Anime: Sengoku Otome: Momoiro Paradox

I am of the opinion that as the director for the first fanservice anime was making the final inspections on the product, someone from the studio made a phone call and assumed he was talking to his girlfriend without actually confirming who was on the other end--it turned out to be a cult of reviewers and critics. Needless to say it left them with a scowl on their face, but the crime of association left this fictional genre with more than a strange look. Because ever since their conception, ecchi series have generally found it hard to measure up with their characteristics while some rather flawed executions in other categories got by with a slap on the wrist. Battle Girls: Time Paradox (the official English name for Sengoku Otome: Momoiro Paradox) doesn't exactly distinguish itself from the pack, but it does have a tall profile.

The tale begins when Yoshino Hide passes by a local shrine to pray in hopes of passing an upcomming exam, notices a strange light enemating from inside, checks to see what it is happening, sees a mysterious person performing magic, trips on a small bell to send her crashing inside causing the other person to catch her, all just in time for the spell to activate sending her into an all-female version of the Sengoku Era, meets Oda Nobunaga and Akechi Mitsuhide, and decides to help the former find the pieces of the Crimson Armor whose legend says that its bearer shall have the power to conquer Japan. Yeah. The story itself leaves a lot to be desired, but the execution is surprisingly good.

When Yoshino met Nobunaga and Mitsuhide for the first time, it was during a battle with bandits at a village that had been set ablaze. Returning to the scene shortly thereafter, Hide sees the villagers struggling to rebuild, so she pulls out her cell phone which doubles as an mp3 player to play a tune and raise the spirits of the weary people. And succeeds. It's a rather unconventional means of planting out-of-place tracks into the series, but unfortunately such a convenience is destroyed before long and the show is left with some rather generic music. It serves its role depending on the mood of the scene adequately enough, but does not amount to anything spectacular. Of course, if the BGM were the point of an anime called Battle Girls, one can guess that the director was doing something terribly wrong.

So in keeping with its namesake, the show has a lot of fights, but the quality of them tends to be a mixed bag. Often times it is merely some variation of a beam attack from a sword and weapons colliding with each other, while at others the coreography is nothing short of very pleasing to behold. It is almost as if TMS Entertainment had the capacity to create some high-quality eye-candy but never got around to stop sitting on their hands. On the flipside, the backdrops are fairly realistic and compensate for the outlandish character designs.

Speaking of characters, they're somehow rather easy to identify, partly because there isn't much to keep track of but mostly due to how the show focuses on their personalities instead of playing up the (yuri) fanservice. However, only Yoshino, Nobunaga, Mitsuhide and Ieyasu would qualify for being cast members relevant to the story, as the rest are nothing if not uninspiring. Mitsuhide is Oda's trusted aide who only wishes to "make Nobunaga happy," but shows an increasing sense of jealousy to her Lord's interaction with Yoshino, while Ieyasu plots to steal the Crimson Armor for herself after Nobunaga has finished obtaining it. That psuedo-love triangle between Hide, Akechi and Oda isn't played strictly to titillate the viewer, by the way: the tension serves as the turning point for when the anime goes from a pure fluff series to something more dramatic, which never stops being serious and never fails to be coherent all the same. And when the dust finally settles, the show reaches its journey's end with a heartfelt and bittersweet conclusion.

While the other aspects of this series are not much to go on about, the narrative is certainly engaging once it actually gets going and is the high point of the entire anime. This degree of solemness is something that isn't found within most of its kin, and it is perhaps that very element which will leave its viewers with more than just sexual aesthetics. While Battle Girls has its problems, the story is enough to keep anyone in, even if only once, but it is for that reason alone which makes the show more than what it advertises; a flawed yet enjoyable experience.