Mai-HiME

While taking a ferry to Fuuka Academy, new students Mai Tokiha and her sickly younger brother, Takumi, spot a girl adrift on the water. Shortly after bringing her aboard, the ferry comes under attack from an assailant who summons a mechanical monster. Despite still recovering from her injuries, Mikoto Minagi fends off the monster using a supernatural sword.

Mai soon discovers that Mikoto is a fellow Fuuka Academy student with abilities called HiME (Highly-advanced Materializing Equipment). Female students with HiME are responsible for defending the academy and the local city from the monstrous "Orphans." After several incidents at the school involving battles against these mysterious creatures, Mai learns that she is a HiME herself and is capable of summoning a Child, a mechanical creature capable of great utility and firepower.

Now burdened with new responsibilities, Mai joins 12 other HiME as they safeguard the school from a threat they know little about all while protecting the ones closest to them.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Kuga, Natsuki Main

Chiba, Saeko Japanese

Tokiha, Mai Main

Nakahara, Mai Japanese

Minagi, Mikoto Main

Shimizu, Ai Japanese

Fujino, Shizuru Supporting

Shindo, Naomi Japanese

Yuuki, Nao Supporting

Nanri, Yuuka Japanese

Okuzaki, Akira Supporting

Kobayashi, Sanae Japanese

Sugiura, Midori Supporting

Tamura, Yukari Japanese

Suzushiro, Haruka Supporting

Yuzuki, Ryouka Japanese

Homura, Nagi Supporting

Ishida, Akira Japanese

Tate, Yuuichi Supporting

Seki, Tomokazu Japanese

Taniguchi, Gorou Producer

Kunisaki, Hisanori Producer

Nagai, Tatsuyuki Director, Episode Director, Storyboard

Obara, Masakazu Director, Storyboard

Reviews

Sep 9, 2008

KaminaKai

Recommended

"An overlooked masterpiece that deserves a lot more attention."

I watched Mai HiME long before joining MAL so I didn't know what to say when I first saw the overall rating to be so low. Thus I decided to re-watch the show this past week to refresh my memory and to prepare for this review. If there is one thing my opinion changed about this anime since my first time watching it a few years back, it is the quality of the animation which we will get to in a moment. One short recommendation before we begin the review, get lots of tissue paper when you ... watch the latter half of the anime, you'll need it.

Story:
Extremely outstanding. Although the first half was somewhat slow to begin with, but the second half just throw you out the window. But without the character introductions and developments in the first half, the viewers reaction will not be as strong in the latter half. In essence, the entire show (episode per episode) was planned so that it can bring out all the emotional effects as it approach the end. That is not to say the anime is boring until the end though. In fact, most of the humorous moments reside in the earlier episodes mixing with some light fan service.

Art:
The animation quality is one of the very few things this series could have worked on. As a product made in 2004, the animation level is definitely not the best that Sunrise could have produced.

Sound:
Absolutely stunning. Mai HiME is one of those rare anime series where the OP and ED are overwhelmed by occasional theme music in between episodes. The soundtracks are so well coordinated that one can truly say the music can play with your emotion.

Character:
Due to the large number of casts in the series (there are 13 HiMEs alone, not to mention their "precious" other half), it can get messy the first time watching it. However, once you get past the confusion of knowing the characters, you'll see how well each of the characters are made. The strong links between each of the HiME, whether it is friendship, hate, or romance, all proved to be an important part of the story.

Enjoyment + Overall:
A must watch. I can't stress it enough. MUST WATCH! I don't care if you are a guy, a girl, a homo, an animal, or whatever you may be, I strongly recommend it (don't forget the tissue for the 2nd half). I hope you get my point on how much I've enjoyed this show. As for Mai-HiME's successor, Mai-Otome, I would recommend it just as much as Mai-HiME. Another definite must see!

