ed09 - 2017-06-07 03:28:33

Amazing ecchi. Actually watched it all the way through instead of just admiring the art/girls.

mona.donnelly - 2016-03-21 13:23:51

Both the plot and character are lacking in substance. The show was filled with unnecessary panty shots and perversion. 
Truly IMMORAL

gaylord.alyce - 2014-11-30 02:33:57

So I'll keep this review short and sweet~ 

マケン姫っ!,

Story- Weak Harem boy who comes in to see drop dead beautiful woman throwing there bodies at him but he is to scared to smash them he to busy being a pervert.

Animation-If you like hentai this is it this is uncensored hard-core ecchi based off hentai animation like you can see her nipple.

Sound-Nothing special only one good tune and that's the opening theme in a piano version.

Characters-All to corny and predictable there's the bad ass one who claim to not like the main character but she do.There's the typical shy boy and pervert jealous friend. There's the shy girl who won't confess her feelings and so on.

Enjoyment-Every episode is funny in its own way and there always a close up shot on the girls sexual areas the dubbing is the way to go cause it will make your cry of laughter the sub can't do this anime justice.

Overall - This anime is just an...... Hentai Reincarnation

yullrich - 2014-08-11 18:35:43

Today, a review of Maken-Ki! An anime about PLOT PLOT PLOT PLOT PLOT PLOT.

Intro

The ecchi genre is probably one of the most notorious genres in anime; mostly because you know what you are getting yourself into when you watching it. I usually go into anime of this nature with very low expectations, because, although they may be fun to watch, there isn’t really any substance to the anime as a whole. *unless you are taking about breast size* Sometimes, however, I usually find some hidden gems that actually turn into some of my guilty pleasures. So in keeping that in mind, today I’ll be reviewing Maken-Ki. Will this be a hidden gem or a disappointing ecchi that sucks family jewels? Join me as we answer this question.

Brief Synopsis

Maken-Ki! revolves around our main character Takeru, a typical perverted anime high schooler. He is now enrolled into the newly co-ed Tenbi Academy. Takeru thinks he’s struck gold when he is surrounded by plenty of high school girls in various shapes and sizes. *I’m talking about breast size of course * However, Takeru is pretty stupid in the sense that he doesn’t do enough research on this academy. It turns out that Takeru has enrolled in no ordinary high school. All the students wield special items known as Maken. These special items allow the students to unleash their magical powers in fights. So now, Takeru is faced with trying to fit into this weird environment, while still trying to live the dream of every male alive at this female filled high school.

Characters - 3.0

Like I said, the lead of this harem series is Takeru. Now I’m gonna be straight-forward with you. Takeru is a dull main character, even among dull main characters standards. He is the generic harem lead with a personality of a rock. *No offence Dwayne Johnson* At no point in this anime do you ever feel a connection with Takeru. He either one, fills you with anger and jealousy, because we know a body pillow is a bigger player than he is. Or two, give the audience literally 30 seconds of badassery before he forgets his memories of said 30 seconds and reverts back to the loser he is, ultimately ending the episode off on a stupid gag! UGHHHHHHHH. THIS SHOW IS SO FRUSTRATING!... Sorry, I got a bit worked up and that sounded a tad bit biased. I meant to say he reverts back to his boring worthless self. *a little better I guess* Him losing his memory pretty much stunts any possible chances of his character developing in the slightest.

Now introducing the rest of the cast. We have small, medium, large, extra large, the childhood friend, the cat, the brown one, the athletic one (best girl), convenient bursts of light, and the student council president. There are also like ten thousand more females in this show which actually raises a problem.

See, the characters of Haru, Inaho, and Kodama were actually really likable and made the first couple of episodes enjoyable. I was looking forward to seeing more of these girls, even if character development would be minimal. But instead, I got an influx of female characters too the point where it just got frustrating. There were too many girls that were there for the sole purpose of having some sort awkward interaction with Takeru, and once the episode was over they were thrown away and replaced with another.

The character interactions actually made me laugh on occasion, but the antics quickly became predictable and repetitive. I know that these scenes are the cornerstone of the ecchi genre, but at the same time it just became annoying and boring to watch.

That’s why characters gets a lousy 3 out of 10.

Story - 2.5 (20%)

The story in Maken-Ki is all over the place, which I a shame because it has a decently interesting premise. First and foremost, Maken-Ki ultimately fails in its pacing. The series often switches from happy-go-lucky episodic stories, to a more serious overarching story about “the academy” . This switching between these two plateaus was handled very poorly and ultimately broke any momentum the story was attempting to build.

