Review for Samurai Harem Collection

Introduction

When I reviewed Maid Sama a few weeks ago, I opined that it was odd to see a five year old show in the UK, where the anime scene tends to focus more on the latest titles, and of late revisiting some classics. I thought that those shows that were missed out a few years previously tended to be forgotten, and the only reason that Maid Sama escaped that limbo was because it belatedly received a dub back in 2014. What do I know? A few weeks later, MVM go on to release Samurai Harem, a subtitle only show from 2010. So much for my theory! Dating from 2010, Samurai Harem never got a Blu-ray release in the US, and it never got an Australian release at all, so for MVM’s UK release of the show, they’ve simply used the US Sentai masters.


Yoichi Karasuma has spent his whole life training in the mountains in the Ukiha Divine Wind Style of martial arts and swordsmanship under the tutelage of his father. After 17 years he’s reached a limit; his father’s limit who can no longer keep up with his son, let alone teach him anything new. Rather than admit his shortcomings, he advises his son to strengthen his mind as well as his body, to become the ultimate warrior. That means experiencing the outside world. That means going to the Ikaruga dojo in the city. The dojo is run by four young sisters, Ibuki, Ayame, Chihaya, and Kagome. Meeting them will be a challenge in itself, as he quickly becomes lost in the city, runs into a couple of delinquents, and when dealing with them attracts the attention of the authorities. Who wouldn’t, dressed like a samurai and wielding a wooden sword? And unbeknownst to him, wandering through a mall he’s already encountered the Ikaruga sisters, and managed to make completely the wrong impression, so much so that when he eventually gets to the dojo, a pervert like him is hardly welcome.


12 episodes of Samurai Harem are presented across 2 discs from MVM.

Disc 1
First Strike: A Samurai Comes
Second Strike: Welcome to Yokko
Third Strike: Amazing Without Clothes
Fourth Strike: Chihaya Being Chihaya
Fifth Strike: Let’s Go on a Date!
Sixth Strike: Wasson Comes!

Disc 2
Seventh Strike: School Swimsuit, White School Swimsuit, Two Piece Swimsuit
Eighth Strike: Back Then, You Were Badass
Ninth Strike: A Summer Festival: Plunging Into the Fire
Tenth Strike: A Battle to the Death at a Hidden Hot Spring!
Eleventh Strike: I’m Taking Ibuki
Twelfth Strike: Yoichi Fights On!

Picture

Samurai Harem gets a 1.78:1 anamorphic NTSC transfer on these discs, although with the transfer dating from 2010, and with no Blu-ray, it’s no surprise that it’s not progressively encoded. That said, it still scales up pretty well, and the simple comedy animation, the agreeable and unchallenging character designs aren’t going to offer much in the way of compression problems and the like. The transfer is good enough to watch, clear and colourful throughout, with the detail coming across well. Samurai Harem is a bright and colourful anime comedy, and these discs do the show justice.

Sound

This is a subtitle only release, so the only audio track is DD 2.0 Japanese with English subs. Thankfully, this is the port of the US Sentai discs (Samurai Harem has not been released in Australia), so we don’t get the So I Can’t Play H disc authoring misfire here. The subtitles are removable, although a couple of typos do creep in during the latter half of the episodes. The dialogue is clear throughout, the characters cast suitably for their stereotypes, and the music and action represented adequately through the stereo.

Extras

The discs present the show with static menus, jacket pictures when the discs are at rest in compatible players, and translated English credit reels at the end of each episode.

Disc 1 has trailers for other Sentai product, which I’m not too surprised to find, the UK did indeed miss out on back in 2010. We have trailers for Living for the Day After Tomorrow, Tayutama ~ Kiss On My Deity, Eyeshield 21, Gintama, Hell Girl: Two Mirrors, and Brighter Than the Dawning Blue.

Disc 2 offers the usual textless credit sequences, one of each.

