Sekirei

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tl;dr: A manga that although somewhat disconnected and random in a lot of aspects is still pretty interesting and enjoyable all the way through. 

This manga had a lot of interesting elements, but it largely didn’t do much with them, so it didn’t really feel like things progressed in the ways and to the degree that they should, which also resulted in them feeling kind of disconnected. The cast of main characters at least at a base level have personalities and backgrounds that make them worth getting invested in, but it felt like their stories themselves were kind of weak. Other than the protagonist, the character ... development in pretty much everyone stops after they get winged. The relationship development after that point is also incredibly slow. The end result of this is that while each character may seem kind of interesting on their own, the cast overall feels kind of flat. These portions aren’t completely devoid of good character stories, as the latter portions after all the Sekirei had been winged seem to focus more heavily on groups of side characters who have pretty solid character and relationship development of their own, but these don’t really end up tying much into the overall narrative or with the main cast at all, so they feel like stories good in their own right but not ones that enhance the narrative holistically.

In terms of plot, it was interesting moment to moment, but it was incredibly random without giving much for the reader to really have any idea of where the plot would go next, but also still being incredibly safe. What I mean by that is that it was incredibly clear where things would get to eventually, but the path to get there involved going in a bunch of abrupt directions. This results in things being more interesting moment to moment, but making it harder for the reader to get invested in the overarching narrative.  This wasn’t due to twists mainly, by which I mean new information revealed that changes what you thought about already present plot elements, but rather by the plot essentially being dictated by the guy running the whole Sekirei project who was just deciding things on the fly and didn’t really know what he was doing, which didn't really flow all that well. There certainly were twists relating to where the Sekirei come from and how Minato related to them, but they were foreshadowed so heavily that when they were revealed properly said reveals had little to no impact, especially as the consequences of said twists were ultimately often pretty minimal.

All of this leads up to an ending that one should have seen coming as the safest most generic obvious ending that could be given, but still it’s the type of ending I like so I was quite satisfied with it. The epilogue I should note was quite fantastic, in that it had more of a slice of life feel to it that worked much better for showing off character and relationship development, so even if it didn’t feel like much was happening over the course of the manga it did feel like growth was achieved in the epilogue. The comedy throughout was pretty solid, but as it went on it felt like there was less and less of it. Overall, I think the manga would have felt much better paced if it had leaned more heavily on its slice of life and comedy aspects instead of how focused on the overarching plot it was. The battles had interesting aspects, like Norito. The powers and abilities felt kind of overtly simplistic though, and never properly explained, so battles were really random without being particularly amazing. Power growth was also pretty much nonexistent for most of the manga but it never really felt needed either, and hence battles almost never had much tension as other than one instance it never really felt like there was much risk of the main cast actually losing. Still despite that, the individual battles in and of themselves were pretty cool. The art was incredibly good for pretty much all aspects and interesting in that the character designs despite being pretty plain for the most part still felt pretty varied and nice to look at. 

Warring this review may contain spoilers.

First impressions, so my first impressions is.
That this is about a bunch of supper powered human looking aliens fighting it out in a city wide battle torment in order to reach paradise with there master.
Sounds fucking cool and I want to see what they do with it.

Story, 6/10

One day while two time college entrance exam failure minato is walking in depression from his lastest failure of try's to get into college of his dreams.
While in dispear an extra thick shrine maiden falls from the sky and lands on top of him ... named musubi.
During this encounter he finds that musubi being chased by a two women dressed in s&m outfits who are shooting lighting out of there hands.
During there escape minato finds out that musubi is something called a sekirei,
Which is are this group of 108 strong super power human like aliens that have been looked after by the local corporation
(which are mostly comprised of hot milfs, thick as fuck school girls, pretty boys that make your hart go doki doki and the odd trap and loli.)

Apparently the main character has been chosen against his will to take place in a city wide death torment called the sekirei plan where sekirei and there masters called ashikabi
(which are certain people who attract sekirei almost like a magnet because of reasons I will dive into later)
Fight it out for the ultimate prize.
which minato now finds himself involved in the fight for his life in quest for this ultimate prize so afterwards he can continue his normal life and also live in peace with musubi.

So sekirei if you couldn't tell is another one of those battle harems which is quite common especially now a days.
which I haven't got the biggest love for anymore being completely honest here because of how oversaturated the genre has been in recent years.
But battle harem aspect aside I would probably say that sekaikei is probably one of the better battle harems out there not because it's deep, complex or any thing like that.
But more on the line of it has a simple story that's it's wants to tell and it sticks to that story to the every end faults and all.
which is why I wound call it the everyday man of the battle harem genre because it try's to have a few themes about friend ship and comradey which it portrays in quite a straightforward manner and its not a defftive that the main character going to win just because he has a few more sekirei in his team than some of the over contestnice

Actually when I boil it down its plot to it's most basic stature and think about it sekirei pretty much plays like a Pokemon game except the Pokemon are hot human like aliens.
(Maybe they should have run it by the slogan "gotta to fuck them all")
But I digress.

