christop.spencer - 2015-07-05 15:29:53

I really adore this anime, the only thing i was disappointed with was the filler episodes. They were great to watch but i just felt like they could of added more relevance to the story. It was also very sad and still makes me cry when i watch is XD 

ruby00 - 2015-06-09 17:47:21

Surprisingly good anime, to say the least. When I first started watching Mai-Hime, I didn't really check out what it really was. I was simply expecting an anime with average entertainment, and I was wrong. It had a good story and a strong character development, though it can feel a bit slow in the start for some viewers. I personally got my eyes wide open in episode 8! 
And it comes from a manga as far as I know. I don't really read manga, but I surely want to read this one in the future!

To begin with, I didn't really plan to write a review since I rarely do it. But when I was a guy's review that only said untrue stuff and shit, I felt that this anime deserves way better respect. (There are better reviews out there.) This is still gonna be a bit short.

Story (spoiler-free): Girls with superpower of some sort, and with a mecha pet known as "Child" gathers at a particular school to fight. And with the power of love and friendship, they will save the world.. Ops, wrong anime. But its along the line of saving the world or people to start with. But its without the friendship thingy. I don't thing they all is that good friends, thought they can live by eachothers. Infact they don't really know who have the powers or not to start with, other than it have to be a girl and its only 12 of them. To be true, its hard to say much about the story without spoiling too much. 

Animation: I really like the animation. And to be made in 2004, I would think they did a really good job here. The backgrounds was perfect, and the characters had a good design. Ofcourse they could use light and dark tones ever so slightly better, but it's still a good artwork. 

Sound: The sound is near perfect. I love the music, the sound-effects and the voice-actors or our heroes! 

Characters: The character development is strong in this one. At least the anime convinced me though. Mai is a character I ended up liking a lot. How the whole story takes on her and her friends is one of the strong points in the anime. 

Personal enjoyment: I newly finished the anime before I wrote this, and I enjoyed this anime. It was amazing, and is definitely hitting my top list of all anime, and a recommendation to many.

I know there is a spin-off series, and I will watch it. When I looked at character list there, I got a bit sad that I didn't see Mai listed there at all. But I'm still gonna watch it (it's named Mai-Otome).

mayer.francis - 2013-07-11 08:23:51

Please keep in mind that this is my first review. So, if make any mistakes or the review is not detailed enough; please message me and i'll correct my mistakes. Mai Hime Every once in a while, as an anime viewer, you happen to watch a show that surprises you. A show you watch because you really have nothing better to do,and your probably not really expecting much. You don't expect the show to touch you, to actually make you care about what happens on the screen. Mai-Hime was exactly this kind of show for me. I happened to run across it several months ago and, while I thought the first episode was good, I didn't really care about the prospect of watching High school girls fight each other with giant monsters. I just wasn't into that kind of thing, at the time. Then I picked the show back up and, while some of the earlier episodes are a little to comedic for my tastes, this show has turned into a personal favorite of mine.Story: 8The very first episode is fast paced and it raises several questions. But, don't worry these questions do get answered by the end. The first half of Mai-Hime is mostly character development and light hearted in nature. The second half, however, is dark and is when some of the best moments of the series come to the fore. One thing you will have to be prepared for is the fact that people will die, and alot of them to. This would have been an easy nine, if not for the ending. Which, thankfully, is foreshadowed. So, at least it didn't come out of nowhere.Art: 8You don't ever have to worry about telling characters apart because, from the main characters all the way down to the lowliest characters; everyone has their own unique design. Some of the enemy monsters are sort of generic looking, however. All the Child's look unique with Mai and Nao's being my personal favorite design.Facial expressions are well done, as well. And the battle scenes are well animated, yet there are better looking anime out there.Sound: 10The Music for Mai-Hime is fantastic, especially the battle music. The Seiyuu are very talented, Mai's in particular. Her seiyuu had to demonstrate range, as Mai goes through several different emotions throughout the course of the series. If I had to say one bad thing about the music, it would be that the intro music may mislead you.Character: 8Mai Hime has an exceptionally large cast, probably one of the largest i've seen in any entertainment medium. You may think that there would be no way possible to juggle a cast pushing the thirty's, but Mai Hime does an exceptional job. To be honest not every one gets as much attention as others, but just enough screen time to establish there personalities. That said, Mai Tokiha is the main character and gets by far the most screen time. She is, in my opinion, the lifeblood of Mai Hime. In my opinion, no show will ever truly "work" unless the protagonist is well done. Fortunately, Mai is a fully realized character who goes through many different emotions throughout the course of the series. In a word the series is worth watching just because of her. You may be fooled into believing she is just like any other female in an anime but, believe me, that is not the case.Enjoyment: 9The Show starts out slow, and those people who want constant battle may not enjoy that element of the series. But, know this: there is always a reason for the fights in this show and the after effects of the battles are just as important as the fights themselves, if not more so. Overall: 8With great music, realized characters, and an incredibly enjoyable second half; this show would have been an easy ten. If not for the slow start, that I understand some people will not enjoy, and a less than satisfying ending. That said: The journey to the end is more than worth it.

