Hitsugi no Chaika

For 500 years, the Taboo Emperor, Arthur Gaz, ruled the Gaz Empire with an iron fist and conducted inhumane experiments on his own people. But his reign came to an end five years ago, when mighty warriors—later known as the Eight Heroes—defeated him in a battle for the capital. His death ended the 300-yearlong war between the Gaz Empire and the alliance of six nations.

In the present day, Tooru Acura is a former saboteur from the war who has difficulty settling into the peaceful world, as he cannot find a job where he can put his fighting skills to use. An opportunity appears before him, however, when he meets a white-haired Wizard named Chaika Trabant. With a coffin on her back, she is searching for the scattered remains of her father in order to give him a proper burial, and she hires Tooru and his adoptive sister Akari to help her. However, the six nations alliance, which have now formed the Council of Six Nations, dispatches Albéric Gillette and his men from the Kleeman Agency to pursue and apprehend the late Emperor Gaz's daughter—Chaika.

With the shocking revelation of Chaika's identity, the Acura siblings must choose between helping her gather the remains of the tyrannical emperor and upholding the peace the continent strives to maintain.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Trabant, Chaika Main

Anzai, Chika Japanese

Acura, Akari Main

Hara, Yuuko Japanese

Acura, Tooru Main

Majima, Junji Japanese

Fredrica Supporting

Saitou, Chiwa Japanese

Bohdan, Chaika Supporting

Zougou, Saeko Japanese

Holopainen, Viivi Supporting

Nomizu, Iori Japanese

Stora, Leonardo Supporting

Yamamoto, Kazutomi Japanese

Guy Supporting

Murase, Ayumu Japanese

Layla Supporting

Makino, Yui Japanese

Skoda, Dominica Supporting

Saitou, Chiwa Japanese

Tamura, Junichirou Producer

Masui, Souichi Director, Episode Director, Storyboard

Mima, Masafumi Sound Director

Tsukada, Takurou Episode Director, Storyboard

Reviews

Jun 23, 2024

Rian_Rahmat

Recommended

My first impression of this anime was quite interesting.
Firstly, the characters are beautiful, the design is good, the graphics are not bad and it has a pretty interesting storyline too.

For the beginning of the story, this anime is quite entertaining with comedy and several other cute incidents.
But unfortunately it doesn't apply in the future.

I started to feel bored watching this anime after passing episode 12, in the future the comedy and various elements presented at the beginning started to disappear.
The story started to focus too much, so there were no more funny incidents that made me interested in this anime.

However, this anime doesn't mean it's ... bad, you can still enjoy it and it's worth watching.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Jun 14, 2021

Ernacram

Mixed Feelings

Hitsugi no Chaika is a medieval fantasy anime focusing on Chaika’s quest to gather the remains of her deceased father, Arthur Gaz, in order to give him a proper funeral. Emperor Gaz was a powerful and evil wizard who ruled the Gaz Empire for five centuries until he was defeated by eight heroes, bringing an end to a three hundred years long war. The world is now at peace, and our protagonist is a former saboteur who is jobless in peacetime. Chaika encounters him in a forest and decides to hire him and his sister to help her in her quest.


--- At first glance ... it looks like your generic stuff

The few early episodes make it look like it’s a garbage show. Every characteristic of the generic fantasy anime is there, from the very unoriginal art-style with the character designs that don’t fit the universe (weird haircuts, colored hair, clothing that is impractical for fighting…), to the excessive use of magic circles that all look the same and can do about everything modern technology can do including fuel, rifle cartridges, projectors, microphones and even fixed telephone. You can only be thankful that there are no magic cellphones or magic espresso machines. But you can’t be very thankful either since one of the main characters is a goddamn sniper loli with a Victorian dress.

The genericness applies to the backgrounds which, even though they are well-drawn, look pretty dull in the few early episodes. It also applies to the characters designs, which are for the most part generic and forgettable. The best examples are Fredrika and Vivi: their character designs are very similar; you will have a hard time telling them apart in the beginning of the series.

The opening, the ending and the background music are also unoriginal. The opening is generic and bad; the female singer doesn’t know how to sing. The ending is pretty much the same, but with Chaika naked. Great.


--- But surprisingly, it’s not that bad

I would even say it’s an okay anime. Firstly, thanks to the animation, which is actually of high quality overall. It is clean and smooth, there are few to no inconsistencies, and few static images. The fight scenes look very good. Even if the backgrounds in the few early episodes are pretty unoriginal they are well drawn and well detailed, and as the series progresses we get to see some more original ones. There are a few cool buildings and vehicles, for example the steampunk-looking floating fortresses that we see in the three last episodes. Even the CGI is alright, with cool looking vehicles made out of wood and iron.

Secondly, the story and characters are somewhat decent or at least, not utter shit. You have a clear objective for the main characters which is gathering the late emperor’s remains, and it is implied that the completion of this objective will have important and harmful consequences, as it could potentially revive the evil emperor. There are also some secrets, like who was actually the emperor, what happened to the eight heroes who killed him, was he really as bad as people say, among others. Some of them are unraveled in this first season. For once, the protagonist doesn’t have morally good intentions. He and his sister actually want the world to be at war again since as former soldiers they have no purpose in a world of peace.

Lastly, there is at some moments decent comedy – I am not talking about the incest jokes – which makes the anime more entertaining to watch. Nothing incredible, but it made me chuckle more than most “comedy” anime series I’ve watched.


