Alternative Titles
Synonyms: Aoharu x Machine Gun
Japanese: ιζ₯Γζ©ι’ι
English: Aoharu x Machinegun
German: Aoharu x Machinegun
Spanish: Aoharu x Machinegun
French: Aoharu x Machinegun
Information
Episodes:
12
Status:
Finished Airing
Aired:
Jul 3, 2015 to Sep 18, 2015
Broadcast:
Fridays at 01:46 (JST)
Duration:
24 min. per ep.
Rating:
PG-13 - Teens 13 or older
Statistics
Score:
7.151 (scored by 105169105,169 users)
Ranked:
#4051 2
2
based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.
Popularity:
#1234
Members:
226,954
Favorites:
1,313
Available AtResources
Streaming Platforms
May be unavailable in your region. |
Ranked #4051Popularity #1234Members 226,954 Hotaru Tachibana has a strong sense of justice and just cannot help confronting those who choose to perform malicious acts. Furthermore, Hotaru is actually a girl who likes to disguise herself as a boy. After hearing rumors that her best friend was tricked by the popular host of a local club, Hotaru seeks to punish the evildoer. Upon arriving at the club, however, she is challenged to a so-called "survival game" by the host Masamune Matsuoka, where the first person hit by the bullet of a toy gun will lose.
After a destructive fight which results in Hotaru's loss, Masamune forces the young "boy" to join his survival game team named Toy Gun Gun, in order to repay the cost of the damages that "he" has caused inside the club. Although she is initially unhappy with this turn of events, Hotaru quickly begins to enjoy what survival games have to offer and is determined to pay off her debt, much to the dismay of Tooru Yukimura, the other member of Toy Gun Gun. As time goes on, Hotaru begins to develop a close friendship with the rest of the team and hopes to take part in realizing their dream of winning the Top Combat Game (TCG), a tournament to decide the best survival game team in Japan.
Although Hotaru tries her best, there are just two little problems: she is absolutely terrible at the game, and Toy Gun Gun doesn't allow female members on their team!
[Written by MAL Rewrite] | |
|
MALxJapan -More than just anime-
| Characters & Voice Actors
| "The Bravest Destiny" by ToyβGunGun (γγ€βγ¬γ³γ¬γ³) (Tomoaki Maeno, Yoshitsugu Matsuoka, Mikako Komatsu)
|
Reviews
Sep 19, 2015
I first started watching Aoharu x Kikanjuu simply because I thought the art was beautiful. I had no idea what it was about at all.
And thus, I can easily say that the art is one of the best points of the series (in my opinion), along with the soundtrack.
After the first (few) episodes, I was surprised to see that I actually enjoy a series with 'survival games' as its theme/plot/however to call it.
Story 8/10
In my opinion, the story itself could be much better if the pace were slower. If the actions, games and such were more detailed, with more depth.
Still, I liked the
...
general idea of the survival games and tournaments and such.
Art 10/10
Like I've mentioned above, the art is the reason I actually started the series and of course, there are many animes with outstanding art, but in my opinion, Aoharu x Kikanjuu is one of them.
There were a few scenes where I just sit there, stare at the screen and think 'wow, that's drawn so beautifully'.
Sound 10/10
I liked the soundtrack - whether we talk about the opening/ending or in-between. It matched whatever was happening and yeah, I simply enjoyed the music.
Character 9/10
It would have easily gotten a '10/10' from me if one actually got to know more about all the protagonist (and of course, the other characters as well). I am pretty sure that the characters could have an interesting past, relationship to each other and who-knows-what, but apparently, it's not shown.
There are many interesting ones and, in my opinion, also quite a few really likable/lovely ones.
Some might turn out weird or the 'development' is kind of... unnatural/too fast, but overall if I thought about 'why did they do that?' the answer/reasoning usually comes to me rather quickly.
Although I am sure if one doesn't give much thought about the 'why', the characters might just appear as 'ridiculous'.
