Omamori Himari - Reviews

When I made my "anime to review next" list, I thought it'd be fun to re-watch some anime I haven't seen in a long time, mixed in with the more recent stuff and shows I haven't seen yet.

Enter Omamori Himari. A supernatural harem anime that I haven't seen in over a year. Unfortunately, I had an experience similar to Negima!?; I still enjoyed it, but not watching it in so long kinda dulled it a little...

Story

Yuuto Amakawa is your normal high school kid... supposedly. He's lost both of his parents in an accident, and lives alone while his childhood friend, Rinko Kuzaki, waking him up in the morning, cooking his food and other stuff.

On Yuuto's sixteenth birthday, the protective charm he got from his grandparents feels... different somehow. A few seconds later, he meets what seems to be a sword-carrying catgirl named Himari. Unfortunately, Yuuto is allergic to cats. After this meeting, his life is changed forever, etc. etc.

Because I was new to anime when I watched Omamori Himari, I thought it was really good. Fast-forward about 16 months and it just seems meh at best. Sure, the existence of youkai allow some action to be injected into the show, but for the most part, it was about the main character collecting a harem, and switching from one to the other makes it feel out-of-place.

Animation

The animation in Omamori Himari has nothing really special about it. The characters look good, and the animation seems to flow smoothly, but the worst part about it is probably the fight scenes. It was all fine at the start, and looked good, but in several fights (ones involving Shizuku, especially) ended up using CG effects that looked REALLY out of place. At least, it did for me.

Sound

For me, several of the BGM tracks in this anime stuck out, and generally fit the situation, but at times would feel very out of place. The OP is a cute and catchy song that will be stuck in your head for quite a while, and the ED (or EDs) were sung by the female cast, and I really like it when they do that.

For the voice actors, there were several memorable names. The most obvious would be Ami Koshimizu voicing the titular Himari, and with pretty much every main character, I could hear someone from a different anime. This, however, is also a detriment due to the male lead's voice actor... Daisuke Hirakawa may very well turn people away because he pretty much sounds like a certain cheating asshole of a character.

I was surprised, however, at how well the guy could sing in the final episode's ED.

Characters

Characters in anime are a bit of a hit-or-miss. Omamori Himari is disliked for having two characters who are more or less useless throughout most of the show (or, in Rinko's case, the show in its entirety).

The better of the main characters (Himari, Shizuku, Kuesu) are generally more fun to watch, especially when any combination of the three battle. However, Kuesu's initial introduction may prove to be too strong for some viewers during the closing stages of the show.

Final thoughts

Omamori Himari was a fun watch overall, but when it tried to get too serious near the end, it felt like it was trying a little too hard and the sudden change in tone may end up turning some watchers off.

I'd say to watch this if you are bored and have nothing else to do, at an overall pace of one episode a day. Trying to marathon this anime could quite possibly end up being too much.

Story - 4.6

Animation - 7.2

Sound - 8.1

Characters - 7.2

Enjoyment - 7.0

FINAL SCORE - 6.82/10

If your that person that can't stand that pathetic weak main character or gets annoyed by bouncing breasts, I definitely suggest you cross this anime from your list right now. However besides that, Omamori Himari does live up to its harem and ecchi genre. Before I continue any further, just remember this is a review and not an synopsis.

Story (7/10)
The whole demon thing didn't capture me from the start. Truth be told, when I started watching episode one I didn't expect much and I almost dropped it. After finishing the series though, I told myself,"Hey! that wasn't half bad at all!" There are many ecchi harem anime that just gives an entire new meaning to 'crap', but this one was quite enjoyable.

Art (8/10)
As with many other ecchi series, the art almost never pose to be a problem. With that said, you can surely enjoy the artwork of Omamori Himari.

Sound (7/10)
The music was not outstanding but not bad either. Wasn't something that truly touched me or anything. However the music that plays during the climax of the story are pretty good.