So has far as storyline and content is consured
Sekirei has a basic plot which follows the formula of.
Main character gets involved in drama or some shit while this tournament goes on in the background. which most of the time involves a girl who got problems and after that shit or drama is done.
he gets another sekirei added to his ever growing team which the story will repeat this process about six for times which kind of gets old really fast it's the usual thing In harems there a male lead and a bunch a girls with problems which the main character solves using his dick.
Except in this case the problems that come up wasn't always an external problem sometimes it was more a of an internal thing Which made the confits slightly interesting and I did want to see where they would go with them.

one example of one of the drama or problem I found interesting was
when the character Homura who is a male sekirei stating to get attaced to are main character and before you think that is a one of those characters finding out about there sexual orientation it's nothing like That because it's reveled that hormura has a unique biology in the sense that he can't actually control what gender he is or his power to a certain extent.
And it's not the fact he falling for a dude or Turing into a women because of his body reaction to the main character that's the main cause of his problem
it's apart of it but what really bothers him is the fact he has no control over his own destiny and is pretty much a play thing to the winds of fate which he tries to fight against.
Which I thought was pretty interesting idea even though afterwards when the problem was fixed they kind of played it off for gags which got less funny every time they brought it up like how meny times you you have to show that hormura is slightly embarrassed because he having homo lust for the main character.

The after we get though about 2/3 of the story.
We finally get into more off this battle tournament and more focus on the history of the sekirei.

So the actual tournament it's self isn't bad as far as tournament arcs are considered.
Because in this point in time main character actually has more of a reason to why he wants to win because before he just wanted to win in order to be with musubi.
But now he wants to use the prize to revive all the sekirei that has fulling at this tournament and reverse some of the damage it has caused on others around him and also keep it out of hands which could lead to the death of most of humanity.
Which is kinda a generic reason but it's better than not taking this thing seriously which he was doing before and it doesn't follow the usual main character fights everyone with his team and beats everyone and wins.
It's more along the lines of he unofficially won because of events outside his control and people just kinda went with it and to be honest if the tournament keeped on and continued on officially to its ending pretty sure the main character would have lost most of his team and might of won by the skin of his teeth.
the action all right and there enough background and side plot to make the battles have more impact not just in the case of who wins the gets the ultimate prize but also from a character perspective as well which was good to have.


Now just before the continent with the characters and what not I would like to mention that the history of the sekirei was slightly interesting and is another reason why I call this the Everyman of battle harems.
Because it's reviled that sekirei have been on are planet before of corse in yee olden times and that the ashikabi are people who are descended from sekirei and human breeding with each other.
Which is why I think this is the Everyman because any one could be a ashikabi from a rich politician to a homeless man because as long as they have sekirel blood in them they are able to be in this battle tournament.
Of course one problem I do have is that they don't really explain much about where the sekirei come from because the information we are given is that they came from outer space and that there are ships full of sekirei that are possibly underground waiting to be found again.
So my question is what are they and who made them because they look and act Human and they are can also breed with humans without much difficulty.
Are they are race that similar to humans and they found are planet on accident or where they made by some other alien race for god knows what and where sent here to mate with the local population.
Guess we never will know but that just was a little nit pick I wanted to bring up.


So I guess my pros are that's slightly better written than some harems story's out there and it's doesn't try to over stay it's welcome.
It's not amazing like golden boy or high school dxd story wise but it's not a harem I would forget in a week I would probably forget it in a year.

I think my cons are is that some of the drama the story brings up becomes pointless at times and brought up for gags after they solve the problem.
Which I didn't like because it took some of the inpact out of those problems.
Like for example what I meanion before with Homura when his problem started to become a run on gag which is didn't like to much.



Characters 6/10

The main character minato is another on of those bland harem protagonist that are a dime a dozen.
He just the nice guy who though the events of the series becomes slightly more manly and take charge of the situations he is in.
I kinda which that he wasn't like this because some of the other side characters have a more distinct personally and are more extreme in there beliefs and morals I just wish he wasn't just the nice guy that every likes and some people dislike because of his somewhat fence attitude.


