Anime: Campione! Matsurowanu Kamigami to Kamigoroshi no Maou

Campione, the series I keep mispronouncing as "champion", is a subpar action-based harem with a very uneven plot line and so many incorrect uses of classical mythology that it would cause a classics professor to commit suicide. If you enjoyed the likewise-confused plotline of Hagure Yuusha no Estetica, know that this is very similar except with (more traditionally) stronger female leads.

So basically, a dude returns a tablet-like relic that his grandfather passed down (no explanation) to a mage/slut and, soon after being asked to keep it, decides to use it against a god and successfully becomes a god-slayer. Now with literally god-like powers, he soon attracts a harem- conveniently enough, the only way for magic to work on his surprisingly human looking non-human body is through the lips. You can probably guess the rest from there...

So there you have it. Take an ordinary person and mix with a handful of girls, a CGI ripoff of the Unlimited Blade Works reality marble, and random classical mythology jargon to get out of any sticky situations and poof you have a winner? Right? ... If you make it through episode two, consider yourself a stalwart.

Animation:
Overall, CGI aside, the animation quality isn't as bad as my intro above would have you think. This is actually a fairly drawn series with some fairly decent fight sequences, literally so good that it throws gods around! Puns aside, in addition to pleasing colors and effects, you'll find a nice array of character designs- if only they used as much effort on the character development, but more on that later. Surprisingly, for a harem-based series, the first female lead transforms into an actually reasonable fighting outfit rather than your expected tiny miniskirt.

The action consists of a mix of swordplay and hurling magical energy back and forth- just like in Hagure. There is a slight sense of greater urgency here as Godou is nowhere near as confident as the lead in Hagure. As alluded to above, there is a substantial dosage of ecchi here be it girls forcing themselves on Godou (as you must not anger a godslayer- for undisclosed reasons) or the random excuses for additional French kissing (and, probably intentional, figurative sex act in ep 11- for you fanatics).

Sound:
The show opens with a standard J-pop song with light hints of rock and electronica- if only the melody were a bit more defined. The ED is a much cleaner, crisp song performed by a 17-year-old. The BGM is nothing special except for the opera/orchestra-heavy reality marble moments where they really up the tension to blabber some more gibberish comparable to stating that OMG if I apply a rubber band to quantum mechanics, cause it is found wrapped around packaged sandwiches, suddenly the concepts are compatible with classical physics so Eureka! (giant sword appears out of nowhere and the entire world trembles).

As for VAs, the standout is, this is a new one, the announcer! He does a tremendous job of pumping up a character that really doesn't deserve any of it. Youko Hikasa did a great job as Erica as well, if only there was a bit more development to validate her character actions.

Story:
This story is incredible in many ways. Not only does it challenge my definition of epically bad pacing, it challenges my definition of the worst special attack to defeat your opponent. I'll give the director some "guts" points for not pulling the string on this one. The show starts as an interesting thriller, paralleling the beginning of Shana (suddenly forced into a new world and instantly protected by a tsundere-turned-girlfriend). However, it soon reverts to an arc-based harem where the abilities of Godou gives him an ultimate plot shield so strong that you really start to lose interest. With each antagonist/god, it's the same rinse and repeat formula that reminds you of Sailor Moon and Power Rangers.

The only thing to keep things interesting is the seemingly random direction that the plot meanders. Here are some examples: antagonists will suddenly change sides, random side characters will come save the day, lolis will morph into milfs, and the characters get transported to an alternate dimension. Don't expect any explanations for any of the wacky setting either. In summary, if you enjoy being thrown in random plot directions, that are all conveniently solved by the same magic formula, then by all means dig in to this series.

Character:
Unfortunately, the pain continues here as well. The series spends so much time focusing on battles and dizzyingly random plot directions that you really don't get a feel for any of the girls- is that not the point of a harem? Heck, Erica even condones Godou getting a subordinate wife. There will be a few bouts of jealousy to try to ameliorate this- nowhere near enough. Girls are continuously introduced throughout the series, all the way through to the final climax; thus expect an unnecessary number of unimportant supporting characters.

I am happy to report that not everything is under the weather for this series. In terms of male leads, Godou is a bit shy (kind of the trend in harems) but at least he's not a reserved chicken. And the interactions with the girls, in general, are fair, if only lacking in some context and (occasionally) explanation.

Value:
Please let me conclude with a parody of the show's introduction:

Campione - a Godslayer - is a supreme flop.
Since the main character can kill celestial beings, it must be worth watching, regardless of whether events make sense.

Campione - a Godslayer - is a bore.
Since the power to kill a deity is in his hands, nothing can really harm him- so what's the point?

Campione - a Godslayer - is a devil.
As the series tempts you with attractive girls, only to throw you around in a pointless roller coaster.