Enjoyment 10/10
I'm pretty sure that I would have marathoned the series if all episodes were out already when I started watching the anime.
There were still times where it was kind of 'normal'/'slow' compared to the usual pace of the series and some episodes were full of excitement.
It was funny, sometimes you might even get goosebumps or just excited/anticipating to see what would happen next.
Most of the time, I thought that it was amusing and enjoyable.
Overall 9/10
The part which I'm disappointed about is the fact that there was not enough 'character development' and 'story depth'.
Also, if the series had a few more episodes to spare, I think it would have gotten a lot better (more time for the events, games, characters etc.).
But apart from that, I still adore most of the characters shown, even the antagonist(s) are fascinating and the mixture of different personalities is interesting.
Reviewerβs Rating: 9
What did you think of this review?
Sep 20, 2015
Meet Hotaru Tachibana, a girl with a strong sense of justice. She is easily mistaken for a boy, because of her broad shoulders, short hair, and confrontational attitude. She has an altercation with a host named Masamune Matsuoka, who mistakes her for a boy. In order to pay for the damage she caused, she joins his survival game group, Toy Gun Gun. The only problem? Girls aren't allowed!
I believe the best way to describe Aoharu's issues in a word is: disorganized. There's comedy, but this isn't a comedy anime. There's some drama, but this isn't drama or tragedy anime. There's a cross-dressing female, but this
...
isn't a gender bender. And there's some action, but this is by no means an action anime. Like anime such as Kekkai Sensen, Aoharu x Kikanjuu spreads itself too thin over too many genres, and that is what leads to its downfall.
While Aoharu has survival games in it, it doesn't have enough action scenes, nor is the animation good enough to distinguish Aoharu as a good action anime. The art isn't amazing enough to be spellbound by it.
*SPOILERS in this paragraph*
Likewise, the anime's plot is weak. What is the goal of the anime? Is it for Hotaru to improve her skills? Considering she doesn't improve much, no. Is it for her to admit she's a girl? Considering that doesn't happen, no. Is it for Toy Gun Gun to win TGC or beat Hoshishiro? Neither of those happens, so no. Is it for Masamune to overcome his vendetta against Midori? While this does happen, it only surfaces as a huge repetitive issue in episode 11 and is solved in episode 12. So no.
*END SPOILERS*
Without strong action or plot, characters need to fill that void. Let's look at the characters--are they complex? Hotaru as a black and white view of the world; she sees everything in terms of justice. Masamune has an abandonment complex, but it literally only surfaces in the last two episodes. Yukimura, despite being the most entertaining character of the show, is flat. All we know about him is he is extremely attached to Masamune and is a perv. Midori is a sadist, which is fine, but we don't ever see why he wants to torment Masamune so. Fujimon is cute, but that's about it. And so on, and so forth. The characters, while entertaining enough at a superficial level, aren't three-dimensional. They're shallow, so they're hard to relate to. And I'm saying this despite my attraction to Masamune and Midori.
Make no mistake; this anime is not bad. I dragged my feet almost every week, but I was mildly entertained by every episode. Having two eye candy characters helped. But the flat characters, lack of depth, and disorganized storyline really detracted from my experience. (And yes, the fujobait bothered me, but not as much as those other issues.) I don't feel like this anime has changed me or taught me anything. Not to mention, the only thing I looked forward to all season--Hotaru confessing she's a girl--never happened. It's not a bad anime, but it's not very good either, by my standards. It's just average.
Overall score: 5/10
Do I recommend it? Not really. But it's entertaining, if you have some time to kill.
Reviewerβs Rating: 5
What did you think of this review?
Sep 19, 2015
I don't think I've ever seen an anime with as many blatant plot holes and as much inconsistent writing as Aoharu x Kikanjuu. Now that doesn't mean it's the worst anime ever made (it definitely isn't), but it has a huge amount of wasted potential due to its weak story, horrendous characterization, and the fact that the author is seemingly completely clueless about how airsoft works.
