Hidan no Aria - Overall Series Impressions & Total Series Rating

[Pellissier]

This thread is to be used for discussing the entire episodes of Hidan no Aria ... your thoughts about the show, overall impressions, expectations and hopes about the DVD only footage etc.

A few subjects you might want to ramble on about:

• General impression of the series.
• Opinions on the overall story, writing & plot devices.
• Thoughts about the animation quality.
• Characters/Character Design
• Voice Acting
  
  
• Which kind of footage (DVD only) you feel you'd really like to see.
• What the show meant to you.
• What could the creators/animators/writers have done better.

And so on.

The poll represents your total series rating. In other words, how you would rate all the episodes combined (1-10)? If you'd rather rate the whole series by technical/artistic merits, you can do so. An example:

Animation Quality: 1-10
Voice Actors: 1-10
Script: 1-10
Soundtrack: 1-10
Editing: 1-10
Enjoyment: 1-10
Emotional Involvement: 1-10

Average = Total Series Rating

Or a combination of the two. Or your general gut feeling.

Feel free to discuss and more importantly, have fun

[serenade_beta]

As a comedy, I think this might have been near the top this season.
If you try to say this had a serious moment, I'd find it hard to believe. The plot was serious, but everything that occurred was hilarious, whether it was the bulletproof boxes or Kinji on the sidelines narrating to the audience about how guns are stabbing weapons to every character descending from some famous person to the last boss being defeated in one hit and the list goes on.
But hey, it was entertaining. In all seriousness, it sucked, but in a good way.
The comedic moments (in the comedic scenes) were also, actually, good. Proves that the comedy is the better part in this anime.

I'm surprised how unbelievable it was though. I know it is an anime and still, it was unbelievable. And that was from the first episode. Then they introduced magical powers and girls jumping from a plane in her underwear...

Characters weren't much better.
I liked Riko though, even though she was hilarious in the last episode. Her character stood out more than the others, which might not be saying much since the other main characters are:
Aria - Every stereotypical Kugimiya character traits stuffed in one place
Kinji - Boring protagonist that overreacts to every little fanservice he gets
Miko - Cheap yandere thing that didn't turned into air in the last arc

OP was "Bakyun~!"

I also wish that JC would leave the voice actor jokes and those type of stuff in their special contents and not put it in the previews (or what should be a preview).

So anyways, 6/10.
It was fun.

[AvatarST]

It was a fun series. I think it's got potential to further improve if it gets another cour.

A good way to bounce back after Yumekui Merry which I found to be pretty weak. This show was entertaining, had some good scenes, much better BGM (apart from the op, I like YM's slightly better). Fun characters as well. The plot and some scenes were cliched and predictable at times, sure. But overall it was very much worth watching.

Gave it a 6/10, but I consider 6 to be a little better than average.

[~Yami~]

fun and moe.... that's all

I think the fighting and story helped a lot.... (well, they originally have a good light novel)

8/10 from me
at least, they can do some visualization of Light Novel (especially in action scene)... but they failed to produce a good 'romance' and 'talking' scene

[Kotohono]

Let's rating things:
Music: 8/10 BGMs were fairly good generally and the OP/ED were both very good I liked both of them and felt the fit the show.

Plot/Story: 6.5/10 Despite the slightly weaker start of the series with our Uzi wielding segways and cars . The story overall wasn't the best, but it was still somewhat good and I felt the final arc was a reasonable point for them to end it.

Animation Quality: 7/10 About Standard JC staff level which is still decent I suppose with good animations during the OP and ED. Though During Riko/Aria fight was good yet seemed to be missing something.

Action: 7/10 Most of the fights were fairly well done and not completely one-sided enough to have them be interesting.

Characters: 7/10: While I really liked Riko, I just found Aria and Kinji to be decent and most of the Other Characters were meh to decent range, but not enough to care to list here .

Enjoyment: 8/10 On whole I did really enjoy the show for various reasons including some of the fun comedy and humor at times, or getting a laugh out of the absurd physics xD. I did enjoy the show generally it was fun to watch.

Overall: 43.5/60 = 7.25 Much better here than Yumekui Merry for JC staff, so hopefully this means they learned a little bit from their mistakes there .

[MeisterBabylon]

This NEEDS a second season. Besides making up for the flaws of the 1st season, season 2 would be when shit gets real and I'm looking forward to that.

[Chiibi]

This is just a "fun" series, the same as a popcorn movie flick, and I don't understand the hate it gets. I personally enjoyed every moment-never found myself saying "When is this gonna be over?"