Side characters are probably slightly more interesting but most of them are still the usual tipcle character you find in most story's but I give credit they didn't feel like cardboard cutouts because there as enough characterzion to make them stand out slightly but enough for me to say of that's him/her personality

Some characters that where slightly better written and had more of a personality that's its bothered me less than usual.
One example of this is Hayato Mikogami a character when we fist meet him comes of as a extremely childish rich person who pursues his wims and interests with no thoughts to who it will effect what's so ever and also thinks this tournament is a a game.
As a series continues on we find at that even though he is rich and all the freedom in the world it doesn't take away the fact that he is very lonely and has no one who really understands him but that all changed when he meet the sekirei and now he isn't lonely because he has people who accept him for who is and nothing more.

Interestingly enough a lot of the other major players in this tournament have that similar dynamic where they come off as assholes but though the interactions with there sekirei this isn't exactly the case.

While on the topic of the sekirei I think the relationships that sekirei have with there ashikabi are slightly interesting because it's pretty much a mix of best friend, lover, or just loyal servant even though I feel that the relationships themselves kinda progress way to fast like there are even some ashikabi who are dating there sekirei with plans are marrying them in the future even if they known each other for about a month or two.
But the reason for that could be that ashikabi and sekirei have a spiritual bond which allows the understand each other in a deep way I guess.


Art, 6/10

Artwork is decent most of the time except for a few panels that look a little un focused or panels that look amazing.
The backgrounds look alright although when there doing there fight scenes and shit gets destroyed the background dose a ver sub par job at show casing the level of destruction that going on around them.

The fight scenes themselves are alight but the fights don't really flow every well and most of the battles are son using the special attack to finish the fights instead of basic hand to hand combat which we do get but its only every now and then.

I like the characters designs for some of the characters,
Most of them are the sekirei character designs which look very nice and are easy on my eyes.




Enjoyment, 5/10

When I first watched the anime and read the manga of this.
I liked it quite a bit it's was a show to me that I would watch every now and then to pass the time if I was bored or wanted a quick chuckle.
Now a days it's still has that effect to an extent but it isn't the series I would go back to every now and then for enjoyment it's become more a once in a blue moon enjoyment for me. I will probably won't ever read it again unless I feel like taking a trip down memory lane.
As far what I enjoyed about it Well I liked the fights and I thought the story as entertaining enough even if it was basic as fuck and every dated by today's standards.Character interactions where slightly more engaging than I thought they would be.
So I guess I enjoyed this manga for slightly going over the expectations I had for it.



Overall, 6/10

So if your a person who enjoys harem and people fighting I would recommend you give this manga a shot.
It's not as good is high school dxd, golden boy or Rosario vampire but it ten times better than most generic battle harems with school and teenagers.
It's a good time passer.

If your not into harem or you want something with a bit more serious stay away
But it's not like anyone pays attention to what I say anyway so why do a bother.

If you want a good tournament battle and not getting it here probably go watch or read any of the fate stay night series or the dark tournament arc from yu yu hakusho.

*some spoilers*

Knowing that a story will revolve around a battle royale, I bet we’d at least expect something thrilling, entertaining, and action-packed, full of exhilarating clashes. We may even expect a bit of poignancy, as after all, by structure, not all fighters are meant to make it to the end. Sekirei is very much a battle royale manga that anticipates these expectations, but utterly fails to fulfill any of them. Instead, all that its delivers is cloying light-heartedness, muddled storytelling, and constant cop-outs making for a bland series with surprisingly low entertainment value.

We start the story when down on his luck loser (and typical harem ... milquetoast) Minato Sahashi miraculously meets Musubi. He unknowingly establishes a master-servant relationship with her and is subsequently embroiled in an oncoming battle royale in which over 100 "battle maidens" like Musubi will battle to the last until one pair remains. However, an Ashikabi can have more than one Sekirei, and soon Minato amasses a harem, emerging as a strong contender in the game.

The series certainly sets the stage up well for an exciting contest, and by hinting at bigger mysteries early on, the game is set to be an interesting one too. However, as Sekirei progresses, it becomes clear that the series will not deliver on its promises. By setting a story as a battle royale, one would clearly anticipate the eponymous clashes. While battles are abundant in this series, they are not very entertaining. The most common reason for this is due to most battles being one-sided clashes where the victors are already certain; somehow, Minato manages to gain some of the most powerful Sekirei on his side very early on in the story, and probably too early. Minato’s deck is so clearly stacked against others that the outcomes of battles are clear before they even start. It quite effectively kills surprise which is part of what makes battle manga fun and entertaining. Even so, when the battles manage to escape the trapping of predictability, they are still disappointing. Either the clashes end up becoming a volley of flashy powers before someone ultimately gets a last-minute power-up and wins, or the battle abruptly ends with an anticlimactic cop-out. This actually happens both times our heroes face off against a particularly powerful enemy team, which killed the genuine excitement that these battles were imbued with at the start.