Initially the anime feels like something quite similar to Ouran Koukou Host Club as the protagonist is a girl (Tachibana Hotaru) crossdressing as a boy who ends up becoming indebted to a popular guy (Matsuoka Masamune) who works as a
...
host in the city. This notion is then quickly proven highly inaccurate as Matsuoka forces Tachibana to come join his "survival game" team and participate alongside him in an upcoming tournament. I say survival game, but that in and of itself is completely wrong; it's actually just competitive airsoft that we're talking about here. I don't know if it's a mistranslation or whatnot but either way if you're expecting some sort of thrilling life-or-death drama here you're going to be sorely disappointed because there is absolutely nothing lethal in this anime.
So what exactly is it that makes Aoharu x Kikanjuu such a trainwreck then? Well there are many reasons but they can be roughly divided into three categories:
1. The plot
The writing for this anime is bad. Terribly bad. The games themselves make no sense whatsoever (more on that later), but even ignoring that part the overall plot progression is simply all over the place. Initially, Tachibana thinks the airsoft games are childish and stupid. Then after playing *one* game she suddenly thinks they're the greatest thing ever and has become a full-blown addict. Sounds believable, right? Oh and you know how she originally joined the team because of a debt? Yeah that plot element is just handwaved away in a split second as if it never existed to begin with, completely ruining the entire premise of the story, yet it just keeps on going as if nothing ever happened.
There are also all kinds of forced drama which feel completely unnecessary, totally out of place, and oftentimes insanely predictable. Time skips are pulled haphazardly which renders the pacing very inconsistent, and above all, there seems to be no semblance of coherence in the writing whatsoever. Let me just describe a certain scene from episode two here in order to make an example (minor spoilers I guess, but certainly nothing important): there is a segment where Tachibana is surrounded by her three opponents at only a few meters range. Then in the next second they're suddenly all standing on the same side of her, yelling "corner her!", as if implying that they hadn't already cornered her a second ago? Immediately thereafter, Tachibana's teammate suddenly appears next to her and they have a loud conversation for about two minutes. What happened to their opponents? They were standing right next to her just a moment ago! How could they possibly have lost track of her, let alone be outside hearing range? I mean seriously just what happened here, did the producers accidentally put the scenes in the wrong order or something? These kinds of elementary mistakes should be impossible to make. It's so blatantly illogical it feels like it was written by a 12-year-old.
2. The characters
Aoharu x Kikanjuu is pretty blatant fujoshi bait; that much is obvious from the get-go, but even so the character cast is still a disaster. First of all, we have our main character Tachibana Hotaru. Mother of god is she annoying. About once per minute she has to remind the audience that despite her appearance she's actually a girl, she's always referring to herself in third-person and her sole personality trait is seemingly that she firmly believes in "justice". Yeah justice; hence why she goes completely berserk when playing airsoft and behaves like an uncontrollable animal; sounds just like a knight in shining armor, doesn't she? In the first place what does justice have to do with playing games? Are your opponents supposed to be "evil" just because they're playing or something? In that case Tachibana is obviously equally guilty of that crime. There's also the obnoxious truth that despite being a really bad player, Tachibana always ends up spontaneously gaining super powers whenever the plot feels like it, solely for the sake of convenience. The anime never shuts up about her so-called "bloodlust" which is the ability she uses to magically paralyze her opponents just by looking at them and make them cower in fear, as well as enable her to run faster than a speeding bullet. But there's nothing supernatural about this or anything, it's just her "talent".
