My-HiME


Reviewed by: Crimsonyu

January 15, 2007

Rating: four

Stands for: Highly Advanced Materializing Equipment

Character List:

The HiMes


  • Tokiha Mai: 16 years old, the new senior high student at Fuuka Academy. She is assumed, the most powerful of all the Himes. Child: Kagutsuchi

  • Kuga Natsuki: 17 years old. Often dresses differently from the other female students in the school. Extremely tough and owns a sad history of her mother's death (her mother was a Hime too). Child: Dhuran

  • Minagi Mikoto: A middle school student, assumed to be aged around 14. Is extremely attached to Mai and her cooking. Behaves like a "cat" (the princess' cat in the sequel, My-Otome is also called Mikoto) and comes to Fuuka Academy to look for her brother. Child: Miroku

  • Okuzaki Akira: A middle high student who develops a relationship with her roommate, no other than Mai's brother Takumi. For the sake of her clan, she has long been keeping on a "Mulan" disguise and is assumed by all as a boy. Child: Gennai

  • Munakata Shiho: The most unlike HiMe. Her powers are not known until the near end, where she unleashes her power in jealousy towards Mai, who is in love with Tate, who she often addresses as her brother. Child: Yatagarasu

  • Kikukawa Yukino: A member of the student council and is attached to her best friend, Haruka whom she vows to protect with her HiMe powers. Child: Diana

  • Fujino Shizuru: President of the student council and has a lesbian crush on Natsuki. A well-known and well-liked student. Child: Kiyohime

  • Sanada Yukariko: A nun at Fuuka which falls in love and in order to stop the man she loves from committing evil by using her powers, she commits suicide with him. Child: Saint Vrus

  • Alyssa Searrs: A popular member of the choir academy and the child of the priest Joseph Searrs. A fake HiMe. Child: Artemis

  • Yuuki Nao: Another high student, she captures perverted men and punishes them. She forms her own gang to punish these men. Child: Julia

  • Sugiura Midori: Meets Mai when they work together part-time at a restaurant. A university graduate and teaches part-time at Fuuka, she is lively and more than often claims to be 17. Child: Gakutenou

  • Higurashi Akane: Another part-time worker. A classmate of Mai's, she has a relationship with another student, Kazuya. Child: Harry

  • Himeno Fumi: Appears to be the personal maid of the chairman of Fuuka, Kazahana Mashiro but in actually, Mashiro is her child.

Other characters


  • Homura Nagi: A comical and mysterious figure, he just seems to know too much about the HiMes and their powers. He has the power of summoning Orphans (the evil beasts). He has a part in her realization of her being a HiMe and often addresses Mai as Mai-HiMe.

  • Kanzaki Reito: A senpai/senior of Mai who shows interests towards her, he is not known to all to be "possessed" by the Obsidian Lord, Kokuyou No Kimi. Reito is also Mikoto's long-lost brother. He is the guy any girl would want...calm and cool.

  • Tate Yuuichi: the boy Mai loves. Formerly had a misunderstanding with Mai.

  • Tokiha Takumi: Mai's younger brother. Extremely close to his sister, he is gentle and timid as well as having a girly-like attitude. Also suffers from a heart problem

  • Kazahana Mashiro: President of Fuuka Academy, she has a true body sealed in crystal, which is seen in the final episode...

Storyline:
HiMes, as their meaning implies, are girls with extraordinary unimaginable powers. However, their existence will finally lead to a battle between the HiMes. The story begins with Mai and her brother on a boat heading for Fuuka, where they meet Shiho and Tate, and where Mai saves Mikoto. Later, Mai discovers Mikoto and Natsuki fighting, Natsuki assumed trying to stop Mikoto from acting for someone (I think it's her brother)

Mai meets her classmates. She is surprised to realize Natsuki is also in the class, and a lot of things happen in school. One of the events is the emergence of extraordinary lingerie-stealing Orphan, and this is where Mai and Natsuki come into action...followed by Miyu actually being a robot, and trapping and killing Akane, Alyssa Searrs turning out to be a fake HiMe and with her father, they try to kill the HiMes..

Event after event, leading to the battle, and HiMe one after another perishing, Mai's attempt to save Akira (and her brother who is Akira's KEY—the key to a HiMe will disappear if a HiMe is defeated) is failed when Shiho, out of hatred and jealousy, secretly attacks Akira, and Mai thinks it is Mikoto. The last and true battle has just begun.

Comments:
Miyu's role is confusing and shocking. You just can't accept that Miyu is a robot. The evil of Alyssa Searrs is just as terrible. How could a child just express so much greed and evil?

Mai and Tate's relationship is just bland. It seems Mai fell for him too quickly, as not much is expressed (as expected, My-HiMe is not a love story), without any proper explanation, just flashbacks. Tate is not attractive like Reito, neither is he the Mr. Nice guy Reito is.

More should be expressed about Mikoto's relationship with her brother. The episode where Mikoto wakes up from her sleep, asks Reito "Where's Mai" and shows him what her brother gave him, in order to receive a confused reply, and reply blurredly "You're not Onii-chan (brother) was actually, cute.

The scriptwriter did a nice part where Akira and Takumi get together, which is also followed brilliantly in the sequel. Akira and Takumi are total opposites, yet fate has it that they have to be roommates. Takumi is girlish, and Akira tomboyish, and they as opposites attract well. I couldn't see this type of attraction in the Tate-Mai love relationship.

A part I found funny was how girls were attracted to Akira. Akira is a girl all along, and it is just her tomboyish behavior and her disguise that makes her look like a boy. Yet, girls say she is "handsome". In my opinion, Takumi should be the "cute guy". He's just adorable!

Shiho is just childish, and I don't get about how she can actually be a HiMe. It could be because she doesn't have much screen time for anyone to understand her character. She just clings to Tate, who of course thinks of her as a sister, and that is just what we all know.

A complicated part would have been the Princess Suishou-Mashiro-Fumi concept. Not much is done to express the detail of this. How could Lord Kokuyou's true sister (not Mikoto but Mashiro) be trapped in a crystal and also be on a wheelchair? I never understood this part truly until I asked a few friends and checked it on Wikipedia, which I recommend if you want to do a research on this. Well, if.

Other than these small comments, My-HiMe was a wonderful series and certainly would make the top ten in my opinion. The individual stories were entertaining and watching how each HiMe died was actually interesting, but quite saddening. As for the ending (which I will not spoil for anyone who reads this), it turned out to be quite unexpected, just like how I felt for the ending for Karin. Happy ending. End of review.

Overall comment:
Interesting superheroine action. Would beat Power Ranger in my view.


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