Yesterday, as I experienced a mixture of inexplicable stomach agony and post-server-recovery coma, I did my first anime marathon viewing in ages.
The show in question was Mai HiME. I watched 22 of the 26 episodes yesterday (having watched the previous four and the promo while waiting for A’tuin to come back online).
It is a fairly classic example of the highschool superheroes genre and reminds me of a cross between Shaman King, Utena, Final Fantasy 7, and Highlander.
What kind of wierded me out was that the show as a whole, while definately addressing some mature topics, was quite clean and generally suitable for viewing by the public at large. This was not the impression the promo gave – showing more skin and underwear in its 90 second montage than the entire actual series put together.
Because of this, I am led to believe that the promo was created in isolation of the rest of the show, potentially by a different team. Other than a few shots that might have actually happened during the show, I am fairly certain that it contains all original animation. Interesting discrepancies (aside from the whole dose of raciness):
- Mikoto’s scabbard is a bright green in the promo. It is black throughout the entire series.
- The text at the beginning of the promo mentions ‘13 maidens’ and the entire series repeatedly says that there are 12 until the absolute end. Truth is, there are 12 super-powered girls in the show (12 who count toward unlocking big badness of doom at the end) plus one fake (probably the number 13 mentioned in the promo) and one android.
- Mai introduces herself as 15 years old in the promo. I’m pretty sure the only time her age is mentioned in the series, she is 16. Though, I could be wrong about this one (and there is a birthday party episode).
I know that the manga has a different storyline, and that the anime actually started while the manga was still fairly new… so this could lead to the discrepancies. The manga is described as being more ‘harem’ genre (which my circle has always referred to as the ‘loser guy’ genre), so yeah.
There is also a ’sequel’ series currently airing in Japan, Mai Otome (which is interestingly enough spelled 舞-乙HiME in the title animation). Having seen its promo and first episode, I notice a similar discrepancy – the promo is racier than the show so far. This second show is kind of alternate universe and also seems to be more in line with what I know about the manga so far.
I’m gonna poke around for some scanlations and see if I can put an end to this brain-melting concern. Yes. It is melting my brain. And that’s a bad thing. Normally, I wouldn’t care one bit, but I did just spend ~10 hours watching the show… and I’m tired…
Update (Jan 21, ‘06)
Yeah, the manga is absolutely completely 100% different story-wise. I found and read the first three volumes. Characters are completely different, character debuts happen in a different order, dead people are alive, alive people are dead, people who didn’t have super powers in the anime do in the manga, etc… oh, and it is most definately loser guy/harem material. Chapter two or three winds up with the primary male character sharing a dorm room with 3 girls. Yeah.
That said, I’ve read several comments on forums and such where people seem to have liked the manga better. I couldn’t disagree more. The manga plot is… well, wimpy. And that’s kind of wierd for me. Most of the time, manga are much more detailed than the cartoons since they can afford to take the time to develop characters in different ways. In this case, the manga is mostly fight scenes and cardboard characters yelling at each other. Oh, and there are tentacles. Yeah. I thought that particular cliche went out of style in the late 80’s. I don’t plan on reading volume four.