Armed Girl’s Machiavellism First Impressions

As you may know, we are a team of writers for this blog. This is not a one-man show. We usually discuss what we want to write about and see who is writing what. We don’t want to have four Eromanga-Sensei articles being released at the same time. When we were all discussing our choices, I noticed one being extremely ignored, especially since it is a part of the ultimate catalog that Amazon put together for Anime Strike. What makes this series so easy to overlook? Let’s dive in.

Armed Girls takes place in Aichi Symbiosis Academy, a private school that was originally girls only. The decision was made to make this Academy co-ed. This became a scary thought for the women who attended so they established a rule that allows them to bring weapons to school. When this happened, someone needed to enforce the rules which lead to the Supreme Five Swords being formed. Years later the five swords became a group to correct students causing trouble which lead to the academy accepting delinquents to be corrected. This leads us to our main character, Nomura Fudou. Long vowel on the first syllable. He WILL make sure you never forget it. Nomura was sent to this school after taking part in a huge brawl. Nomura has but two options:

1. “Be Corrected” by Dressing and acting like a girl as the other reformed students.
2. Be expelled from school entirely.

Now that you get the gist of what this series is about, there are a few things I really need to point out about this series. The first initial response I had going in was, this is pretty generic. This is a problem for many other series I have watched. A good example would be Asterisk War. The series couldn’t grab people with an extremely bland main character and the series continuously throwing fan service or “plot” in our faces. Literally throwing it in our faces. Asterisk War is an example of a super generic anime that failed to bring anything to the table to make up for it. Thankfully, this series does slightly break the mold. Armed Girls continuously use this to their advantage by providing some great spins on common tropes you would see in harems.

 

As to my last point, the character design is, you guessed it, generic. Armed Girls doesn’t display anything new or appealing in that regard. The only unique quality that this series brings related to character design is the five swords. When I say five swords, I actually mean the swords, not the people wielding them. Let’s take a look at Rin Onigawara’s sword. Specifically look at the Guard.

There are a few things really holding this series back from being something you can list on a top 5 list for this season. The animation feels extremely weak episode 3 vs episode 1. I am not sure if the studio is holding out to put more quality on later fights but it is a tad bit frustrating. It doesn’t help that during these fight scenes, characters are getting sliced and diced with blood spraying everywhere one moment. Next moment they barely have a scratch. I am not sure if this is the studio trying to censor the series or not but so much blood is shed!

Armed Girls is not bad. I just recommend coming in with your expectations low to fully enjoy it. It is very enjoyable watching Nomura and Rin interact with each other. I’m not sure if they aim for this to happen specifically with these two characters all season but as you know, with harems such as this one, “unfortunate” events ensue that get the main protagonist in a load of trouble.

I know I may have taken a few stabs at this show, but I do believe this series is oozing with potential. There are many missed opportunities to be something great. It may have passed my three episode test by a hair but who knows how I will feel about it during the mid-season. What do you think about this series?