kinji meet Jeanne - Joan of Arc's relative which gives her the power of ice, which makes even more sense because history and fiction go hand in hand.

Also around here is when Aria agrees to work with Riko who previously hijacked a plane to kill her, (which makes sense because you would work with people that tried to kill you with a plane) to steal something that Riko wants so that Riko can testify to clear her mother and go to jail herself - a fool proof plan indeed.

Ending- Riko betrays them attempts to kill Aria(again), then gets stopped by Butei teacher, Vlad aka. count dracula who is also a werewolf. If you are drawing a big (WTF) around here its because I did too. Anyway Riko teams up with Aria and Kinji who have memories of goldfish and forgives Riko and takes down Vlad by shooting weak points marked out in nice white paint as if he was a first boss in a RPG game.

Now if you are outraged that I didn't mention Hotogi- screw you, she wasn't important and all.

Also if you thought my summary of how poorly written Hidan no Aria was somewhat confusing in any manner, then for you, watching Hidan no Aria will be like giving birth to a 30 lb. baby.

Tokyo Butei High School—It’s a special school where armed detectives, also known as "Butei", armed detectives in training are being brought up. Tohyama Kinji is a junior student who has the unique body which activates a Hysteria Mode. It’s supposedly a genetic condition, when Kinji gets sexually aroused. He turns into a “mega playboy” with superhuman judgment and reflexes. The end result is an extremely suave change in personality. He tries to hide it to others in order to live a peaceful life. But trouble comes to find him when he becomes a victim of a bombing incident, where he meets the Butei high "Assault" ... department elite, Aria H. Kanzaki.

Story & Characters (1/10)
In the near future Japan, teenagers learn to be a Butei, an elite force that specializes in arms and hand-to-hand combat, at Tokyo Butei High. Toyama Kinji is a Butei, but he doesn't want to be. Just as he makes up his mind to leave, however, he stumbles across an anti-Butei Killer and needs a rescue from the fiery, gun-toting Aria. She's tiny, she's skilled, yet she has the temper of a little brat, and after seeing Kinji "transforms" into his hysteria mode, which is a flirtatious, damsel-rescuing prince, to turn the table and rescue her, she wants him to be her partner. Together they battle the Butei Killer, go to school, and get tangled up with other forces who have evil plans.

A little hope can be a dangerous thing. Take Aria the Scarlet Ammo. Its first episode had a few glimmers of interest, so we spend the next six hoping that something will come of them, only to be crushed at every available opportunity by brainless fluff plots and excruciating harem capers. Genre tropes aren't bad by nature, but the way a few series carry and blow them into something unexpected is worth watching. Bad ones use tropes as crutches, to allow them to hobble without doing the work of manufacturing their own appeal. This anime is one of those. One minute Kinji declines Aria's offer of partnership, then a childhood friend who hopelessly mewls over him bursting in to create one of those must-have-harem-comedy, then the next Aria's spouting she's a direct descendant of some badass historical figure. Wow, talk about another facepalm. Wait a few moments and Kinji playing a center idiot in the harem, and suddenly he's a retro hero with the allergic cool look and professional womanizing skills. The entire anime is littered with the corpses of failed harem adaptations; Aria isn't making canny use of its tropes; it simply is them, blown up until they can't be ignored... or enjoyed.

And then there's the main characters; like any show that names itself after its main character, it's fair to say that everything should be laying on the shoulder of its main character. However, Aria isn't a tactical role. She has a frail moe look contrasts to the great skills she possesses, and is indeed indeed to any of Kugimiya Rie's many diminutive tsunderes, but only a resemblance. She has none of the genuine traits or any of the depth of Kugimiya's heartbreaking character; she's a parody, and not a funny one. Her anti-Kinji personality is a typical trait to reveal the insecure, cute and cuddly girl tacked onto the end like a particularly phony afterthought, and somewhere in there there's a few scenes in which she's desperately in need of rescuing despite she claims to be the best Butei at school helps absolute nothing.

