She, The Ultimate Weapon

Saikano has all of the best intentions for a tragic romance, and it sets its story up really well. And that, dear readers, is where all of my positive remarks end for this emotion-milker. I do not fault those of you who call this one of the most moving anime out there. Far from it, it's full of emotion. But there is such a thing as pacing and this is where the anime conks out. Saikano's story is so diligent in making sure it's viewers never forget that unspeakable tragedy is inevitably nearing, even from the very first few episodes. The world being at war andcountries falling daily, it's only a matter of time before the hellfire reaches our two young lovers. The problem is that matter of time takes forever to get here. The series does its best to retain a sense of tragedy throughout, but the results are hardly worth the excruciating wait. By the time tragedy did strike, I just didn't care anymore. This is not made any easier by the cast. The focus of the story is Chise and Shuji. Chise, being a walking weapon of mass destruction, has the weakest of personalities. Her primary habits include being slow, dull, and average except that she can sprout metal wings. This girl's positively transparent, and Shuji is not much better. His indecisive attitude only fuels the series into dragging on and on. Though he finally grows past it, it just seems futile afterward in context to what is happening in the world around him. Akemi, the only relatively interesting character in the series, is otherwise squandered as the show demands so much focus on Chise. The art is definitely the highlight of the show. It's impossibly delicate which surprises me because this is from the blatant CG glutton GONZO, yet there's practically nothing in the series that looks as such. It flows nicely and always looks beautiful. Definitely a plus. The BGM was forgettable as it was mostly renditions of the forgettable OP and ED. Not bad, but not good, and certainly not enough to warrant further attention. Overall, I feel Saikano had the potential to be great, but ended up overstaying its welcome. It's got a great start and a somewhat decent finish, but a neverending middle that sucked my emotions dry before it could make a difference. If your eyes are bottomless wells for tears, then have at it. You'll probably enjoy it a heck of a lot more than I did. Overall, Saikano gets a 6 out of 10.

Saikano is awkward. Extremely awkward. And not even in a good way. I watched this series basically over the course of two days, and I have to say if I hadn't just kept watching it, I probably would not have bothered to finish it (unfortunately, I did.) Let me explain why. ☢CAUTION!!☢  SPOILERS AHEAD ☢CAUTION!!☢ Story: 3 If I was able to make any recommendation across media, I would definitely say this show reminded me a lot of Nitro+'s visual novel Saya no Uta. For those of you not familiar with it, it's a somewhat gory and sexually explicit short storyfollowing one male protagonist, who through what can probably be excused as fate, sees the world as a conglomeration of flesh and things. The only thing that appears normal to him is a girl, who in time they fall in love with one another, and in the end, she turns out to be an unstable slaughter-alien that basically destroys the earth. It's a really heart-touching story despite what it may sound like, and Saikano attempted very much to accomplish the same thing. The problems with Saikano, though, are many. First off, the one question that kept nagging me was this: who are they fighting? Across the entire series, you never find out who the Japanese are fighting against. They're only referred to as 'the enemy', and it's basically impossible to determine anything about them because you only actually see 'the enemy' a total of about 3 times. So if that's not military intelligence enough for you, check out their choice of weaponry: Arming a hormonal teenage girl with enough missiles to wipe out an entire town several times over, and then letting her run freely around school, pretending to be a normal human. Why didn't the military pick a mid-20s male in prime shape, and instead pick a clumsy, dopey girl? (More complaints on characters to come) Nobody knows. I guess the military was just trolling. Tens of billions of yen spent creating the 'Ultimate Weapon', and they fail to pick somebody who was even capable of walking in a straight line without wiping out. Military matters aside, all that's left in this show is romance drama. I probably wasn't watching as closely as I should have been, so I got confused with the characters a little, but it didn't matter. The basic idea is that this is supposed to be, as the subtitle may suggest, "The last love song on the planet." It's anything but pure. Nearly every character in the show cheats on one another with every other character, resulting in one big, confusing, web of spitesex. None of the characters seem to be enjoying it, and none of them do anything to pretend that they do. Probably half the scenes have the characters crying or cursing themselves, while the other half typically have one of the partners cut up, coughing up blood, dying, or with tentacles coming out of their stomachs. Meanwhile the other sits and says classic lines such as, "You're beautiful," or "Touch my breasts." The 'plot', should you be generous enough to call it that, resolves when the main character and his Ultimate Weapon Girlfriend (UWG from here) are atop