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.
Alternative Titles
Synonyms: Hidan no Aria
Japanese: 緋弾のアリア
More titlesInformation
Type:
TV
Episodes:
12
Status:
Finished Airing
Aired:
Apr 15, 2011 to Jul 1, 2011
Premiered:
Spring 2011
Broadcast:
Fridays at 01:25 (JST)
Licensors:
Funimation
Studios:
J.C.Staff
Source:
Light novel
Duration:
24 min. per ep.
Rating:
PG-13 - Teens 13 or older
Statistics
Ranked:
#55542
2
based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.
Popularity:
#662
Members:
387,466
Favorites:
923
Available AtResourcesStreaming Platforms | Reviews
Filtered Results: 18 / 94
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Your Feelings Categories Jul 2, 2011
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 ... Jul 1, 2011
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 ... May 16, 2011
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 ... Jul 2, 2011
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. ... Apr 15, 2011
*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 ... Aug 16, 2014
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 ... Jul 6, 2011
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 ... Jul 19, 2011
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 ... Aug 10, 2011
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 ... Aug 1, 2012
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"
...
Jun 1, 2012
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 ... Jan 28, 2020
"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 ... Dec 18, 2015
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 ... Oct 18, 2016
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 ... Nov 29, 2011
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 ... Mar 9, 2022
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 ... Jun 9, 2025
"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 ... May 26, 2025
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 ... |