Hidan no Aria Review

Hello there. This is review number fifteen out of a thousand. I’m busting out review fast after my laptop mishap. I’ve recently watched a nice anime and I’m about to do the review. The anime is called Hidan no Aria. It’s a twelve episode anime full of guns, swords and underwear. Yeah, a truly ingenuous anime. Let’s read on.

Story

The story takes place in Tokyo Butei High School, a special school where armed detectives, known as Butei, are trained to use weapons. Kinji Tooyama is a second-year-student who wants a peaceful life but his special ability that makes him stand out makes it difficult to do so. However, when he gets caught in a bombing on the way to school, he encounters Aria Kanzaki, the most powerful S-Rank Butei student in Assault Studies.

Captivated by his amazing skills, Aria sets out to make Kinji her partner. Can a guy who desires peace ever team up with this loli tsundere S-ranked Butei student?

Taking the Pants Off

Here’s something truly amazing about this anime. It’s an Action anime with some Romance, Ecchi and Harem. It has Supernatural elements in it. It has terrorism as a base premise, a bit of historical elements and some good old fashion mild nudity. There is so much in this anime that it manages to balance all of these important aspects. It’s truly an outstanding anime.

This is a JC Staff anime and that studio knows how to properly balance elements to make an anime shine. If you’ve ever watched some of its previous works like Shakugan No Shana or Toaru majutsu no Index then you’ll love Hidan no Aria. Those two shows also have action, romance, ecchi and a hint of harem. You can trust JC Staff to deliver another awesome show like that.

Hidan no Aria revolves around a guy named Kinji Tohyama who attends a school called Tokyo Butei High School. This school trains students to experts in guns, combat and stuff like that. One day, Kinji meets Aria Kanzaki who, after an incident where Kinji displayed his sharp shooting ability, wants Kinji to become her partner- er, slave.  The anime focuses on Kinji and Aria becoming partners. They learn to trust each other, rely on each other and slowly fall in love with each other.

The anime is divided into three main arcs with Kinji helping out three different girls in each arc. The first arc revolves around Aria who is a massive tsundere. She is a high ranking Butei student but her cold attitude turns people away. The first episode was not that impressive. It’s your typical first episode with the childhood friend waking up the guy and the cliché girl lives in boy’s apartment set up. The anime does evolve into something more unique. The first arc establishes the characters and the initial status quo. The pacing was quite nice and it’ll instantly grab your attention.

The other characters where nicely done as well. The other girls, who sadly fall on the clichéd, are interesting on their own. Even though we’ve probably seen their type done to death in other anime, they still make the story more solid and more fun to watch. The interaction between the characters is nicely done and I believe this is the time to thank the seiyuus for that. There are some minor characters in the anime that appears seldom but even they have a great personality. It’s great even though, yes, we’ve all seen it before.

The second and third arc no longer introduces new characters so it focuses on the existing ones and develops them. The love connection between Kinji and Aria is intensified. These arcs also have more action and a lot of the fan service in the anime. I love an anime that teases nudity but doesn’t really show anything. Seeing the girls on their underwear was enough fan service to keep the anime lively and funny. Again, the all-important balance that the studio has perfected shows through.

The action sequences are also nicely done. It’s not the best you’ll ever see and there is actually more talking than biting in the action parts. There is still character development during these fights so the fighting isn’t that prominent though the conclusions of the fights are very fun to watch. There’s nothing wrong with the action sequences despite its lack of actual action. There is enough to further enhance the story and make the characters shine.

Further through the episode, the anime incorporates some unwanted elements. I’m talking about Aria being Sherlock Holmes the fourth. There are other head scratching elements in the anime like the addition of Lupin, Jeanne D’Arc and even Dracula. It’s something the anime doesn’t need and it’s annoying how the plot relies on these unwanted elements to develop some characters. All I see is a cute girl with a sword, isn’t that enough? Apparently not as the anime utilizes these unwanted elements to complete the anime. These are elements the anime could live without though.

Sight and Sound

JC Staff is never lazy with the animation. The fight scenes are nicely animated and completely thought out. The anime uses some CGI elements like in the guns and bullets, the light rails and some of the vehicles in the first arc. I’m never a fan of CGI but it make the anime look more “cooler”, I suppose.

The character design isn’t new. If you’ve seen Shana and Index then you’ve basically seen all the characters in Hidan no Aria. In a way, it helps the viewer familiarize with the anime but at the same time, you do wish the change it up a bit. I guess if it’s not broken then don’t fix it, right?

The OP and ED soundtrack wasn’t that great in my opinion. I doesn’t really stand out and sounds like your typical opening and ending song. It doesn’t jump out and grab you like some great songs does. The songs were overshadowed by everything else in the anime.

Overall Score

6/10 “A solid anime that is truly worth the watch.”

Hidan no Aria is amazing. It’s nicely thought out plot and its great balance of the themes makes this anime a really fun experience. Whether it’s the half-naked girls or the interesting plot arcs; this anime will not disappoint. I recommend it.