a building where they first fell in love, repeatedly having sex while the town under them is destroyed in a giant tidal wave, shortly followed up by massive black ... masses coming from the sky and doing I don't even know what. Then, failing to protect the planet, UWG manages to only save main guy, who is then left alone on the destroyed planet (probably) only to sit and rather easily go insane, and probably to die of starvation within a couple days. There's nothing heart-warming about that. There's nothing depressing about that. It's just stupid. Art: 6 ...I hesitantly say this is the best aspect of the show. The art is solid and consistent throughout the series. That isn't to say, though, that it's actually good. First off, for some reason, every character is constantly blushing. Constantly. Throughout the entire show. Then when they actually do blush, it looks more like a rash that got irritated and their entire face becomes inflamed. Or something. The character designs themselves are pretty unoriginal, which loaned itself to me not being able to keep track of characters. Main character looks like he's about 30, though, and UWG averages 8. Her face is literally a circle, and she's short and fat-looking. I mean, I'm not gonna rip on them for /actually/ making an anime girl fat, but the thing is, I don't think she's supposed to be. I think it was their attempt to expand on her character through her appearance. Then again, I could be wrong. The one thing that did manage to win several points was UWG's design when she was in full-out destructo mode. She appears several times with a pair of large, metallic wings in various forms throughout the show, each time a little different than the time before, and every single time, pretty darn cool. And that's why the art is the best aspect. Sound: 5 Ugh. The opening theme is annoying. I listened to it the first time, then muted the volume every episode after that. The ending theme is boring. If there was background music, it was so transparent that I didn't even notice it. Except once again, when UWG goes into destructo-mode, there's one song on the soundtrack that sounds like something out of Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor. It was nearly decent, but completely unfitting most of the time, because the action scenes were not very action-packed, and electric guitar with no action is a bit of a paradox (unless it's K-on or some crap like that). The explosions sounded okay. Character voices... I guess for the most part they were decent, but there were several points in the show where characters either laughed or screamed, and it was just the most irritating thing I've ever heard. That happens a lot though, and isn't something I haven't grown to expect. Characters: 2 Okay. Let me dismantle this character-by-character (Going straight off the list here on MAL, since I won't be able to remember them all on my own). Main Character: Chise. I don't know why they picked a whiny, clumsy brat to be their ultimate weapon. She's constantly tripping and falling and screaming, which is apparently only cute to a bunch of perverted old men at a cafe where she works late in the series. She's horribly indecisive. She can be persuaded just by yelling at her. Also, there's some sort of split-personality going on, where she turns robotic and manages awkward utterances such as, "Your liquid entered my body. Why do you do this?" after a kiss. I don't get it at all, but it's annoying. Main Character: Akemi. What? She was a main character? All she did was offer 'helpful' relationship advice to Shuuji, hiding the fact that she liked him the entire series (of course, it was painfully obvious to the viewers), and by the time she finally got around to admitting it, half her body's blasted away from an earthquake or something. Awkward sex scene ensues, she dies coughing blood all over Shuuji while he reassures her she's beautiful and the only one he loves. What happened to UWG? She's off cheating on Shuuji. Main Character: Shuuji. He's the most difficult to respect out of all the characters in this show. He says he's Chise's boyfriend frequently, and every night, sneaks out of his house to go sleep with his senpai Fuyumi (who in turn, is also cheating on her husband, who in turn, is also cheating on his wife with Chise. Go figure.) When he's around her, he shows his affection by calling her 'Idiot/Moron/Doofus/etc', then leaves to curse himself and be an otherwise deadpan, static rock of a character. Atsuhi: The most interesting character this show has to offer, he's friends with Shuuji and the scarcely-important Take, and has feelings for Akemi. He joins the military to 'protect' her, but turns out to be a wimp and dies anyhow. Tetsu: Fuyumi's husband, a military dog who seduces Chise because he wants loli but doesn't even remember her name. Dies. Fuyumi: An annoying succubus. Dies eventually. Shuuji's Dad: What. Yukari/Take: Listed together because they're equally unimportant. Take dies in episode 1 or 2 or something and you don't learn his name until like 10 or 11. Lulz ensue. Enjoyment: 5 This is higher than it would seem to be. That's because I was actually laughing at what a pathetic show it was, and how all the melodrama was more mock-fodder for my taking. Also, it just has such a weird-out factor that you probably WILL remember it for a long time if you actually watch it all. Overall: 4 That's the average, right? I don't even know. So yeah, trash, avoid.