Aria is clearly an action series mixed with harem, which itself should sound a warning bell. Kinji is a straightforward harem lead, who has the personalities of one and acts like one. His hysteria mode, though is a funny one, is still a cheap trick. The other two heroines are shy miko Shirayuki and lust-addled (gentlewoman?) thief Riko. They're all superior martial artists, and all hopelessly smitten with him. Turns out they're all descendants of some historical figures like Aria, and lousy ones, too. Each represents a superior harem trait, and they aren't just a string of pointless rumbles, but an oddball of tale.

Art (4/10)
It's the strategic focus of the fights, however, that really gives one hope. They're part of a battle, which despite its controlled nature and lethal weapons, still has many of the opportunities for strategy, betrayal and trickery that a real battle would have. Aria and Kinji's battles are good action showcases, pumped up with nice visuals to portrait the daily battle in the life of a Butei. Unfortunately it isn't all there is to the episode. There are characters to introduce, which generally involves a big dramatic entrance and a quick survey of each girl's loli-flavored character design.

The only sign of life is the show's dumb slight of gags, which is admittedly spotty but also contains hints of fanservice. When Riko makes her escape by using her own uniform as parachute, revealing her busty body, or a matter of concern about Aria's flat chest or screeching at Kinji for being a pervert, are all a silly joke and a mean to pique the interest of the people who would enjoy things like, well, small girls with big eyes.

Sound (6/10)
Tsundere specialist Kugimiya Rie returns to voice the character type that she specializes, but she was just simply reprising her role for Shana, and to be paired with Majima Junji, who she has chemistry since Toradora! and whose characters are just a mere copy of the old one proves to be weaker. They are veterans enough, however, to confine them mostly to invisible supporting roles, so you're unlikely to notice unless you're specifically listening for them. The music score does try its best to pump up the pace and energy, but it feels worn-out like a half-hearted effort.

Overall (3/10)
You hear it a lot, you watch it a lot, and you facepalm because of it a lot. It takes a while for the series' amusement at its own genre-pandering, trope-plundering ridiculousness to register, though. There's very little in the way of humor during the first episode, and the way it lunges from one cliche to the next, taking little care to properly connect them, makes it much easier to cringe at the towering derivation of it all than to laugh at it, much less laugh good-naturedly. Oh, and just to kill things a little more dead, the villains are both random and really, really annoying.

Some series fail because of a lack of anything fresh to work with; others fail because of deficiencies in execution. Aria the Scarlet Ammo squarely falls into the former category. It doesn't have any good ideas and does not do anything to make a new start, and is not sexy enough in the way it does them, to be entertaining as anything more than an ignorance.

This review contains some spoilers, it doesn't really matter since I sincerely believe that nobody should waste their time watching this one. You might as well read this to save your time.

This anime is just ridiculous.
I don't even know what to say...
The person who wrote this aberration should feel really bad.
The only enjoyment I got out of this was laughing awkwardly once in a while to the sheer madness of the plot.

I wonder what went on in the "writers" head...

"Ok, so hear me out! This is like a story about kids that go to school that teaches you to kill, but you can't kill anyone ... (even though the characters are shooting at each other all the time.) They do missions for people that need their help, because society sure needs the help of gunfighting children, screw the police or army. There are also other rules like some good ol' cliché ones like "never leave your friends behind" and other similar ones.
Also, the main character gets all pumped up when he gets to see some skin and. It's called "hysteria mode".
Oh and also, there are also other ridiculous superpowers mixed in there.
Oh and most of the characters are like the grandchildren of famous historical characters.
Oh and we should totally get Kugimiya Rie to voice the obnoxious and loud leading female character, the character is written just for her. She's just like all of the 5237756 other cute tsundere lolis she voices."

That's just the tip of the iceberg.


I have NEVER read, watched or experienced anything with a plot as ludicrous as this one.
Seriously, stay away from this one. The art is mediocre, story unbearable and the characters are horrible.