I think people who bash this anime really haven't seen truly terrible anime....

[Bonta Kun]

Originally Posted by Chiibi

This is just a "fun" series, the same as a popcorn movie flick, and I don't understand the hate it gets. I personally enjoyed every moment-never found myself saying "When is this gonna be over?"

I think people who bash this anime really haven't seen truly terrible anime....

Way I see it, it is a bad anime but people can still enjoy it.
While we can enjoy it and have a laugh I don't think we'd say it was actually a good anime compared to what is generally considered good.
Cause it falls on this rather fine line, you will get alot more people hating on it cause of it's flaws/problems.

For me I never really cared for this anime on the whole, was fun at times but it's plot and certain situations were just pushing even my open minded-ness to the limit.
I can handle crazy stuff like human transforming monsters and magic powers but my logic goes against stuff like bullet proof gym equipment(still puzzled by this) and very volatile stand offs that were handled very badly.
In way it's always the little stuff that gets to me, which I kinda hate myself for thinking about them too much>__<

Music was I think was typical J.C Staff and thats always been hit or miss with me. Did like the OP tho.
Animation was decent, altho I'll admit it's always hard to digest Aria's very small hands holding the guns and dual-wielding at that, was expectring her to break her wrists.
Characters were the only real driving force for me, Riko and Shirayuki were my favs, playful teasing little minx and crazy yandere miko have their appeal

I think my favorite scene had to the "drawer containing dangerous weapons"

Overall, I had "fun" but by no means a great or good anime.

6/10

[Sheba]

Had I not read the light novel, it would have been a 7/10. But I did it along with watching the series. And boy I was a little pissed. I liked the characters, I liked the universe, I liked the obvious love shown by the author to action movies. But I did not like how JC Staff treated it as another LN with shounen + harem + romcom setup, and decided to take the easy way go more for the romcom aspects.

6/10

[Chiibi]

Originally Posted by Bonta Kun

Way I see it, it is a bad anime but people can still enjoy it.

But what makes it a "bad" anime? Just because it's silly?

[Tiberium Wolf]

I think this was an average anime. In my opinion nothing stands out. I am not even hyped to watch S2 if there is one in the near future. Gave a 6.

[Frankxiao123]

In a way, the transition from a light novel to an anime failed in some scenes, that's why some may not like it. But I like LOVE the light novel so I'm giving a 10...Reki's 2051m sniping and all...

[Reckoner]

It's one thing to produce an anime that turns out badly, but it's another thing entirely to produce an anime that showcases a complete lack of effort put into production. Hidan no Aria is merely but another step into failure by the largely hit or miss JC Staff, but what really manages to tick me off as a viewer is the complete lack of care and effort put into the production of this anime.

Now listen. I had nothing against the initial setup of this anime, I originally started watching it (And kept doing so for who knows what reason) merely because the premise seemed to be fun, although ridiculous. It was something for me to just watch for the shits and giggles, a guilty pleasure if you will.

I never expected tons of depth or complexity in this anime, but I did expect to be entertained. I wanted to see an anime that would be almost the equivalent of a summer blockbuster action flick, which while certainly the highest quality entertainment out there, it still manages to be a fun little experience.

Clearly, JC Staff had other things in mind. Instead of just trying to provide straight forward entertainment, Hidan no Aria was very roundabout with its approach. An incredible amount of the show's time was devoted completely to fanservice and the usual anime tropes. Ranging from the main heroine Aria, who is yet another Kugerie Rie voiced loli tsundere from JC staff, who does nothing but treats the half spineless male lead like a slave, to the yandere childhood friend Shirayuki who dots on the main protagonist in a severely annoying manner, there was almost no character here that felt genuine or likable. I say the male lead is half spineless because supposedly whenever he gets a boner for one of the other girls he enters "Hysteria mode" and changes into some super skilled fighter with an arrogant, charismatic, and overbearing attitude. No joke here either.

Honestly, I feel like I'm writing about some action comedy, but the worst part about it all is that this plot takes itself fully seriously. There are several supposed "dramatic" moments in the series where we are expected to sympathize with each girl in the main character's little harem, especially Aria. There are several times in this series where one will be subjected to Aria's toddler tantrums because of things not going her way, and we are expected to sympathize with her when all she does is slave driver the main lead with a leash.

But hey, even if the characters suck, maybe the action and plot is entertaining... Well one of the major facets of the plot is how these famous people in the world are often direct descendants of famous figures like Holmes, Dracula, Lupin, etc. Each of them bears their own pasts and problems, but really, it's just really, really stupid. I think by the end when you see that the Dracula descendant is a werewolf you will also realize just how stupid this plot line is.