THE STAFF
- Animated by Diomedea, a studio that makes only shitty ecchi anime.
- Directed by Kusakawa Keizou, the guy who also did Lyrical Nanoha, a franchise most watch for the fan service.
- Based on a light novel, which means a dumb story. There you go, just from the get-go you already know it will be a dumb story full of ecchi that you will be watching for the fan service.

SPECIFICS
The excuse of the story finds a high school with a grimoire that gives him superpowers after he meets a magical sword-wielding tsundere. And as you can already guess with one sentence alone, this is yet another Shana-clone show. They just try to flavour it a bit by making it begin in Italy, where a huge monster that is supposed to be a god or something is trashing everything. And that is as far as they go.

The plot is one big mess, as everything feels like it was written by a 5 year old kid. Just a few minutes after it begins you get ridiculous scenes of complete randomness. Our archetypical hero meets a tsundere exactly when the monster attacks (it wasn’t scheduled), is told by another kid that he has amazing willpower and resolve when he showed absolutely nothing, and grabs the tsundere as she falls down by randomly appearing on a balcony when he was on the street two seconds earlier. And I love how a gigantic monster trashed a seemingly empty city, while seconds before the attack there were people everywhere.

After the attack, we get even more Shana rip offs, by seeing the girl using a fiery sword and magically fixing everything that was trashed back to its original state. Great way to maintain the status quo and rendering all conflicts meaningless if there are no repercussions. Then the tsundere offers a long explanatory monologue so we will know what exactly is going on here. Of course in-story there was absolutely no reason to explain all that to a total stranger but who ever said this is a story that tries to excuse anything? For the same reason she befriends the protagonist for no reason and makes him carry her luggage just to prove what a bitch she is. Afterwards we get lots of those forced fan service scenes where she keeps seducing him, he keeps begging for forgiveness when he didn’t do anything at all, and she keeps blaming him for everything when it’s otherwise her fault. What a great way to establish them right away as nothing more than done to death ecchi material.

After that we get another battle where the otherwise clueless mortal gets sudden power-ups capable to slay a god and even gets some kisses from the tsundere. The action scenes are a pile on nonsense as all they are all doing is swing swords or books and magic beams make things blow up. Not a single attempt at actual close combat or some sort of meaningful choreography, other than lots of flashy but otherwise meaningless visual effects. And it’s not like they are awesome either, as the production values are just ok and not amazing in any way.

And boy, how did the tsundere’s personality turned to such a slut all of a sudden? But whatever, this is as far as characterization goes in this show (sluts) and nobody manages to be even slightly interesting. Thus the protagonist may have the power to slay gods but he is otherwise the same wuss of a harem lead accompanied by an army of whores he never bangs; the same crap we get for three decades now.

And by the way, we are STILL in the pilot episode. WHOAH EASY YOU GUYS! The show barely began and all the mystery has already been revealed, the setting is explained, the protagonist can slay gods, has seen the tsundere half naked, and already kissed her? A typical Shana-clone would wait for half the show to be over before doing all that as means to keep you guessing and hoping. The scriptwriter practically left nothing to build up for later! Congratulations; you killed our interest in a single episode.

And indeed, as soon as the second episode begins everything has now turned to a standard harem show, where the dork protagonist is surrounded by hot chicks and everything is endless misunderstandings and accidental infringements. Just imagine that every time he needs to give or take a spell, he needs to French kiss a girl. And since every girl in this show is after to have sex with or kill him, the result is him constantly stuffing his throat with girls’ tongues. If a deep throat is needed every time they need to cast a simple spell, imagine what they have to do if they ever need to talk about the meaning of life. Remember how Saber recharges her powers in Fate/Stay Night?

And you can even forget the setting of the exotic Italy as well. He returns to his home in episode 2 and afterwards it’s just a Japanese high school with a ton of girls in sailor suits for the billionth time. And I have no idea why he went to Italy when he is otherwise using French kisses. Or why the tsundere is dressed like a Spanish dancer instead of an Italian noble.

You can also forget the fancy mythological references too. They aren’t even trying to present them as plausible since you get the Greek goddess of wisdom being Mother Nature in loli form that is using Sumerian language in order to erase the stars over Japan by using the power of Medusa through a deep throat kiss by some sailor suit slut. Makes complete sense, right? And you can also forget about how millions of gods exist in this world for millennia. They just appear out of nowhere, blow shit up, the hero reads a wikipedia about them, French kisses some sluts, random shit blow up, he wins with no effort, the Gods disappear as easily as they apeared, more fan service, and then more kisses.

If all you want to see is some guy kissing bitches and kills gods that pop out of nowhere with no effort, chances are you will like it. But don’t expect any sort of interesting story to happen. There is barely any in it. They gave up on this after one freaking episode and went for BS fan service. It’s a throw away show with nothing worthy to hope for. But hey, even the title of this anime implies that. I mean just look at it: The Campy-One.