We may also expect battle royales to be somewhat tragic or dark, depending on the specific circumstances that they are established in. With numerous Sekirei battling until one remains, the series clearly sets up rules wherein we expect tragic developments to occur (and at times the series explicitly forecasts that this will occur). However, Sekirei is much too light-hearted in nature that it tends to shy away from these moments as much as possible. Though that is not an inherent fault, when the series reaches points where tragedy should be unavoidable, it cop-outs and gives a cheap answer to the particular dilemma. This light-heartedness feeling that permeates throughout the manga is probably the biggest drawback Sekirei has towards crafting an exciting battle manga, as the series is much too afraid to veer beyond this silly-happy territory. That said, the series does at times entertain tragedy, but these moments are rather unsurprising, cliched, and often feel like cheap ways to evoke emotional moments, which the series thereafter mines upon for cloying sentimentality.

While the storytelling of the series is okay in the first half, it is very light. This makes for a more breezy read in the beginning, but one lacking in substance, which is expected to follow later. However when it comes time for explanations, the series begins its descent into incoherent nonsense. Most of the reveals are vague, muddled, or just not that necessary for the story. This is at its worst in the last few volumes of the main story, where what should be the climatic finale is instead a mess of convoluted babble and developments that are ultimately not interesting or actually important. Instead of the finale that was being built towards, the series abruptly shirks this direction in favour of a messy final battle with faceless enemies, making for a wholly disappointing and jarring conclusion. This is a shame given how much author Sakurako Gokurakuin built up various plot-lines and drummed up excitement for them, only to utterly fail on their delivery. This lack does not only apply to explanations however. For instance, one extremely disappointing plot-line of the series was the sister subplot, wherein Minato’s sister becomes involved in the battle, creating an interesting dynamic in the story. However, this subplot is poorly developed, stretched out, and ultimately ends with an unfulfilling cop-out. It seems like all Sekirei does is cop-out.

Sekirei does not have much to offer on the characters side of things either. Our main "hero" Minato is wimpy and unconfident but has a heart of gold (of course). He does undergo minor change (which is usually explicitly expressed by other characters), but he never becomes an interesting lead character and is often swept along by the plot throughout the series instead of taking an active role. Author Gokurakuin creates most other characters as if they are made in a factory assembly line: a single characteristic (usually comedic) is slapped onto a character design and they call it a day. As a result, most characters tend to be nothing more than walking traits without much depth (and given how stale the humour is, they get old fast). Nearly all the Sekirei are like this, and with so many of them, the amount of one-note personalities to contend with becomes tiring. It doesn’t help how the Sekirei become utterly devoted and dependant on their Ashikabi, which feels like it strips them of their character depth and decency by assigning nearly all of them the seedy characteristic of dependency. Rather it just feels like subservient wish fulfillment, but perhaps I was expecting too much from a harem series. This all extends to Minato’s team of Sekirei as well. On his team, Tsukiumi is probably the most entertaining character out of the bunch, and while she is a one-note tsundere relegated to the deprecating role of jealous housewife, she is at least entertaining. Furthermore, the attraction that some of them have to Minato is not very evident or believable, which again makes his over-powered team questionable. While there are some decent characters, they are few in number and are outside the main cast. Despite the hundreds of characters in this series, I can count on one hand the number of them which are defined by more than one trait.

Gokurakuin’s art is probably one of the few plus sides of this series. The character designs are well done, detailed, and varied, making the series at least pleasant to look at. While backgrounds are fine, they at times are relinquished to give way to the spectacle of battle. Unfortunately, Gokurakuin is less effective on depicting these flashy clashes. While there are some noteworthy moments in battle art-wise, they are other times just bland. This lacking is likely what makes part of the action not very engaging. This being an ecchi series, gratuitous nudity is to be found in nearly every chapter. To give a quite sleazy view, I often didn’t find Gokurakuin’s nudity to be very salacious, which is part of the attraction of an ecchi series.

I think the main issue here with Sekirei was that author Sakurako Gokurakuin was not really suited to depicting an action-packed battle manga; Gokurakuin feels more like an author who would make the super cheerful gakuen spin-off of a series rather than an action-packed one. They clearly wanted to depict this kind of manga, but couldn’t follow through. Instead, the focus on light-hearted, lovey-dovey shlock, as well as muddled storytelling and constant cop-outs, brought down whatever potential this series had.

(originally written in 2019)