The action itself is often very lackluster. JC Staff's continual budget slashing just makes the show look like utter crap. Nothing about it stands out, and there's not enough of it at all. Not to mention that tons of of the action scenes are marred by again, fanservice since our main lead needs a boner to do anything productive. For some reason he is also relegated to support roles as well.

But I digress. What's clear to me, is that there is a clear lack of effort put forth by JC Staff that is pervasive throughout the entire anime. The fanservice is hardly stimulating, especially when most of it is from a loli pink haired girl. The action lacks punch, and there is far too little of it. And worst of all, each and every character is an anime archetype or trope executed in a very uninspiring manner.

If the creators of the show aren't even trying to make me like this, why should I?

Rating: 2/10

[Akito Kinomoto]

Aria the Scarlet Ammo was really not as bad as I thought it was going to be (compare that with [C] which was exactly as bad as I thought it was going to be) or even anywhere close to terrible. On the technical side the visual presentation had a lot of room for improvement but if graphics mattered to me that much I would have given Nichijou a higher rating.

Now as far as content goes I'm really getting the sense that the only reason this show is drawing heat is that it is yet another loli-tsundere-voiced-by-Kugimiya anime which quite frankly is irrelevant to me as the only other Kugimiya anime I've seen are Toradora! and Shakugan no Shana the latter of which I watched the English dub for.

The characters though I will confess only had one strong link among them in a strictly independent sense. I say independent because Kinji and Aria are little more than shallow archetypes on their own but together there's a chemistry that just clicks. If I had to pinpoint what exactly about their dynamic makes it stand out to me it's that Tohyama is one of the few guys who can counter a tsundere's attitude (Kanzaki) before it's left to run wild most of the time. Going beyond the main couple, Shirayuki was better than Kinji and Aria but aside from a comic relief scene that she starts which manages to further the latter two's relationship further into the show her arc didn't really add anything to the main conflict of the story regarding the Butei Killer.

Speaking of which, the supposed triteness of the story never really bothered me because I'm really not used to watching shows that don't subvert its tropes at all. If every author is being original then the one who doesn't attempt to break away becomes unique. It's almost as if Aria the Scarlet Ammo was written with a self-awareness of how stupid it was so the only genuinely idiotic thing about this show was Vlad's true identity.

Speaking of self-conscious writing, I do concede that all of the fanservice was forced. It was amusing where it should have been but some parts could have really done without it. However when you take all of the flaws of the series together then make a character specifically to tackle those problems then perhaps we've found the strongest part of Aria the Scarlett Ammo.

I'm talking about Riko Mine. The usage of fanservice in this anime has all the subtlety of a sledgehammer so making a character who exploits this flaw and turns it into her appeal was nothing short of brilliant. She's also one of those rare breeds who manages to be cute and sultry at the same time. If I had to explain why this was the case, it's in her personality. Riko in her "normal" behavior has a cute personality with a luscious appearance but Mine in her "serious" guise becomes such a seductive tease that her previously alluring appearance ends up looking tame by comparison. Story-wise her conflict was the entire reason the story moved in the first place so strictly in terms of importance she was perhaps moreso than Aria and Kinji. On the other hand, even if she appears in the 2nd season as a main character again she's got no reason to be there as her story and development is finished and her reinstatement would undermine her departure at the end.

Aria the Scarlett Ammo has its share of flaws but Riko more than compensated for those problems and made this anime good for what it wanted to be. However I would only watch a 2nd season if another character were there to carry this series on the same level of execution that Riko did. I don't expect this to withstand the test of time but I'll be damned if I said this wasn't unexpectedly fun.

[willx]

So, hate reviving a dead thread - but I just went and watched the first 5 episodes of this after reading the LN translations on Baka-Tsuki for the first time.. and I actually disagree with most of the people that dislike it.

At least the first "half" or so is actually 80-90% true to the LN. Even the fanservice-y parts were right out of the LN or were used to replace a similar scene that wouldn't work as well in an anime vs. a LN. I'll come back and give my thoughts again after watching the rest of the episodes, but so far I'm giving it 8/10

[Pengu]

Well, I am in a minority it seems, but I don't care.
I actually really liked the show. Mostly for the stupid comedy and the fact that I
still cared enough about the characters.
My kind of anime I guess. But one thing put it down a couple of notches, which I hate with all animes.
The fact that I won't get the full story
Just one of the things I despise, that I will be forced to read LN or Manga
to get a conclusion. Why?