"Listen up, I have decided you should become my slave"
---- Aria

Yeah if that isn't all the warning you need not to watch this show I don't know what more I can say to help you make the decision.

Aria Kanzaki maybe the most ridiculous and ulikable character to ever grace broadcast television, and I include Eichman and Hitler in the running. She is incredibly poorly written horribly inconsistent and downright annoying. Quite literally whenever she opens her mouth she kills the show and seeing as she is the name character and one of the two primary main characters that's a real problem.

Kinchi Toyhama ... is nearly as bad. I can't begin to say how sick I am of anime leading men, who not only can't act in their own interests but in his case he doesn't even have any interests. Just how the hell do you work up a harem/romcom when no one has the slightest interest in sex or romance ?

The series actually has a semi interesting detective/action story line. The problem is that story and characters go hand in hand and there's just no way you can have a good story built with these characters. Well unless the authors felt like dropping pianos and anvils on them from great heights. Otherwise forget about it. It's just awful. You don't want to see it go on. You really wish one of the killers would just get lucky and kill the characters so they would be out of their misery and everyone else would be as well .

The only saving grace to Aria is the presentation. The music is good, the art is good and at times interesting.

TL:DR avoid like STDs

God it was hard to go to the lat episode. Maybe I expected a lot, maybe the reviews lied, but this was almost impossible to watch through.

Story: 3/10

Take some of the most beloved characters on western culture, put them in a blender, add some japanese background, turn the blender on. Et voila. Hidan no Aria. The story doesn't make any sense at all, it has more plot holes than actual content, and the "dramatic" finale was awful.

Art: 7/10

It's nicely drawn, it has a good color palette and the animation isn't that bad. It has little CGI and that's all. No memorable battle scenes, no memorable ... unique designs.

Sound: 8/10

For me, Aria's strongest poitn. The BGM is great and the Opening and Ending are actually what got me watching this forgettable anime. May'n rocks.

Enjoyment: 5/10

Aria is a good time killer. If you have a free hour you can watch one or two episodes because it's that light. But if your plan is to watch a deep and maybe important series, go and look for something else.

Overall: 4/10

Japan really should stop using western names for strange characters and twisted plots. If you want an overpowered flat-chested red hair go and watch Slayers.

So I came with big expectations to this show. I really thought, that it would be funny - and the first episode did this job pretty good. But after that : it just became horrible.

I want you to know, that I even watched 7 episodes of this bullcrap, before writing my review. But with every episode the story became more and more a compilation of clichées and bad plotwist - no bad is not the right word. They were pathetic.

First of all, lets make a short Overview of the grid from my review:
[1] Story
[2] Artstyle & Logic
[3] Animation
[4] Sound
[5] Characters
... [6] Enyojment

Okay so here it comes: Hidan no Aria, one of the most dissapointing animes ever to be watched.

1) The Story beginns somewhen in the 21. century - at least it seems like it does. Why does it only seem? Because they don't even give a complete watch over the city. Anyways: In order to stop the problem of upcomming crime there was a group called the "Buttei" founded. They are somekind of soldiers who work like the police in order to remain safety for the citizen. BUT they work for money. Well you know the police-officer from the neighbouerhood also gets his wage every month.
Most of them are children (don't ask me why - they probably think that it is cool)
No really - there is not a actual matter WHY they are still childern - it makes no sense in no way of sight. There are plenty of Girls wich are really really clichée-based and their characters are sooooo flat - a thing you can't tell about their chests. Yes: nearly every girl - no matter if she is just 14 or 18 years old - they all got tripple Z over 9000...
So then lets continue: The "Buttei" have a ranking based on their skill-levels. A concept that is so well known and there were so many ways to make it interessting: but they failed. It's just nonesense.
They have a problem - a self-claimed "Buttei-killer" is on his pseudo-bloody trip of ripping the buttei appart with doing terror-atacks. Oh yeah well you know - instead of just blowing random bikes up etc. you could just fuckin' blow up the whole island. Yes: the Buttei have built a artificial Island on wich they have built a giant school. What? Thats totaly normal.
After 7 episodes it just makes me wanna cringe and cut out my brain - the pain is just to much for me.