cronin.darrion - 2013-05-18 10:39:36

I'll always remember "Mai-HIME" for what it represented - the worst anime in a lineup that was, in my opinion, the worst ever assembled by my local anime society. It's a series that was surprisingly popular back in the day, but now it's rapidly fading into the obscurity it thoroughly deserves. With its gratuitous fanservice, cheap melodrama, and the much used formula of kids with monsters that made it feel like it was trying to make up for missing the pokemon bandwagon that was all the rage a few years before, just about the only thing "Mai-HIME" has going for it is its high production values. Just the first few episodes should be enough to alert you to the kind of show this is. The anime wastes no time in introducing its bullshit "HiME" concept. In case you're wondering, "HiME" stands for "Highly Advanced Materialising Equipment". Now, I don't know about you, but to me, that abbreviates to "HAME", or at least "HiAME". If you haven't guessed already, this is essentially an attempt to describe, in a "cool" way, "flashy, robotic guardian monsters that gets summoned out of thin air"... it's almost as laughable as the anime itself. Just where do these digimo... er, I mean HAME, come from? Were they built by some mad scientist perhaps? Some kind of experiment maybe? You'll be disappointed if you're hoping to find answers to such "irrelevant" questions. Despite being "highly advanced equipment", their existence seems more mythical than mechanical. Either that, or the explanation went right over my head (my brain switched off after the first 5 minutes or so) along with a bunch of other extremely flimsy explanations that serve only as token gestures to help you swallow the totally ridiculous settings. My guess is, these HAME's are just there cos they seem like a "cool" idea.After dispensing with the sketchy concept, "Mai-HAME" soon launches into a series of mindless battles. Despite the highly polished animation, the action sequences in "Mai-HAME" feels kind of flat to me. This is partly because I don't really care much about any of the characters, so none of the battles carries much emotional weight, and partly because the execution just isn't that spectacular... there's nothing in here that can compete with the likes of some of the exhilarating Gundam battles from "Gundam Seed" or some of the more memorable fighting scenes from "Rurouni Kenshin", for example."Mai-HAME" has a cast of even more forgettable characters to go with the forgettable action. For starters, the size of the cast is about 742, and in fact, during a scene where yet another group of previously fringed characters came into focus, I distinctly remember hearing sniggering around the room (I was watching this at my local anime soc, in case you've forgotten), along with whispers of "who are they again?!" Many anime have tried to have a large set of characters, and the difficulty in juggling the storyline between them all as well as developing them properly means that most of them ends up having virtually zero impact. "Mai-HAME" is no exception, with the only difference being it probably managed to cram in more characters than any other, with none of them managing to score much higher than "bland" on my scale.I have to give this anime some credit - it can be considered an epic achievement that the story of "Mai-HAME" manages to stand out within all this chaos... but it stands out in the wrong way of course. As crappy as the rest of it is, the story really takes the biscuit with its bizarre mash up of cliches and head-scratching-worthy plot twists. While the first half doesn't really do much other than introducing the over used monster guardian concept, the plot truly takes off in the second half. I can't really say that the plot doesn't go anywhere, because it does. In fact it goes really far... just not to a place I can follow. Twist after twist just seems to come out of no where - rather like the HAME themselves - and putting them together gets you a plot so ridiculous it's hard to take it seriously. Especially when half way through, the plot starts to take on characteristics that seem inspired by reality TV shows. Character development goes the same way, as characters previously lurking in the background suddenly comes into the foreground to display facets of their personalities that wasn't even hinted at before, but nevertheless has an impact on the plot (mind you, considering the hashed up attempt at developing the central characters, more screen time for the fringe characters probably wouldn't have helped this cause). On the other hand, other aspects of the characters that are supposed to be more hidden are alarmingly obvious. For example, you can tell who most of the villains are within a couple of moments of their introduction, and a certain piece of info that one of the characters tried to keep from the others has gotta be one of the worst kept secrets ever.Towards the end, the anime gets quite ruthless with killing off its characters, with the excellent, hauntingly beautiful melodies of the BGM written by Yuki Kajiura doing its best to make those moments more dramatic. But it's all in vain - since I couldn't really give a toss about those characters, just about the only thing I can remember feeling was detachment. And the ending... dear Jebus! Let's just say that all that drama in the last few episodes of the series were undone in a single stroke. It's so jaw dropping bad that it makes me shudder just thinking about it.If you have any fragment of doubt remaining over the nature of this show after watching it, then the DVD specials should lay them to rest. I don't know what the hell the committee members were thinking when they showed them - they are basically short clips fanservice in its inexcusably purest form (it's bordering on pr0n)... there's just no other way to describe them. When you take all these things into account - the fanservice, the pokemon/digimon rip off, the popular school settings, the reality TV show elements, and even the random appearance of ninjas (yeah they really do appear, I kid you not) etc, it's pretty clear that "Mai-HAME" is nothing but an extremely shallow title that's looking to pick up cheap points by throwing a bunch of popular concepts together. Avoid this unless you just want eye candy or a kick ass OST. Or if you just want to point and laugh at it.

aurelio42 - 2013-03-31 14:51:30

It's a fun anime, no doubt about that, and if you're a hard core shoujo lover who enjoys a splash of fantasy and girl-fighter action then this anime is right up your alley. 

And even if you're not, then you can treat yourself with all the fan-service the anime loves to provide. Either way, you're in for a real trip!