Conclusion

Two weeks and two harem comedies from MVM! It isn’t the best scheduling if you look for more variety from your anime, but quite frankly after last week’s dismal So I Can’t Play H, Samurai Harem at least has the courtesy to deliver on what it promises. It’s not the best example of the genre, but Samurai Harem does have a harem, and you might find it to be funny. So I Can’t Play H started off in that vein and had the revolutionary idea of having a male central character interested in sex, and actual nudity in the show, but it committed the cardinal sin of revealing a story halfway through, and actually getting serious about it. On top of that it looked awful.


Samurai Harem is a harem comedy of the old school, with a central male character as neutered as they come, and with girls who have plenty of wardrobe malfunctions, but maintain enough of their modesty for broadcast standards, never requiring the intervention of shadows, sunbeams or mist, and it maintains its comic tone throughout, never neglecting the funny, even when it threatens us with an ongoing storyline towards the end.


It is hardly original though, and shows of this nature have been made since the year dot. Samurai Harem (renamed for the Western market to make the content blatantly obvious) is something of a cross between Ah My Buddha and Kenichi the Mightiest Disciple. Yoichi is the disciple of sorts, coming down from the mountains to further his training in a dojo run by young girls, and finding relating to the opposite sex far more difficult than any physical or mental challenge he has faced so far, especially when he’s living among females who will soundly beat him into incoherence for simply thinking the wrong thing.


The dojo is run by the Ikaruga sisters, who have been left to look after the place after their parents went on a trip. Ibuki Ikaruga is the eldest and most devoted to training, and running the dojo, as well as looking after her sisters, going to school, and running the household. She’s the warm maternal type, until she’s moved to anger (usually by Yoichi doing something perverted), at which time she unleashes some serious violence. Next is Ayame, a classic tsundere who has something of an inferiority complex next to her sister, and uncertain feelings for Yoichi. The third sister is Chihaya, who makes a living from being a teenage manga artist, and is happy to use, and incite the triangle between her two older sisters and Yoichi as material for her manga stories. The youngest sister is Kagome, who is the cute, adorable little sister type.


There are also plenty of antagonists for the show, although some quickly become regular characters. On his first day in the big city, Yoichi encounters a couple of delinquents, Washizu and his friend Torigaya, and winds up teaching them a few things. But it turns out that Washizu attends the same school as Ibuki, and the one that Yoichi will attend, and Washizu has a big crush on Ibuki, ensuring he retains an antagonism towards Yoichi who he sees as a rival. But they mellow over the run of the series, and Washizu even joins the dojo. A running gag is that Torigaya’s appearance gets younger through the episodes. Then there are Angela and Tsubame, fighters from a rival martial arts school, who are trying to revitalise their school’s fortunes. They start by challenging Yoichi. Tsubame’s true fighting skills are only revealed when she’s stripped to the point of humiliation, but after a couple of angry encounters, they too become friends, with Angela developing something of an affection for Yoichi, and with Tsubame developing a full on crush on Washizu.


The rival school theme plays out over the episodes, with more and more rival schools showing up to challenge Yoichi and the sisters’ dojo, before the real reason behind it all is revealed for the final three episodes, where events go a little potty. The story is exceedingly daft at this point, but it never overwhelms the comedy, although I did find one of the plot developments a little distasteful. The story in a show like this is never something that you take seriously anyway and Samurai Harem at least remembers that it’s meant to be funny. Whether you find it funny or not will be in the eye of the beholder, but I like mildly ribald comedies like this, ever since the days of Love Hina when the weak-willed male protagonist, haemorrhaging from the nose at the merest sight of female flesh, only to be pummelled for his lewd mind by said female, was a mainstay of the harem comedy. These are good-natured and entertaining shows that don’t have a malicious bone in their runtimes, and Samurai Harem is a wholly average and unmemorable, if enjoyable example of the genre. It’s preferable to So I Can’t Play H at any rate.