Shojo anime doesn't usually hit American shores, and whenever it does, people don't usually buy them. However, "Mai-Hime" is a must-have series."Mai-Hime" may be the best new shojo action series, with intense fight sequences and some humorous jokes too.
It opens with a cruise trip gone totally wrong. Mai Tokiha and her brother, Takumi, are taking a boat ride to their school, Fuka Academy. They then discover a girl's body floating in the ocean. Mai resuscitates the girl.
Later at night, a person with a motorcycle helmet takes Mai hostage. Mai is forced to take the person to the room of the girl Mai saved. But when Natsuki enters the room and takes out her magical revolvers, the girl attacks with a giant sword. After an epic battle sequence, Mai saves the girl with the powers she didn't know she had.
Turns out that Mai is a HiME, a girl with the ability to summon Highly Advanced Materializing Equipment. In other words, she can summon fire rings around her hands and feet as weapons. Like other HiMEs, Mai also attains a Child, a robot animal with even more powerful weapons. And they were sent to destroy Orphans, monsters from outer space.
Yes, it sounds awfully typical for an anime series character to kill other monsters to save the world. However, the plot takes a complete U-turn when the girls learn what really happens when their Child dies--someone else dies.
Even though it's not an original series to say the least, "My-Hime" turns into a fatal tragedy. It resembles "Battle Royale," only the people closest to the HiMEs die in nerve-wracking succession. By the time one HiME is left, she is emotional scarred for life.
And even though the ending is almost way too optimistic for its own good, it is an excellent series with some of the best anime battles I've ever seen. Certainly My-HiME is not original, but it is entertaining and well-produced. Best of all, the entire series only costs $40 now.
Image courtesy of animewallpapers.net
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