Hyperdimension Neptunia - Reviews

If you're going into this Animation hoping for a really good story that makes a lot of sense, you're going to be very disappointed. That isn't necessarily a bad thing though, especially with Hyperdimension Neptunia. Also, if you are going into the Animation without having played Mk2 or Victory, there is a good possibility you may or may not be confused, as the Animation does sum up / play out stuff from those games. Watch the OVA as well so any loose ends from the Animation get tied up.

I'm by no means great at reviewing Anime at all, but decided this would be my first one, and the reason why I even checked this out in the first place, was because Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 1 was coming out on Steam, and I thought it would be a good Idea to watch the Animation first to get a feel for the characters.

To get a good example of how the Story for this Anime is, it's pretty much revolves around four CPU (Console Patron Unit) Goddesses that come together to declare a Friend Treaty, in order to stop the Console War. Yes, I said it. Console War. That should set you off already not to expect a serious story, because there is a lot of Gaming / Movie / Anime references mentioned throughout it, a good amount of 4th Wall Breaking, and just when you think the Story starts to get serious, the Characters in it (which are fully aware they're doing all this) break away from the seriousness quickly. There is also a lot of Fan Service involved, which you may or may not like. 

Even though it wasn't a straightforward story of what is going on, I still give it a 8. It took me until Episode 4 to actually get into it, but when that happened, I couldn't stop grinning / laughing like an idiot from time to time every episode. 

Animation Wise, I give it a 9. Sound Wise, about a 7. It's actually kinda tough for me to talk about the Animation and the Sound, since it's harder for me to focus on any thing that isn't the Story or the Characters (Kill La Kill's the only exception, because I loved the Music from that.)

Characters... Oh dear... What's a good way to put this...?

For me personally, I put it this way: It is very hard NOT to like any of the Characters. As far as the goddesses go, they have their own interests, whether it revolves around reading, Gaming, or Cosplaying.

You have Neptune, known as Goddess Purple Heart, the CPU of Planepture. She resembles the Sega Neptune (which was cancelled.) She is the main protagonist in the Animation, and she's well... a very lazy and Ditzy character, who is serious when she needs to be. Her being ditzy is not a bad thing at all, because she is mainly the one that will keep the Story from being an actual developed story.

Next is Noire, known as Goddess Black Heart, the CPU of Lastation. She is based off the Playstation. She is a VERY Good example of a Tsundere character done right, and it's hard not to like her, even if she can be incredibly cocky toward the other Goddesses. 

Afterwards, you have Vert, known as Goddess Green Heart, the CPU of Leanbox. She is based off the Xbox. When I mentioned Fan Service earlier, Vert is your go-to Goddess for that, since over the other goddesses, she has the biggest.... features. She's extremely intelligent, but she lets her said Features get to her Ego often, so she uses it to her advantage over the others.

Finally, you have Blanc, known as Goddess White Heart. She is the CPU of Lowee, and she is based off the Nintendo Wii. She likes to spend her time Reading, and keeps to herself mostly, but oh boy, if you do some thing as much to piss her off, you will regret it. She can easily switch from being calm and collected to flat out vicious, and her lack of "Features doesn't help with it either.

I'm sure you can take a guess what I mean by "Features." Their "Features" are essentially an indication as to the Hardware their respective consoles had at the time (which is odd for Nepture when you think about it, since the Sega Nepture never saw the light of Day, yet her CPU Form definitely isn't lacking Feature wise.)

Then you have your other characters, the CPU Candidates, and the younger sisters for some of the Goddesses.

Nepgear is Neptune's Sister, and she resembles the Game Gear. Attitude wise, she is about the same as Neptune, except that she is more serious and innocent than her sister, which makes her very loveable with how she can be during the animation. In the Games and in the Animation, even though she is younger, the characters mock Neptune by mentioning how they like her sister already, and that she is an improvement compared to dealing with Neptune herself.