2) Okay so lets continue with the artstyle: It's okay. It's not something special, there are no real overthought color-palets or anything like that: they cust painted their world a bit with a standart 24bit color-program. And it doesn't even match. Yes I know - its from 2011 and digitla-painting wasn't as developed as nowadays. BUT there are shows from 2006 wich did a better job at this - so its just failing also on this point. There are some detail-works - especially on the bra's or skirts of the girls.
Then there are a huge amount of logic fails: okay - you don't know wich I mean? Let me tell you some of them:
Episode 1: a girl jumps from a roof of a building with about 7-8 floors. That would be about 30 meter. Yes. She jumps - falls about 1-2 seconds and THEn opens her parachute. She would have ended as sludge on the concrete.
Then there are these moments when they shot. Okay I understand they are super high equiped and trained killer-elite fuckers. BUT: how can you manage to avoid a bullet at 1400 feet or nearly 500 km/h. With a distance of about 15 metets (episode 1 or 2) or even less (episode 4,5,6) they would have to react within 0.1 to 0.036 seconds. WELL FUCK.
Also: you can't cut a bullet in halfes with a sword or a knive and even if you would manage to do some with idk your magical-dick-mode or whatever he uses (yes he has to get horny to get into that mode) : They bullet would not fly apart that fast that it wouldnt hurt you. It you still rip you apart cause of a distance of aproxiamtely 0.25 meters (farthes) or less (more logical).
Then - yeah of course if a car flips it explodes instantely. NO IT DOESN'T.
A bomb with about 3500cc of plastic-explosives - yeah of course it makes a 60 meters high fountain of water and a explosion of more than 30meters in diameter when exploding UNDERWATER. No... jsut no. Please die whoever decided to make this happen.

3) They where okay. The main animation was still acceptable - but the cgi. They used standart-explosion animations from things like windows-movie-maker in a DRAWN world. They didn't even manage to draw a plane of so - they animated it: and they did horrible.

4) Well the original-synchro is okay. You can't really say something bad about it, I don't have to rage on this one. BUT the opening soudntrack for example: it is just shit. IT's soooo dreadfu and aaah no I just can't stop bleeding from my ears when hearing it. Sorry but I had to skip it after the first time in order to protect my ears from getting cancer.

5) There are no really special characters. They have no real story wich is somehow new or even interessting: they just packed a train full of shit and let it go - and it crashed and hell yeah: it crashed hard. Every-single girl in the show is a over-sexualized version of a doll with giant boobs, no real character nor a development. They are just useless. Then: oh yeah the boys, The main-character is okay. Not good but also not as poor as the rest. You can life with him. Only thing: why didn't he jsut shot the fucking girl when she was starting to tell her evil-plan and her relation to his brother Nii-san and the EU. Oh ps: thanks for pulling the European Union into dirt ;) I'm sure you didn't even overthing what the EU is. Anyways. All the other boys are not even there to be a part of the story. They are just fillers to tell bad news or make horrible comedy. Do you get it? It's a harem with bad action, clichée girls, shit story, plotholes of the doom, forced and bad plottwists, appealing music and hell of a lot pain for my brain.

6) The first episode was really okay - i even laughed. But afterwards it becomes really bad. I mean - really really bad.
I'd rather watch Euphoria than this show.

I think they did a horrible job. They had a well known but still interessting concept but they've ridden it with full speed into a wall and then tried to make a show out of the bit's of crap that was left.

2/10 overall

English is not my main language and with that in mind I will just give a short review about this anime.
It is also my first review ^^.

I discovered this anime/manga when I was doing a anime magazine for a college course project, it appeared in all the websites that I researched as "The Most Anticipated Spring Anime 2011", so I started to watch the anime and reading the manga thinking that it would be a great anime.