Character (7/10)
As with many others, almost all the cast of characters were female. But being a guy, hey I'm not complaining.

Overall this anime deserves an 7.3/10. Unlike many other ecchi anime, the producers of Omamori Himari seemed to actually have put in effort to the storyline

This show has all the makings of a pretty okay ecchi, harem, action-comedy.  Unfortunately, it has one of THE WORST main characters EVER!  Yuuto is the last surviving member of one of the great families of demon hunters, who is destined for the greatest of greatness, except he’s a pacifist, who hates violence – and probably girls.  Until his latent demon fighting powers manifest, his protector is a cat demon who turns into a hot samurai girl, named Himari, who wants to breed with our hero very badly.  Yuuto is also allergic to cats, which somehow correlates to him not being able to stand physical contact with Himari for very long, even when she’s in smoking hot, naked, horny girl form.  I reject this notion, since most Japanese folks I know bathe like there is no tomorrow (-for hours, even!), so Himari’s dander shouldn’t even be an issue.  But, seriously, bro?  Benadryl. 

As our hero comes of age, all these demons start coming out of the woodwork to wreak havoc on the world.  Oh, if only our main character would just grow a pair, and do some man shit, this would be no problem, except he sucks and won’t use violence, even as the world burns.  This leaves our badass little cat girl having to pick up the slack and try her best to stop people from getting killed by demons. 

Despite Himari being awesome, she’s really only supposed to be a side-kick character; she doesn’t have nearly the power that this guy is supposed to have, so she is constantly getting her ass beat right before his eyes.  Early on, it probably couldn’t be helped, since our hero’s powers had not yet blossomed.  However, part way through the series, his abilities began to awaken, and yet he still would do nothing.  --If only our main character would lift A finger to help her -help the world, for God sakes – this would be no problem.  But, he doesn’t.  All he does, well-passed the very end, is sit there and cry about how much he sucks because he CHOOSES to do nothing and let people die.  That’s right folks!  It was painful to watch this beta cry about Himari getting beat to shit, all the while cursing himself because he has the ability to do something about it, but he just doesn’t want to. 

*SPOILER* 

At the end, Himari is swallowed up by rage, and has lost her humanity.  This is all caused by our main character’s lack of action.  He makes a gamble and charges head first at her, armed only with the power of love (…?) to try and bring Himari back from insanity – ARE YOU CRAZY???  -What if that shit didn’t work?  -He should’ve had his face clawed off! -Still not wanting to fight going into the bottom of the ninth; how in the world are the creators going to end it?  -Because our protagonist clearly wasn’t gonna.  They Deus Ex Machina Yuuto an ability to magic girl Himari so she can end the episode, while our hero remains a damsel on the sidelines.  -Boy, these writers never miss a good opportunity to miss a good opportunity.  I feel so terrible for our poor, little, sex-starved, cat girl, Himari; her acute nymphomania and thundering nakedness are wasted on the likes of him.

12/10 Neko Girls Meow                                                                        

Quick rating: Not even the power of the neko could save this show. Only watch it, if you want some mindless action/ecchi.

Take the clichees of a standard ecchi show, a run-of-the-mill shounen fighting series and some cat hairs and put them into a blender, then you get this show. Like most shows based on these genres the animation quality and characters designs are still pretty good and the soundtrack even managed to surprised me with some unexpected/interesting tracks.

Obviously you should expect a lot of fanservice and it's sometimes also quite cringeworthy (e.g. the scene in which the water demon girl "heals" the main character)

Also obviously the girls all fall for the main character...but ugh...our main "hero" is this special breed of wimpy that wants you make to punch the screen every time you see him. You can expect some development for the female cast, but most of the time they will drool over the wimpy lead character and want to be his willful slaves. (in a few cases it manages to be over the top and funny, most of the times it's just silly). Bonus points for cute cat ears though.

Storywise, I guess there are even worse ecchi animes out there. Don't expect anything groundbreaking though.