Sekirei: Pure Engagement

The second stage of the battle royale known as the Sekirei Plan is underway. Shintou Teito has been closed off; no Sekirei or Ashikabi may leave. Minato Sahashi and his harem of Sekirei must now prepare to fight new battles as changes to the rules are put into place. However, not all groups will return to the battle: some Sekirei are loved very much by their Ashikabi partners, who would rather forfeit the prize than see them perish.

In the midst of the action, someone close to Minato may be more involved than he had ever imagined, and threats lurk around every corner. There are even rumors that the "Single Numbers," the most powerful type of Sekirei, have entered the fray. In the eyes of the "Game Master" Minaka Hiroto, everything is proceeding according to plan.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Tsukiumi Main

Inoue, Marina Japanese

Musubi Main

Hayami, Saori Japanese

Kazehana Main

Yukana Japanese

Kusano Main

Hanazawa, Kana Japanese

Sahashi, Minato Main

Tachibana, Shinnosuke Japanese

Matsu Main

Endou, Aya Japanese

Homura Main

Kaida, Yuki Japanese

Asama, Miya Supporting

Ohara, Sayaka Japanese

Uzume Supporting

Nabatame, Hitomi Japanese

Benitsubasa Supporting

Itou, Shizuka Japanese

Cook, Justin Producer

Kusakawa, Keizou Director, Episode Director, Storyboard

Aketagawa, Jin Sound Director

Tsuda, Naokatsu Episode Director

Reviews

Jun 18, 2020

animebeforebed

Recommended

Minato, Minato!
Musubi calls out.

This is the sequel to the the first season. And quite an improvement. Season 1 focused on character and story-line development. This is the season where the action really heats up! The comedy is still here as well.

Very easy to enjoy and to watch. I highly recommend buying a copy on ebay for $50-60 before the price gets too ridiculous. Season 1 & 2 together cost four times the cost of pure engagement on BD. As you've probably already read, Tsukiumi is annoying in how she speaks with "thou and dost." If you can get over that, there isn't much else you ... need to force yourself to get through. Uzume and Kazehana make up for it. Kusano "Ku" likes to say "big brother" when she talks to Minato. It is the cutest. Yet not in a pervy way that I can't help but think some other animes are. Brittney Karbowski's voice is actually almost pleasant when she voices Hikari.

Overall, if you like Infinite Stratos or High School of the Dead, I am confident you will like this one as well. The only drawback is it's missing it's final season. Even so, I have now watched this series twice in the past decade and am rewatching it a third time. That's how great this show is.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Jan 26, 2013

explicit707

Mixed Feelings

This is the second season/series for the Anime Sekirei. I definintely recommend watching the first part of the story before giving this a look. It continues where the last one left off, and there are 2 OVA's between the seasons that are completely optional to watch. As a stand alone anime it isn't bad, in fact if you've only seen the first season/series anime and not read the manga then this is completely worth your time. This anime has enough action and comedy to be a stand up sequel/second season. I am actually glad they added the "Pure Engagement" to the title, because it really ... is packed with filler and a truncated version of the manga storyline. This is not adapted as closely as the first season/series is.

This is a fun series to watch, even the OVA's are (which I will not rate separately, my score includes the OVA's because of how different this is from the manga) worth watching for a few giggles. If you have read the manga before watching the anime then you may have a problem with this series.

Firstly, the manga is far superior to the anime as far as story and artwork goes. The part of the story they ended the first season on was changed a bit, so they recovered at the beginning of this season with filler episodes. Once they had the story back on track they truncated it so they could end this season with an original sort of finale. For those that care about accuracy with manga adaptations, you have now been warned. That being said, it's still worth watching, and I gave it a 6 because it's still not quite as good as the first season/series.

All in all, not a bad watch.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Sep 18, 2013

ktulu007

Not Recommended

Sekirei was rubbish. It was a vile, misogynistic series without a single interesting character to be found and a crap story. Pure Engagement will probably be more of the same. Really, the only way this could potentially be fixed would be if they a) replaced the entire cast or b)forgot about the stupid fighting and fan-service scenes and used the time to develop the characters and actually elevate them beyond a single dimension. Let's see if that happens.

I briefly considered just copying and pasting the first series review and making some minor changes, but I decided against it because it would be inexcusably lazy. Plus, ... there are some differences. Pure Engagement picks up where the first series left off. The characters are twits, they're in a super-powered battle to be the last Sekirei standing. Pure Engagement lives up to its name, assuming you're using engagement in the "battle" sense. Any other usage of engagement would not be suitable. The first series mostly focused on the harem elements. This one focuses more on action sequences, although the harem elements are still there and they're still patently obnoxious and horribly misogynistic. The comedic elements mostly fail in this one, just as they did in the first series. It has two funny scenes and a lot that try but fail to be funny. This series does do better with the story aspects, however. And there's one reason for that. It has some scenes that border on decent. It doesn't have a lot, but there is some real effort put into the scenes with Chiho and Uzume. It's almost like taking time to explore the bonds between characters with some level of depth, small as it is in this series, leads to better scenes than cardboard stereotypes fighting over a typical protagonist to give the sexist twits in the audience some wish fulfillment. Still, these scenes make up a very small percentage of the series. The ending is a bit better, but it's still largely a pandering, typical happy ending. The treatment of the female characters remains largely abhorrent with them being heavily objectified. the plot remains replete with stupidity. Including the first season's "this is a secret, but we'll just do it in the open where anyone could easily see it" nonsense.

The characters remain one-dimensional stereotypes, most of which act nothing like real people since they're designed to pander to fetishes (or to fill a cliche role in the case of the male characters) rather than to actually be, well, characters. The closest you get to developed characters are Chiho and Uzume in those bordering on decent scenes and even then they're closer to the archetypal "hot lesbian couple" you see in some media, the type that uses sexuality as a fetish, than developed characters.

The artwork is a bit better than it was in the first series. Mainly because they do cut back on the absurd fan-service a bit. As a result you get more fight sequences that are actually decent and less that are thinly veiled excuses to strip the female characters. The fan-service is still at a ridiculously high level, however.

Like the first, this one doesn't have good voice acting. the closest you get are Nabatame Hitomi and Ishizuka Sayori in those few scenes that border on decent. Even then they're just average. The music is pretty sub-par.

The yuri factor is a 6/10. This one has more yuri moments than the first even moving from just having some homoerotic moments to a canonical relationship.

So, how was Pure Engagement? It's a slight improvement over the first series. Overall it has the same massive problems, but it does manage some almost decent scene and some of the problems are diminished. It's still largely typical harem nonsense. Just with a bit more mindless action. I really can't recommend sitting through the first or even just the second series for those few almost decent scenes. So, how could this have been done well? If the seven twits had just not been there, the focus had been on a small number of characters, their relationships and personalities had actually had time to develop, the fan-service had been eliminated or, at least, severely reduced and the objectifying aspect of the premise had been eliminated this might have been a good series. So, virtually everything would have to be different. Final rating, 3/10. And the next review request I have is... Isekai no Seikishi Monogatari. So, expect that review next week.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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