There's no 9.5 option when you come to reviewing, so I guess that a 9 will have to do. Ok, I discovered this anime purely by accident - don't you just love it when that happens? Anyway, a recent purchase and I couldn't wait to watch it. For those who don't know anything about Saikano - the story is essentially a love story, albeit a very tragic one. The anime focuses on the lives of Shuji and Chise, two high school students in Hokkaido who have recently became a couple. However, the happiness that comes along with finding someone tolove is very short lived. The world that they live in is at war, in the anime it's unclear just who Japan is at war with - but in my opinion that didn't really matter. When the opposing army attacks Sapporo and seals large scale destruction to the city, Shuji is shocked to discover Chise standing amongst the rubble with machinery 'growing' out of her arm. Sometime later, Chise reveals to Shuji that some people came to her house one night and said that she would be a perfect candidate... to become the ultimate weapon. The details as to why this is isn't made clear until the OVA, but I guess that's good to keep the viewer's guessing. The anime then focuses on how the two cope with this revelation, and how Chise struggles with herself on how she is changing into a 'machine' and becoming 'less human'. You'll hear the phrase "I'm sorry" a LOT in this anime - so be prepared for it! The animation quality is pretty good, it's one of those really nice flowing styles that seem to draw you in. It's certainly easy on the eyes, and I have absolutely no complaints about the music either. The opening theme "Koi suru Kimochi" a really beautiful song, the same can also be said for the closing. Both themes remain the same throughout the series. The only real problem that I actually have with this anime is that it tends to get slightly repetitive in some cases, what with Chise's constant apologising and Shuji's slight indecision and denial in some cases really get on my nerves. But in saying that it all ties in with the story. In all honesty, the anime pretty much follows the manga fairly accurately. However, I've only read the first 3 volumes of the manga so far, so I'll have to wait and see how it all ends. If you're into the more tragic love story, then I can't really recommend Saikano enough. It's an anime that I actually cried while I watched. There is also a live action movie, if you're really into this anime (like me) which I also recommend as it gives a different perspective on the two. One thing that I think that I should mention though, is that the ending is pretty confusing - but if you're going to watch this anime, or have seen it... I'll let you draw your own conclusions about that.