Uni is Noire's Sister, who resembles the Playstation Vita. She is also innocent, and can be a bit of a Tsundere herself, but she mainly cares about striving to perform as well as possible so she can be thanked by her sister. 

Finally you have the twins, Ram and Rom, Blanc's sisters. Ram closely resembles Blanc in terms of her personality, and that makes her the more dominant of the twins, while Rom resembles Blanc in terms of her physique, while she mainly keeps to herself.

Vert herself does not have a Sister, since Microsoft did not have a portable console, and throughout the Games and the Animation, she shows how much it bothers her for not having a sister of her own, but that doesn't stop her from trying to take the other Sisters, which can be funny (and involves fan service.)

Afterwards, you have some Sub Characters.

Compa is Neptune's first actual friend that she meets in the Games, and she resembles Compile Heart. She focuses on trying to better her skills of being a Medic to help the ones she cares about, and she is incredibly innocent, while her Weapon is a giant Syringe... but from time to time has a sadistic side to her (In the Games, she mentions that if some one is annoying her too much, she can just poke them and inject them with a quick burst of Air to "silence" them.

IF is Neptune's second friend, who makes a living by working with the Guild to take on missions, and she resembles Idea Factory. She has a more serious tone compared to every one else, but not only can she not remain that way for very long because of Neptune, but she has a fairly prude-ish side to her as well.

Plutia is the CPU of Planepture in the dimension her and the other character come from, and she is known there as CPU Iris Heart. Personality wise, she is very kind, but also very slow, and it makes you wonder what is wrong with her. Honestly, I did not like her very much as a result of this. She reveals to her new friends that she doesn't transform into her CPU Form very often, because Histoire in her Dimension advises against it... for a VERY good reason when you find out shortly after that. She's okay, but her CPU form is mainly what lets me tolerate her as a character.

Peashy is also from the same Dimension as Plutia. Not only is she cocky, but she is a good example of what it's like to actually have a much younger sister, when they have to try to one-up you or take things from you, or get you to play with them. Peashy is pretty much like that, which makes her interesting, because Neptune has to suffer as a result since Peashy stays with her for a while. Stuff happens throughout the plot that makes her the focus of the second part of Hyperdimension Neptunia that is hard to get into detail about without throwing out some major spoilers, so you will have to find out for yourself.

Finally, you have your Antagonists. I actually won't list them off / go into detail about them. You will have to watch for yourself and judge how they are.

Character Wise, this is definitely a 10/10 for me. Even though the characters all have different personalities compared to one another, the way they just act through all 12 Episodes (including the OVA if you decide to watch that,) makes you not only never take them seriously (there are serious moments in the Story though,) but it will make you either love most, if not all of them.

For me personally, I rate the Animation overall as a 9 / 10. With a Satirical / constant awareness and 4th wall breaking by all the loveable characters in this, it would be hard not to recommend this to friends, especially if they are thinking about trying the Vita Remake of the first Game that came to Steam recently. While the Story can be confusing for a bit, it definitely picks up in the 2nd and 3rd part of it, and that's when it gets much better. 

Not only did I really enjoy this, but I also can't stop playing Re;Birth 1 on Steam. It makes me hope and look forward to the rest of the Games coming to Steam eventually (Re;Birth 2 and Hyperdevotion Noire was confirmed recently for this year.) This is an Anime you would want to watch before you start on another Long series, and it's also an Anime (if you like the Games) that you will want to watch often. Makes me very sad though that there is not 2nd season for the Animation ;_;

Warning this Review may contain spoilers-

Now onto another one of my amazing reviews, just for you all. This time it is for the anime Hyperdimension Neptunia. A short 13 episode anime based off a widly popular game. But in the end it was pretty disappointing, my hopes were obviously too high for this anime and in the end I was way too confused. Well I haven't played the game at this point so maybe that would of help with my understanding. Well anyway the story, well there wasn't much of a storyline, a bit random actually...one minute they were somewhere then the next they are somewhere different. And so started my confusion.  Also there were way too many ecchi moments, it was disturbing.