--- Still, it’s nothing great

I have already mentioned some of the flaws in the first paragraph, but there is more. Even if the characters are somewhat better than average – and in the wonderful world of anime, average means garbage – they aren’t all that great either. Chaika is made slightly annoying by the fact that she is a naive, clumsy child who easily gets scared, shocked or happy. Sure she is cute and all, but that isn’t enough to make her a likable character. Then you have the protagonist’s violent sister with big boobs, Akari. Oh sorry, did I say sister? Actually they aren’t related by blood. Totally didn’t saw that coming. But it doesn’t matter since she will still call Tooru “ani-sama” (TL note: ani-sama means “big brother”), and make predictable, unfunny incest “jokes” by attempting to murder him each time he gets too close to another female. By the way, despite the fact that they are very poor (they live in an old run-down house and eat bugs), Tooru and Akari still manage to be clean and well-clothed. Not very coherent.

During their quest, the main characters are chased by a group of people sent by the government (the Kliemman organization or something like that) because gathering all of the emperor’s remains would have grave consequences on the world. The characters of this group aren’t good. You have a boring romance where one of them, Vivi, is in love with the leader Alberic but doesn’t have the courage to confess her feelings, and will do everything she can to be noticed by him. For some reason there’s also a goddamn cat-boy in the team. These guys are bad at their job. The best example of their incompetence is when after a fight between Tooru’s group and some other guys, one of them asks “you think a magic battle took place here recently?”, when they were literally 20 meters behind and should have seen everything. In an episode you also see them doing shopping, because that’s relevant to the plot, apparently.

Other problems include cheesy lines about finding a goal or following your convictions, and some fan-service (suspicious camera angles showing the loli’s thighs, bath scene…).


--- Bad naming syndrome

People seem to think that characters’ names is a minor detail, it isn’t. The characters’ names are said in practically every dialogue. If the names are bad it will automatically hinder the dialogues. In this anime the names sound European, with the exception of Tooru and Akari (because saboteur = ninja = Japanese), so you have random and ridiculous names such as Gillette (like the razor brand), Trabant (like the East German car) or Vivi (like… nothing). For the love of god plot writers, choose better names. If you have to give your characters European names, pick names that are actually used by people, not brand names or European-sounding syllables soups!


--- Pedophilia

Yet another anime that portrays a romance between an adult and a child as something normal. How am I not surprised? According to the synopsis, Tooru is 20 and Chaika is 14. By the way, it would still be pedophilia even if she wasn’t 14, as her body, her behavior and her character are that of a child. Seriously. As of today, I have reviewed 25 anime (not including this one). 5 of them had some form of pedophilia. In all of them it was portrayed either as acceptable, either as “funny”. Disgusting.


--- Verdict

Hitsugi no Chaika starts out as generic garbage and ends up as an okay show. The plot and the characters are slightly better than average (average meaning bad), and the animation is of high quality. There are a few cool things here and there, a few good comedy moments, and good fight scenes. It is a somewhat entertaining show that is easy to watch. I would recommend it to fans of the genre, but it has nothing new or incredible.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Dec 4, 2015

TzKal-Zuk

Not Recommended

The action genre may have been the genre that pulled in many anime fans, such as those long running shounen series that is widely known in the West. Growing up, those were the sort of things found on mediums like Toonami and introduced the medium of anime to the West. Being someone that falls into this category, I wasn't fond of the long running series, but always have a guilty pleasure of finding enjoyment in the action genre. I have been watching action/adventure series recently and stumbled across this which had a not so interesting premise but a promising first two episodes. Well this show ... certainly left a mark on me, a deep wound filled with venom that gives me nightmares just thinking about.

The plot is simple and its good that it is, anime series that expand upon the simple plot seem to do well. Chaika introduced a lot of plot points early and it seemed like it was going to have promising payout had it been handled correctly. Unfortunately for those who have watched it, no answers are given and frankly the new plotpoints brought up are just not interesting. Really, this is some of the most simplest, watered down type of writing which a 10 year old with imagination could come up with! So many plot points are shrouded in mystery and the writer had one job, to answer those in a fluid manner that doesn't detract from the overall plot yet we are given new things to think about. Closure of these ideas are critical in good story telling and if the reader of this review is looking for that, pass on Chaika.

Characters are boring, stereotypical archetypes that we find in tons of anime, exception being the male main lead, Toru. He has actually has characterization to him and I've grown accustomed to seeing "me vs the world" kind of archetypes, so I don't mind his actions. However, the rest of the cast is reduced to satisfy anime tropes. The ditz, the childhood friend jealous, dense antagonist, blah blah. Full of lame characters with lame interactions, and also the females are reduced to sexual eye candy which isn't a problem itself but the show is not very subtle with it. Development is an issue as frankly it was non existent and they seem to be there just for the plot to move along. It is a poor excuse at moving the story along and seemed force.

Sound was...wait there were sounds? Probably was but my disatisfaction for everything else must've lowered my perception of other elements. OP/ED are ok, good animation for it I guess. Sound for the voices fit their archetypes and really brought the tropes to life. Not a fan.

Animation was underwhelming to say the least, action anime should have action scenes. There was a lot of building up/setup for the fights and a lot of them ended up being a 30 second moving with commentary type of scene. In the end, resolved within seconds and not impressed. Also, what is up with the females eyes??? Who knew everyone would have mascara or eye liner w.e the fk it is above and below the eye?

Chaika is like waiting in line to get a video game at midnight and you just reached the door in the long line. People who have bought the game say there is only 10 copies left and you're the 11th person in line. Thats the feeling I get from watching this. Anticipation for plot points and the disappointment from not getting any answers. I am usually a fan of action/romance/adventure but this is just on a different level of poorly handled. Too much is left to be desired and while I haven't watched the 2nd season, I doubt any answers are in that as well. I stress the plot for the show because there are too many convenience factors within it. Characters were too meager and inconsistent for me to remember.

SPOILERS



and wassup with the romance being between a 14 and 20 year old. The brotha has a partner at the same age right next to him. SMH japan ur doing it wrong

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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