This series ended up being very disappointing. Echoing the thoughts of others who have the same views about Saikano, it tried hard to be a tragic romance and turned out to be more zZz than depressing; only making me watery-eyed from boredom. There are series that depress without making it obvious the plan is to pull on heart-strings... and then there are series that make it so obvious that you expect people to die just to get a reaction. Saikano is the latter. Before watching I thought it was going to turn out to be a winner in my eyes. It has great looking box/DVD art,a depressing sounding story, short length and only a £10 fee required to own the series. I couldn't see how, for such a small amount of money, a fairly highly rated show could fail to meet my expectations. But, sadly for me, Saikano got all the basics wrong, and it's a shame because the story had a lot of potential. In the Saikano world, Japan is losing a war against a nameless country. The Japanese government decide to make an ultimate weapon to change their fortunes, and they pick Chise, a 17 year old girl with poor grades and physical abilities, to be that weapon. She has to deal with the fact her body has become a weapon of mass destruction and, at the same time, come to terms with being in love for the first time. The first problem the series has is terrible pacing. The first half of the series left me feeling like nothing had happened; like events simply kept repeating themselves in slightly different ways each episode. Chise cried, she had a talk with Shuji (her boyfriend), Chise cried some more, Chise then went off to fight (without the fighting getting shown since that would require money) and the episode ended. The script for each of the early episodes had very little variation, and the characters started saying fake sounding rubbish (such as talking about kids and marriage after being together for 1 week...), which made the show a difficult one to stick with. Even though the relationship between the main two failed miserably for the most part, the series still could've saved itself if the sci-fi elements had been explained in convincing fashion. However, almost as you'd expect after seeing how badly the pacing and love side was handled, the sci-fi parts of the story weren't explained at all. Chise, seemingly not caring a great deal, reveals to Shuji that she, a useless girl who can't get anything right, was turned into some kind of humanoid weapon that can grow rockets out of her back...and that she forgot to ask any important details after having her body irreversibly transformed. From start to finish, that's all you learn about why a pathetic school girl was turned into a living weapon. And, worst of all, it's never even revealed who Japan is supposed to be involved in a war with, as if such a minor detail doesn't matter. If a story is going to work these things need to be explained. Simply expecting viewers to believe that an annoying high school girl (who happens to look eight!) would be forcefully turned into a weapon instead of a consenting adult is stupidity of the highest order. How was I supposed to care about the events that occurred if the story seemed far too daft to take seriously? I suppose the damage the snail pacing, fake/generic dialogue and completely unbelievable story did could've been lessened if the characters made me care about them. After all, the key to making a viewer feel something when characters die is to build up their attachment beforehand. But Saikano failed to make me care enough about any of the cast to make me feel anything. Chise acted pathetically, crying at every available opportunity and being a doormat for Shuji whenever possible. Shuji was a plain guy with glasses who managed to get three of the opposite gender, including an older woman, after him...and he played around. Akemi, who was probably the best of a bad bunch, was only there to support Chise and be another female who longed for the glasses wearing male lead. None of them did anything for me; I was almost willing the main two to be killed at times! Aside from the pacing, story and characters (not much really!), the other thing that bugged me about Saikano was the art. For reasons known only to more intelligent people than myself, the characters have a blushing effect going on 24/7 in Saikano...well, either that or Earthlings in the Saikano world have red lines on their faces by default. And the face weirdness didn't stop there: the faces all look silly from the sides due to the way the noses are drawn so small. If you mix those two issues with a lack of animation then you have a problem, and Saikano shouldn't have had problems (at least not with the animation) visually when it's only 13 episodes long. The only plus on the looks side was the excellent use of eye-catching colours. As for the music, the less said the better. The only theme that has managed to stick in my memory is the guitar theme that plays on the DVD menus. I don't even remember the opening and ending themes. The soundtrack failed to draw any emotion out of me, which is quite a serious flaw for an anime that wants to play with my feelings. Overall, Saikano disappointed more than it pleased. I almost dropped it after the first six episodes, only ending up continuing to see if the end made up for the first half. Although there was a considerable amount of improvement once the same episode stopped seeming to keep repeating itself and the plot actually started to give me the feeling it was going somewhere, the content wasn't good enough to save what had been an awful series up until that point. And the series wasn't even able to end in style, with the ending being rushed (the world was ending all of a sudden, for no reason) and the conclusion to the events making little to no sense. Rating: 4.5/10