The animation was very detailedand probably the best thing about this anime, however the character designs revealed way too much flesh, again disturbing. The music was average, the opening was quite good and quite different compared to some of the other series. However the ending was pretty boring. The voice actors I didn't take much notice in but from what I heard they were great for the characters presented. The characters were rushed and undeveloped, the personalities were way too expected and there wasn't much to say about them.

Overall this wasn't the worst anime but it wasn't by far the best. I honestly wouldn't recommend it to anyone unless you really want to watch it but that might just be me. Anyway that ends this review, thank you for reading.

~AngelBeatsYui~

 

Story

Do not watch this anime expecting to understand whats going , this anime is more of a fan service to those who played the game , to those who have not played the games , the story is good with some clever pasing (in my opinion) with some very funny momments will definetly get you interested in the stories of the games

Animation 

The animation is very stunning in my opnion , but not for the reason you might think , yes the battle animations stay true to the games and are very flashy and fun to watch but the non-combat scenes are where they shine for me , they capture the personalities of the characters very well with the main character becoming one of the funniest and cutest things to ever exist.

Sound 

The sound effects represent the setting of the anime well , with very satisfying sounds during combat , but again the combat losses out to the non combat scenes where the comedy is very well surported by the background music

Characters

The characters despite having very little character development will very quickly grow on you as they did me , they are all very funny , likeable and overall quite cute , and they all seem as if they would be a very realistic group of close friends

Over-all

over all this is very much worth a watch , even if you havent played the games the characters will grow on you and become very memorable to you , and who knows , they may get you interested in the games like they did me.

This did a really good job capturing the heart and soul of the Hyperdimension Neptunia world. It is important to note that this anime is aimed at people familiar with the Hyperdimension universe or at the very least, reasonably familiar with console gaming (Lowee = Nintendo [Wii] / Leanbox = Xbox [360] / Lastation = Playstation [3] / Planeptune = Sega [Neptune]). If you are not, then a lot of the references, humor, and story will be missed leaving you with an empty shell. This is made for gamers essentially. It may still be an an entertaining form of comedy and action though.

The anime covers the general story outline of the games, although it was definitely rushed through. This is where it would be difficult to know what is happening if you are not familiar with the universe. It doesn't explain very well the whole shares system (think of it as Nintendo vs Playstation vs Xbox vs Sega, all trying to gain the most followers. There can only be 100% which is divided up among all the nations and grants power). It doesn't give much insight to the bad guys either and there are some important things to understand, especially for the the real reason of why a certain character does what she does in the last episode. The quality would have been greater to give an entire season per story line.

At least there are plenty of references to games, jokes, and of course a swimsuit episode. Any Hyperdimension fan should really enjoy what has been provided for us here.

Compared to many other anime, there is a lot of songs and plenty of good music which really stands out. Some of the images looked a bit blurry, so the quality could have been sharper.

It was nice to see that all the Dubbed voices were the same voices from the games. I do recommend the English version as it makes sure that all the humor makes sense, and captures their personality(which is a large component to the Hyperdimension universe) that is easy to follow. I shortly watched the first episode Subbed and it just doesn't quite capture everything as well when comparing the two.

One of the best aspects of the Hyperdimension universe is its diverse set of characters and personality. This really shines here with our CPU Goddesses and their sisters, along with a few other common cast members. It is never a dull moment with the Goddesses & Sisters!

This anime is alot of fun. Have many kawaii and pretty girls ~
Especially Neptune !! (female protgst of the anime) is damn kawaii and after HDD drive also so cool u know ?!

Not ohly that , the white heart-sama (Godness of Lowee) Blanc also kawaii dude, althought her personality abit weird( when she get pissed off, she will damn angry until wanna kill you).

Godness of Lastation, Noire also a cute and pretty girl though. Although she does not know how to communicate well with other people, but she is actually a good girl though.