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Jun 21, 2008

PBz0r

Mixed Feelings

Mai-HiME, from animation studio Sunrise, is a moderately successful anime series which spawned multiple sequel series and manga adaptations and has assembled a pretty dedicated fanbase over the years. In Mai-HiME the viewer follows the daily activities of a girl named Tokiha Mai, who just recently entered a particularly wealthy private high school (despite being an orphan and having to financially support her younger brother who is terminally ill). One day Mai finds out she possesses extraordinary powers and she comes into contact with other "HiMEs", girls who wield the same power she does. As you can already see, the story is surprisingly reminiscent of ... Sailor Moon's, though Sunrise definitely tried to make Mai-HiME more than a generic Magical Girl anime. At this point however, I am still in doubt as to whether they succeeded. From my own experiences I tend to say "no", but then why would so many reviewers rate Mai-HiME a 10?

Mai-HiME is a peculiar show in that it consists of two distinct halves: thirteen episodes of slice-of-life, followed by thirteen episodes of more serious business and some pretty heavy drama. A mediocre first half and an supposedly "amazing" second half. Let's start off with the first thirteen episodes.

Easily the most enjoyable episode in the first half of the series is the very first. Everything about the show is still fresh, new and spectacular, though a bit ridiculous. Though not particulary promising, I'd be lying if I said I didn't like the fist episode.
The bad thing is: the twelve episodes that follow are much, much worse. You'd think that after getting to know the characters and some of the lore, you'd grow to understand more of what exactly is going on and you'd be much more upset if a character, for example, died. Well surprisingly, that's not the case. The first half of Mai-HiME is so incredibly uninspired and, most of all, boring, you'd wish some of the characters would just die to move the plot along. But they don't. They keep on being the same generic anime character they were the episode before, they keep showing off their panties, making wordjokes and being generally unfunny, to a point where I dropped the show. I couldn't go on. A friend of mine recommended the show to me and he told me that come episode 13, things would have a turn for the better. I was at episode 12 and yet I could not reach the second half. In the end, I skipped episode 12 entirely, hoping I hadn't missed out on anything. Looking back now, I don't think I have either.

Now don't get me wrong. I use the word "slice-of-life" as if it's something satanic, but that's not my point. I've been through 100 episodes of Naruto filler and Azumanga Daioh and Minami-ke are still some of my favourite shows. Slice-of-life (the genre we've all been referring to for half of our anime since Wikipedia told us this is the correct word) is fine with me. It's just that the first 13 episodes of Mai-HiME were worse than probably any anime I'd ever seen. I was annoyed by the characters (I'm looking at you, Mikotoy), annoyed by the generic and predictable plot, annoyed to a point where I was screaming in front of my PC. Torture is the word. Yet, I rate the show a 5 ("average"). I've think I've kind of gotten my point across for the first half of the show, so now let's move on to the better stuff, shall we?

In episode 13, something happened indeed. What exactly happened I'm not willing to spoil, but the show took a turn for the better. For the first time in the series I saw some characters evolve, interact like human beings. The characters are what is supposed to carry Mai-HiME as a whole, and had so far really disappointed me, so I was really glad to see this happen. The most enjoyable aspect of the episodes that followed were still the battles which took place, the action scenes, but come episode 19 the show reached a new high. In this episode, Mai had finally evolved into something which could be considered a "strong" character. She finally made me feel her pain, even if just a little, and at that point I thought: this has potential.

What I also thought was: what took them so long!? Was all the slice-of-life bogus really necessary? Did Sunrise think I'd grow to love the characters more after seeing Mikoto bitch about food for the gazillionth time? Imagine this: In a second season of Azumanga Daioh/Minami-ke/Love Hina, all the girls gain special powers to fight off random monsters. And then the directors expect you to feel bad when Osaka/Kana/Naru dies after an overly dramatic battle sequence. Mai-HiME is kinda like that.