In the beginning I thought "it's a pretty ordinary anime/manga, the story is pretty normal". I continued reading and watching the anime/manga but then it came the part when ... they reveal that Aria is from the family Holmes and Riku from Lupin, I just started to think WTF is that for? Including fiction characters on the anime just because they didn't had imagination to think in something better. But it just came worst with the familiar from a historical heroine Joan Of Arc.

Despite that I continued to watch and reading the anime and manga, thinking that probably there would be more story or the story could improve with the time.

But then the final part on the anime appeared an I just became stupefied with the fact that Vlad was the Dracula and became a giant Wolf. WTF is that?

The fight against Vlad just happened too fast, they could actually put an effort for an awesome fight during 2episodes at least. Vlad 4th Weak Point was just to easy to find.

Then I dropped the manga, because the anime was a FAIL and I thought "Until now the manga is following the same story of the anime, probably if I read it will be the same thing and the same deception"


So that why I am giving Hidan no Aria a 3.

Story: 3- I think it was poor;
Art-7 I think the Art was the best thing on the anime, the rest was really poor;
Sound- 6 I actually hated the opening, but the rest of the sound were fine;
Character-3 The fact of being character related to fiction character or historical heroines was bad. Kinji "pervert mode" I think it's Ok, but the fact of every girl is after him is just to conventional;
Enjoyment-3 I laugh a few times but it wasn't the anime that amazed me or gave me chills;

Hope that helps you and sorry if it has some errors.

Watched the season, and can't believe what tripe some of you vote so highly for.

Is the usual horrible stupid anime about a stupid girl, who acts like a brat to get her way, and where we would call her a bitch, somehow is a cultural thing to call a tsundere in anime. Is a reason she has no friends, and will always have no friends.

The action is stupid and with kids as always in these animes, as adults never fight or solve anything. The stories are bad, the characters suck, the art and sound are reasonable, but overall is a horrible ... anime with no real entertainment value.

Honestly, anyone in real life would have thrown her out of dorms and called security. The show continues with stupidity from hair controlling a plane, the continual stupid Yamdere type behavior basically, and more attacks on a guy, she is obviously in love with. The story continues down stupid paths too, with easily traceable text messages, not detected, and characters doing stupid things, because well, that's how a poorly written anime works.

I dunno what's worse stupidity around villains e.g. height changes for the stewardess to the actual culprit, or how people walk in and out of a school, priding their skills in observation. intelligence etc or the guy's condition. Same with Jeanne d'Arc's double idea. The anime isn't clever creative, is just plain stupid,

The transformation for Vlad is equally stupid, as well as trusting Lupin at any point, so sadly i just wonder if this anime was designed for the stupid.


How this got more than one season shocks me

"Aria the Scarlet Ammo – A Cautionary Tale of Everything Wrong with Anime Tropes"

In Tokyo where students are trained in gun combat and detective work at Butei High School, our “hero” Kinji Tohyama tries to live a quiet life after quitting the Butei elite forces. That is, until he gets roped back in by a sudden attack and is “rescued” by a pink-haired pistol-wielding girl who literally crashes into his life. Enter Aria H. Kanzaki — a small, hot-tempered, gun-slinging tsundere who's supposedly the descendant of Sherlock Holmes.

Sounds like it could be a fun, action-packed school anime, right?

Wrong.

😡 Main Character: Kinji Tohyama – A Human ... Doormat with Zero Integrity
Kinji is quite possibly one of the worst male leads I’ve ever had the displeasure of watching. He’s the kind of MC who is constantly being abused (verbally and physically), humiliated, and degraded — and yet, for whatever unfathomable reason, he keeps falling for the girl doing all of this to him: Aria.

He has what the show calls “Hysteria Mode,” a ridiculous power-up that activates when he’s aroused — yes, aroused — and turns him into a badass superman for a few minutes. The disturbing part? A large chunk of these triggers revolve around Aria, who looks and acts like a 10-year-old child. The show tries to play this off as “funny” or “cool,” but it’s neither. It’s just creepy and cringe-inducing.