“Oh no! There is a potential plan to take over the academy. What should we do to stop this impending disaster? I know! Play extreme water polo.”...Genius. Hey you guys in the Middle East! Take some notes!

This also transpired to the episodes themselves, where serious badass Takeru moments were often interrupted by out-of-place overused fanservice-y gaffs. Honestly, this made the story go nowhere, which then forcefully rushes to wrap the story up. The ending to the anime was simply unfulfilling.

There is also somewhat of a romantic subplot between Takeru and a couple of the girls, but it is given the same lack of respect the overarching story is given. These relationships don’t progress because the writers were more preoccupied with creating awkward situations with the female cast, than give the overarching story the attention it desperately needed. This in turn, paved the way for the fanservice to come out forced and unnatural.

The story was just horrendous and that’s why it gets an awful 2.5 out of 10.

Animation- 5.6 (25%)

The animation was handled by XEBEC, who were in charge many other anime that fall under the ecchi genre. And I’m kind of confused. After all the other ecchi anime they have done, why don’t they know how boobs work? No, serious question. How large can these things grow up to? It looks like these things can grow up to the size of Rob Ford’s waistline. And, not to mention, any small movement triggers an earthquake. The animators should’ve put more of their budget on researching boob physics.

And as for Takeru, he literally had the most generic character design. He was just boring to look at. Like you literally look on page 341 in the Webster’s English Dictionary under generic character designs and you’d see Takeru’s face.

From a technical standpoint, the set pieces were actually quite attractive, but they get dull really quickly because they were often overuse. There were plenty of shortcuts which consisted of several still frames.

Lastly, the fight scenes were just poorly choreographed in general. I have to talk about the fight scenes, because they actually make up a large portion of the series. The fight scenes were just yet another opportunity to add more panty shots and fanservice; which is also a shame, because the first fight scene actually showed a lot of promise. The fights were boring, predictable, and just downright disappointing.

That’s why I give the animation a disappointing 5.6/10.

Sound -  6.0 (15%)

The soundtrack was often hit or miss. Most of the OSTs seemed out of place. The only tracks that worked really well were the ones pertaining to its high school setting. This is obviously an exception for this one OST that made any fight sound phenomenal. The problem was that even though the song was epic, it didn’t compliment the anime very well. Because, on it’s own, the track is epic, but the fights in Maken-Ki! are quite far from that. It was just assigned to any fight and didn’t mesh well.

The opening theme was actually super catchy and I think it did a pretty good job introducing the anime. The ending theme was...cute... I guess. Yeah, just cute. *I don’t know any other way to describe it* The voice acting seemed standard with no real standouts either.

All in all, the sound seemed average. There isn’t really anything else that I can comment on; nothing else that was outstanding or too underwhelming. So I give sound an average 6 out of 10.

Enjoyment - 4.0 (10%)

So did I like Maken-Ki? Well, believe more or not, I actually enjoyed some of the show. The first couple episodes were stupid, but I still enjoyed them; and you know what? That’s not saying much, because I am a simple man with very simple needs. *PLOT*

But as a whole, the series was significantly lacking in a lot of categories. Now, I know a lot of you will think that I was too hard on this show, especially because it’s an ecchi. But even as an ecchi, Maken-Ki falls short of the mark.

For me personally, the most important part of an ecchi series - aside from it’s PLOT PLOT PLOT - would have to be the characters. Even if the story is uninteresting, the characters will drive the series along. And the fact is, the characters don’t even have to have good character development; all these characters have to do is be enjoyable. And this is one of the main areas Maken-Ki fails.

Like I said before, we aren’t given any reason to like Takeru. What about him is likable? Very little. Issei from Highschool DxD is much more relatable and entertaining to watch on screen, and that ultimately contributes to the quality of the respective series. This can also be used to talk about the girls in the show. We, the viewers, are not given any time or reason to like them either. There are so many girls that there is no time to form a connection with them; they are easily forgettable.

At the end of the day, Maken-Ki doesn’t know what it wants to be. It tries to be a light-hearted ecchi, but then sometimes it wants to be able to tell a cohesive story. It continually switches in between these two plateaus and adds female characters in any time between. And this just makes for bad storytelling.

Final Verdict - 4.10

Overall, Maken-Ki! doesn’t offer anything other than fan service. It’s disorganized storytelling filled with characters you can’t connect with. The animation and sound are average and they don’t offer anything new or exceptional.