As far as the rest of the characters in this show goes (essentially all male), they're basically all cardboard cutouts as well. Matsuoka is the typical noble bishounen with a "dark past", Yukimura (the third team member) is quiet, depressive and honestly kind of creepy, and then there's the overly-generic villain Midori who's just an all-round douchebag that enjoys hurting people. They all feel like they're solely there for the sake of being there, but without much thought put into it whatsoever. And the way they behave towards each other is completely unnatural. At one moment Matsuoka is almost pissing himself with fear just by looking at Midori, and in the next he's being super cocky and confident. Again, consistency please. There are also quite a lot of soft Yaoi vibes every here and there throughout the show, which I guess is to be expected given the fujoshi pandering but it still feels very out of place story-wise.
3. The "survival games"
Everything I've stated above is certainly problematic, but without a doubt the nail in the coffin is the execution of the so-called "survival games" themselves. Honestly I don't think the author has ever played airsoft before, or even studied up on how it works properly. I'm going to be very direct here: airsoft is primarily a game of tactics, stealth and precision. It's a game where you attempt to predict the opposing team's moves ahead of time, try to hide and ambush them by sniping them from the shadows, etcetera. I don't even think you need to have played the game before to understand that much. So what does Aoharu x Kikanjuu do then? Well... it basically treats airsoft like a battle shounen.
Do you know what you do with guns? You shoot each other with them. Yeah right, not in this anime; here you avoid using them, charge straight down the barrel of your opponent's rifle, *paralyze* him with fear just by looking at him and thus render him incapable of pulling the trigger, then run into melee range and finally bludgeon the guy by using your submachine gun as a club. Excellent work Tachibana; you were even able to outplay the guy using a freaking minigun by using this incredible strategy! Truly a job well done. While we're at it we should start teaching the military that there's no need for guerilla warfare any longer; simply running up to your enemies and punching them in the face sounds like a much more humane way of fighting.
Of course that's far from the only problem when it comes to how these games play out. People refusing to shoot when they have their opponents in their sights for no apparent reason, people having to hold clichΓ© speeches and punchlines before pulling the trigger, people revealing their positions completely needlessly in order to have a "fair fight" with their opponent instead of just shooting them from cover, etcetera. The list goes on. Even more disturbing though, these games are seemingly completely unmonitored. Despite playing in a high stakes tournament, there are no cameras or anything inside the woodland battlefield. In other words there's barely even any point of having rules for this game; you could basically cheat as much as you'd like and no one will ever know. But I guess that's just another plot hole which we shouldn't think too much about and instead just pretend it isn't there.
So with all that said, is there anything good thing about this show? Well if there's one thing it'd be that despite everything it at least isn't boring. Incredibly annoying yes, but twenty minutes of Aoharu x Kikanjuu per week was not really a problem. It's kind of like watching a very low level football game; even if the content itself is lackluster, you can still probably find some enjoyment in it just by being a football fan to begin with. In the same way, despite the cringeworthy execution, Aoharu x Kikanjuu is so far the only anime I've ever seen about airsoft, so it gets some plus points for originality and for having a fun concept at least. But even with that taken into account it doesn't change the fact that it is still a very sub-par anime at best, and not one I would particularly recommend to very many people.
Reviewerβs Rating: 3
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Poll: Aoharu x Kikanjuu Episode 3 Discussion ( 1 2 )
Stark700 - Jul 16, 2015 |
97 replies | by RGreatDanton »»
Mar 7, 12:00 PM |
Poll: Aoharu x Kikanjuu Episode 2 Discussion ( 1 2 3 )
Stark700 - Jul 9, 2015 |
112 replies | by RGreatDanton »»
Mar 7, 11:59 AM |
Poll: Aoharu x Kikanjuu Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 )
Stark700 - Jul 2, 2015 |
220 replies | by RGreatDanton »»
Mar 7, 11:57 AM |
Poll: Aoharu x Kikanjuu Episode 12 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 )
Stark700 - Sep 17, 2015 |
192 replies | by Lil_Human_ »»
Feb 20, 5:17 AM |
Poll: Aoharu x Kikanjuu Episode 9 Discussion ( 1 2 )
Stark700 - Aug 27, 2015 |
59 replies | by ejleon »»
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