Still, for some reason, by episode 19, I cared for (some of) the characters, I wanted to know where they came from, what they'd been through to get here, I was interested in their story. That's right, I was psyched to further discover the world this anime took place in. I kept searching for answers in the 7 episodes that were left, I wanted to know what drove these characters, what their motives actually were. And by Steven Seagall, did those episode leave a lot to be desired.

It's as if Sunrise said: "Motives? Motives are for losers."

Allright, so Mai had a motive. Sort of. Natsuki Kuga had a motive, too. But that's it. The aforementioned Mikoto for example, didn't really seem to have a history at all. She just acted like a preschooler and so her motive was: "I'm a preschooler, this is how preschoolers act." A character perhaps even worse than Mikoto was Shiho-chan, a psycho loli with special powers who wanted Mai dead for supposedly falling in love with her "Nii-san." Apparently she thought this matter was more important than the fate of humanity. I guess there are sometimes characters like that, but from my point of view it just didn't make sense at all. As for another character (naming her would be a spoiler), Sunrise didn't even bother. This character turned out to be an absolute psycho with no values or reason whatsoever. Motives? "I'm a psycho. Now I will kill you."
Never have I seen a show with so many cheap, unrealistic characters who just fight because the story asks for it. And hey, that's fine. Same goes for Dragonball Z. But if the characters don't carry the show, what's left? You can't count on the story here, either. Enjoyment? The only thing I got out of the show was utter frustration.

As for the last episode: kill me. Compared to this, the End of Evangelion made perfect sense and Akagi's ending was particularly satisfying. It was all the more proof Sunrise themselves never had any idea where they were taking this story to begin with and thus it all ended in a horrible fashion.

So, let's discuss the technical aspects of the show. The art in Mai-HiME was so-so, the animation had no noticeable flaws but really didn't really break any new ground. The music is supposed to be one of the high points of the show, but I can't say I agree. The only background music I can still remember was rather annoying and the OP is just laughable. On the other hand, sometimes when the drama sets in, I do remember the music setting the tone pretty nicely and I admit I have the ED stored on my harddrive. Finally, the voice-acting here is pretty much standard fare. Though a bit too typical for my tastes at times, it really did suit the show. In the end, the best things about Mai-HiME are its sound and visuals.


Long story short: Mai-HiME can do nothing but disappoint the viewer. If you don't have really low standards or someone forcing you to watch, there's no saying if you'll even make it through the first half of the show. When you do arrive at episode 19 and finally get drawn into the story, the ending will definitely disappoint you once again, leaving you with hundreds of questions which are never answered, not even in the following seasons. After having read this, you should already know that I'm being nice by rating Mai-HiME a 5. Then again, maybe it's just me. There are definitely people who enjoyed this show. As a hater, all I can say is that even if you'd be the person who could enjoy Mai-HiME, there is still an endless list of anime you'd enjoy even more. I really do advise you not to waste your time.

P.S.: Do not, under any circumstance, watch Mai-Otome. Even fans agree. It's a disgrace to a disgrace.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Oct 14, 2011

baskervwatson

Not Recommended

The scenic art just wasn't enough to save this anime from its 2 dimensional characters, cliched events, and forced humor. Far to many anime stereotypes all shoved in together makes for boring watching as you know what everyone's reaction is going to be. If you're into obvious character development and pairing offs, and don't really want to think about plot or witty banter, then you would probably enjoy this. But this is possibly because I'm personally not in the tweens demographic, so take this review with a pinch of salt.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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	Finally, the whole Mai-HiME Destiny light novel has been fully translated. TPatrioticOtaku - Jan 20, 2022	3 replies	by KaeUBW »» Oct 12, 9:25 PM
	Poll: Mai-HiME Episode 26 Discussion ( 1 2 ) kitsunekarasu - Nov 18, 2008	65 replies	by redpanda_42 »» Jul 21, 5:01 PM
	Poll: Mai-HiME Episode 25 Discussion Veronin - Nov 19, 2008	18 replies	by TheColonel76 »» Jul 9, 1:52 PM
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