So should you watch Maken-Ki? Well, if you are a fanservice aficionado, then sure; there is a lot of fanservice. If you are searching for anything else, then this doesn’t deserve your time. At the end of the day, its easy to make a “hey look at all these girls and their boobs” anime. It’s easy to throw your characters under the metaphoric bus, and just rely on boobs and give everything else no time or effort; it is lazy to do so.

If you want to watch enjoyable ecchi with a likable cast, check out High School DxD. And for everyone else watch Free! OH YEAH! So for my own personal enjoyment, I give it a very low 4 out of 10. So after tallying up all the scores, I reward Maken-Ki! a final score of 4.10 out of 10.

So, that was my review of Maken-Ki! I hope you guys enjoyed it. And as always, rate, comment, and subscribe. And as always, I’ll see you next time!

qgreen - 2013-12-02 16:10:42

My grand journey began with a simple stroll through the ANN column when a certain review caught my eye. As I read through, I slowly got the feeling that the critic didn't particularly like this show. Amusement filling my eyes as he ranted on from the tropes to set to physics, A little part of me clicked. So this show was bad was it? I think I'll be the judge of that. And so I jumped into the world of Maken-Ki!

Given that I went into Maken-Ki! With not the best expectations, I decided I'd give it a bit of leeway. But what I saw was unfortunately not much higher than what I predicted to be. I won't go into too much depth for the sake of spoilers but one of the most primary factors I found to be quite off putting was the show's pacing. While at times I was genuinely enjoying it at certain points, I felt it really struggled to maintain whatever focus it had. It seemed to alternate from episodic to story based quite violently and these elements clash in horrific. Imagine your stereotypical harem protagonist (nerdy,awkward, you know the type) is getting a power up in the midst of an episode and you think to yourself "hello, what's this then? Could this be leading somewhere?" Then out of the blue, amnesia strikes. Main dude forgets what happened and then someone "pulls a funny". Next episode.

Moving onto characters, I'm not really sure how I should tackle this. I'll put it to you straight. If you've seen any harem, ever, you know who this cast is. You've got ponytail the childhood friend, pigtails the tsundere,nyan the cat lover,the twins, the emo, the foreigner etc etc... Too be honest, these tropes pop up every episode usually in the form of "we're not like that" or maybe some pun about breasts. Funny that I should mention those, if you've seen the art for this, even if it was just a quick peep, you have some idea of what you're dealing with. Melons on steroids. In fact, I felt that it wasn't just the sheer size of the holy vessels that seem to dominate the screen for about roughly half each episode but the physics as well. Just look at this.

It's almost handling jelly more than anything else. It's a shame that the writers seemed more intent on putting the characters into awkward situations were these would defy the laws of physics rather than any real character progression.

In terms of art, I thought that besides these violent boob twerks or the numerous panty shots that dominated the show throughout, it wasn't particularly great or bad. The set design was nice to look at but the colour schemes quickly become repetive and lose their charm. Likewise, characters don't have a lot of thought put into their design, sticking closely to their prescribed stereotypes. However I felt that the show's biggest letdown was the promise it showed in the first fight scene. While the majority of the series later scenes mainly consist of off camera action, sweeping skirts and ancient dance rituals, I thought the cinematography behind the very first showdown was very well choreographed and this just makes the latter scenes all the more depressing to watch.

Sound wise, none of the background OST really seemed to fit the context, often contrasting the mood and ruining what little astmosphere it had created. And even when the track did fit the scene, it was often extremely generic. Also, while I don't have a problem with electronically creates music, I felt that they were all very hasty created and never seemed like they were fully in synch with the animation. But there is one saving grace in this field; The opening. Despite it being pretty generic in an overview, it was oddly addictive. It was had a really bouncy beat which when paired with the catchy lyrics, which were often quite comedic when placed to the animation, it gave it a really upbeat feel to it. This was in fact one of the main reasons I was able to watch it all the way through.

All in all, while I think that it had some nice ideas,these were very heavily covered with copious amount of needless fanservice. In fact, while I have no problems with the more exotic side of anime, in this case, I felt that that the concept were only there as an excuse to flash some boobs in your face which rapidly becomes more and more tedious. In all retrospect, the themes that are present in this I have seen done before and often better. Want supernatural powers for each character? I point you to Guilty Crown. Want romance between high school sophomores? Kimi ni todoke. In the end, while there were some elements that had potential to lead into a decent story, these were quickly smothered and crushed beneath the show's colossal mascots.