Battle Girls: Time Paradox

ThatAnimeSnob Apr 12, 2012

5

This anime is based on a pachinko game (something between a slot machine and a flipper). Said game also has a story. A Japanese schoolgirl magically transfers back in time to the period of Japan’s unification. She takes part in the war by befriending one of the major generals and goes to … find a magic armour. I guess unifying Japan with this premise is impossible without a McGuffin to help you. The catch is, everybody in this world is a skimpy clothed young girl. Not even a man in sight! In fact the only male character in the whole show is a talking dog. So imagine the Sengoku era, one of the bloodiest times in Japanese history, to have been turned to a magical place full of half naked lesbians looking for a magic item… and the whole thing is actually the backdrop story of a game of balls… Only thing, nobody actually has “balls” besides a talking dog… And it is not a hentai; I repeat, not a hentai. Confused? So was I for a couple of hours. Sure, anime never tried to be historical and the era was always twisted around to look as far fetched as possible. The most famous example is the anime Sengoku Basara, where all the characters are bishonens with superpowers and the whole war was nothing but a videogame with lots of macho talking and no actual field tactics. I never liked that show but it was nice brainless entertainment for most. This anime is the same but in girls-only version. Did it work equally the same? Well, for starters WHAT’S GOING ON WITH THE PREMISE? Why is everybody female? Why is everybody half-naked? Oh, I am sure that in a fan pleasing way all that can be simply excused as pure guilty pleasure but in terms of internal consistency the show is simply ridiculous. Sengoku Basara could claim to be about the guys fighting while the girls are safe in the kitchen as always. That old retro title Gall Force excused nicely how there are only women because they just clone themselves. Battle Girls have no valid excuse (other than silly magic). How the heck do they breed? XDThe directing is done by Okamoto Hideki, someone who has nothing but bellow average ecchi and harems in his roster. So sounds like he is right at home with this brainless fan catering title. The production values are not bad either, since most of the time you get interesting sceneries with nice colouring. But don’t get too excited since Studio TMS never produced an above average work (its best attempts were Hundred Stories, Kenichi, and D.Gray-Man). The characters are all drawn generic but chances are you will only care about how much skin they show, at which point I say it was ok and their costumes lovably kitsch in a videogame fashion. There are of course countless anachronisms in the way everything works but it’s not like the show tries to be historically accurate; so don’t mind that. Voice acting ain’t bad and in times of tension they could still sound scared and sad despite the ridiculous roles they began with. In terms of characters, they all don’t have much of a presence, other than showing bare skin and lesbo tendencies but when the story wants to get darker, they do manage to feel a bit dramatic. Noting amazing, since they are all very simplistic as personalities and their development is sort of expected to be as such but definitely not cardboards. Of course, given the nature of the show to the most part they are just goofing around but let’s not get into that because it never attempted to be too serious. You basically get a plot where they meet, a sort of romantic triangle forms, and betrayal rises out of jealousy and ambition. Basic stuff but it works and the ending feels satisfactory with what the producers had to work with. I mean, just the fact they bothered to have some plot and character development in such a show sounds like a miracle. Although the anime is just silly fan service fest, it is definitely better than most similar ones thanks to developing past its initial premise and ending in a solid way. Although still immature and brainless all the way, at least it tried to be something more than just aimless softporn. It is still far from a great show and will most likely be forgotten fast, but it is definitely a show anyone can watch between better anime without feeling completely cheated afterwards.

JadedDragos Jan 20, 2019

9.3

I enjoyed this, and no it wasn't just because of women with big breast and fewer clothes. The story for this one was pretty straight forward, but I have been attracted to really anything that has to do with Nobunaga Oda. No matter how weird, or even if the name is just mentioned or is just the mention of a character..... I'll watch it. With that said, even with a straight forward story and a definitely a change in characters I did like it. Animation throughout the episodes were good and it was fun seeing those fight scenes. Music was good and the opening and ending themes were good as well. The development and interaction between characters was good. I liked just about all of them. The main was a little to whiny for me, but I pushed through. Then poor Shiro, I loved episode 7, haha poor guy. =-) Overall I liked this one and was a good watch.

jypsyjulia Jul 1, 2011

6

The STORY of Battle Girls reminded me greatly of InuYasha, but I am a big enough history buff that I didn't care.  However, do be warned - this is NOT a historical account.  After all, a girl is going into the past so things are going to change.  I was originally irked that things that were suppose to occur didn't (in fact the OPPOSITE happened), but if you can get past that and focus on the fact it's not trying to be historically accurate, it's a cute anime. I didn't particularly care for the ANIMATION.  I thought that everyone's breasts just seemed so... ridiculous.  Especially Nobunaga's... it was completely disproportionate!  And of course everyone wore as minimal clothing as possible.  It wasn't only their breast size, however.  (Keep in mind that this anime is trying to appeal to many - and there really wasn't that much fanservice).  This anime is very cartoon-y and I generally don't like that look. I actually rather liked the OP and the Ending and was very impressed with all of the seiyuu's work in this.  I especially loved Nobunaga's voice.  I thought it captured who she was (he was?) perfectly, and Hide's voice was sweet as well, without turning her into the typical, bubbly cliche. If you can take them out of the historical context, then the CHARACTERS of this anime are very fun!  I didn't want to rate them higher than a 7, however, because they are kind of "cheating" considering almost all of them were already historical characters.  They sort of had an upper in this.  However, their take on Hideyoshi, Akerin and Nobunaga was absolutely fascinating and I loved watching all of the character interactions. OVERALL, I would recommend this anime.  There is a bit of filler that I definitely could have done without, but for the most part, it follows a central plot of a journey and has a sweet character development.  My favorite part was when Hideyoshi was about to return with Date and she was handed her cell phone.   She said, "I forgot about this!"  THAT is character development at it's finest!