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This is sort’ve what I was looking for when I watched the original Mai-HiME...but something just wasn’t there again. I can’t put my finger on it...but it just wasn’t there. Well, at least it wasn’t laced with cliques again; it only had a sprinkling this time around. Mai-Otome is alright, not downright horrible.

Story/Plot/Dev

Mai-Otome is very, very different to Mai-HiME. It essentially just uses the same character models, and most character names, from Mai-HiME, but places them in a totally new universe. Think of it like getting every character from Harry Potter, wiping their memories and then placing them in space. Something akin to that, yeah...
Mai-Otome ... focuses on a new lead, Arika Yememiya, on the planet Earl. Earl, a planet colonised a long time ago by humans, is very much like a futuristic version of the Victorian era. It has royalty, armies and plenty of conflict. Now, that’s all very interesting...but does it have anything to do with Arika? Not really, no. Arika was merely a poor girl who happens on members of a much higher status. Hailing from an unknown kingdom with only the clothes on her back and a mysterious gem, she finally arrives at the Windbloom Kingdom, in search of her mother, her only clue that her mother was once a person known as an Otome.
Instead of focusing on chosen HiME, Mai-Otome focuses on the Otome of Garderobe Academy. You can think of Otome as pure female knights, knights who have had nanomachines injected into their bloodstream to aid them in battle. Admittedly, from my point of view, pure knights are a lot more enjoyable to watch than a bunch of teenagers wielding artefacts and having large freaking monsters help them fight. Yes, pure knights do come with a side order of transformations, but this is a passing case of that. Just hearing them say “Materialise!” is totally awesome.

Now, returning roles. Most of the characters from Mai-HiME return, showing homage to their original character designs in some shape or form. Characters who got a major bump up in status and role, like Haruka, Shizuru and Natsuki, all retain a piece of either their original HiME power or their personality. Other characters like Midori actually have retained their child. All in all, though, their roles have been severely altered. Well, except for Mai and Mikoto, who sort of become like Kira in Gundam SEED Destiny. Out of all the returning characters, only two of them seem to keep a major role, with only one being a main character. Mashiro, queen of Fuka Castle and Windbloom, gets a main role while Tate, now Sergay, has a major supporting role. I like to call Mai-Otome the “Side Characters Revenge” anime. Hell, it can even pass as “insert characters revenge”.
Just so I don’t drag this out too long, I will say that the ending was riding on average...however it was much better than the end of Mai-HiME. The final episode does raise a few questions as to if Mai-Otome does take place on the same timeline as HiME, due to returning character Miyu’s role (her entire role in Mai-Otome is questionable. She just reeks of being the bridging character between the two series).
Overall, an alright story. Not as good as it could have been, however.

Art/Animation/3DCG

The animation has definitely had a step up from Mai-HiME, however, not by much. It does incorporate some 3DCG, but for 2005, it’s still a poor effort. I know, I may be criticizing it a bit much, like I did for Mai-HiME, but still. I do have to give props to the fight scenes, however. It’s a lot more exciting, but due to how many battles are actually fought, well, they didn’t really use this to their advantage. I still can’t believe this was produced by Sunrise, it could have been so much better. No use brooding over could have’s, though.

Voice Actors and Music

The voice actor talent is very much the same as had been seen in Mai-HiME, so no real changes there. The music did get a bit of an improvement, as there are actually a few out-of-battle tracks that I did enjoy this time. One of them reminded me of the theme for Ghost in The Shell 2: Innocence. Not much else to say here, though. I mean, exciting battle BGMs are a given here.

Bad Points and Aspects

Despite being an anime very focused around war, there aren’t very many battle scenes. I think a majority of the battles in the first half of the series actually end after about a hit or two, seeing as the Otome are so over powered at that point. The good battles don’t really come in till about episode 16 or 17, when the Otome start really facing each other. The Otome are at least not tied to their loved ones, and only royalty. Yeah, a generic master-knight system, but it works wonders when you could care less who the master is. Too bad you don’t get to see the epic master-knight combos till a lot later.
Oh yeah, did I mention Tate is a paedophile now? I could say that they live in a time where age doesn’t seem to matter for that, but still...there is one point in the series where you go “Are you serious? Oh come on! No!”

Finale

Well, despite bringing over some traits of Mai-HiME, it’s still better than that its predecessor. Too bad the fans don’t seem to agree with me. It’s not all that better, but at least the story came out better. I like the type of fantasy where entire counties are on the line, more so than just their loved ones and selfish personalities that you, the viewer, could care less about. I’ll admit though, watching Mai-HiME beforehand did give Mai-Otome a much greater effect, since it involved the whole “And which old character will I see next?” thing. The symbolism was much better too, but now you’re going to ask me why I didn’t cover symbolism in either review...well, the review would be way too long if I did. Go Google the symbolism.