There are smarter, kinder, more mature women around Kinji — like Shirayuki, who literally puts her life on the line for him — but he continues to simp for Aria, whose only personality traits are “small,” “violent,” and “loud.”

It’s insulting to watch. It’s like the writer went out of their way to create the most spineless, irrational, and oblivious male protagonist imaginable.

🤯 Aria H. Kanzaki – A Walking Checklist of Everything Wrong with Tsundere Tropes
Let’s be blunt: Aria is not a strong female lead. She is a caricature of a tsundere stereotype taken to its most obnoxious extreme. She’s constantly hitting Kinji, yelling at everyone, and throwing tantrums like a toddler who missed nap time. Her small stature and overly childish design only add to the problem — especially when the show keeps pushing her as the romantic lead.

Her arrogance isn’t balanced with competence; her aggressiveness isn’t softened by vulnerability. She’s just an exhausting, one-note character who gets more screen time than she deserves. Worse, the show sexualizes her in ways that are both uncomfortable and completely unnecessary. It’s frankly bizarre and unsettling.

🚨 Romantic Dynamics – A Masterclass in Poor Writing and Creepy Priorities
What absolutely kills this anime is how hard it tries to force a “romance” between Kinji and Aria — despite it being toxic, one-sided, and painfully unrealistic. You have other girls — Shirayuki, Riko, even Jeanne — who show real affection, trust, and development, but they are cast aside just to spotlight the abusive, unfunny tsundere antics of Aria.

The emotional weight of the story is drowned in a sea of slapstick abuse, awkward fanservice, and misplaced fetishism. The worst part? Kinji’s reactions to Aria are frequently laced with inappropriate attraction, even when she’s in clearly childlike or compromising situations. It’s not romantic. It’s not comedic. It’s uncomfortable.

🧨 Story, Worldbuilding, and Pacing – All Style, No Substance
The action scenes are bland. The detective elements are laughably thin. The missions feel like a lazy excuse to throw Kinji and Aria into more forced “romantic” tension. The pacing jumps between edgy action and tone-deaf harem comedy with no consistency.

There’s potential in the premise — a school for gun-wielding teenage detectives could’ve been amazing in the hands of better writers. Instead, we get meaningless plot twists, inconsistent lore, and tons of screen time wasted on Aria screaming at Kinji over misunderstandings while he stares at her like she’s some kind of divine creature.

⚰️ Final Verdict: Stay Far, Far Away
Aria the Scarlet Ammo is not just a bad anime — it’s an embarrassing anime. It’s everything wrong with the worst of anime tropes: a pervy power system, an MC with the spine of a boiled noodle, and a female lead who’s emotionally stunted, physically childlike, and violently unlikeable.

The show romanticizes abuse, fetishizes immaturity, and actively ignores any meaningful emotional connection between characters. It’s not a bold take. It’s not even an edgy comedy. It’s lazy, creepy, and creatively bankrupt.

If you’re looking for action with strong female leads, interesting relationships, or even just a coherent tone — watch anything else.

Skip this. Burn the Blu-rays. Forget it exists.

Friends turn enemies.. enemies become friends..
The whole first session seems like an unhinged fever dream directed by the SOS brigade.
The main girl, Aria, is a violently unstable tsundere Loli with GUNS..! Aria is happy to turn anyone into swiss cheese, should you not submit to her psychotic orders (like becoming her slave?).
Next we have our mandatory one dimensional virgin chad, Kenji, with absolutely no character, passions or strengths. Only thing going for him is transforming into a cringelord with opposite traits after seeing some cleavage. He isn't smart, charming or stimulating in any capacity, yet everybody loves him.
These kinds of shows ... are dime a dozen with very small variations to tell them apart. I'm curious if there's actual demand for them or if it's victim to poor execution during adaptation.
Pros: quality gun renderings with great details included,
Cute girls of all shapes and sizes,
Above average animation quality and fight scenes.
Cons: same old tropes with poor execution, lack of world building, immersion and main character development,
Childish plot progress that's all over the place.

Just don't watch it