Mai-HiME 1

Well, here we go with yet another new season of anime, and the first I'm watching, Sunrise's Mai-HiME. Standard practice for new stuff, more screencaps, longer summary. Hope I can do a good job for all of you with Mai-HiME and the other shows as well :)

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Opening: 「Shining☆Days」 by 栗林みな実 (Kurabayashi Minami): What's with everybody using ☆ in song or band titles these days? ;) Anyways, not too bad. Animation features Mai and the other two girlsalong with shots of all the other characters as well.
Ending: 「君が空だった」 "kimi ga sora datta" ("You Were the Sky") by 美郷あき (Misato Aki): Some pans across stills of Mai and the rest. I like the song as well :)
  
  
  
  

Mai and her younger brother, Takumi, are taking a boat to their new school, Fuuka Academy. On the way there Takumi spots a girl floating face down in the water... the girl is pulled from the water and thanks to Mai's CPR, is saved. That girl was holding on to a sword... Afterwards, Mai goes to change and notices a strange mark on her body, one exactly like the mark on the girl's body... Thanks to that incident, Mai and Takumi meet two other students who go to Fuuka Academy, Yuuichi and Shiho. Shiho calls Yuuichi "Onii-chan", but they're not related at all. Just friends.. kinda weird there ;)

While Yuuichi and Mai walk around the ship, a boat quickly approaches the ship and something jumps out from it. A masked girl (who has the same mark as Mai and the other girl) smashes through and attacks Yuuichi, then goes after Mai. She's searching for that girl that Mai saved earlier, it seems, and goes into the room (taking her two guns out) where she is... but where is she? She's up on the ceiling and drops down to attack.. and woah. Her sword is pretty powerful. And Momotato's right, the way she kinda drags it along is really cool :) So they... I'll go ahead and mention that the girl with the guns is Natsuki, and the girl with the sword is Mikoto (though they weren't named in the episode, I don't think... maybe I missed it).... fight and destroy things, and Mai is right there in the middle of it. In the middle of the battle, Natsuki summons some kind of robot creature that attacks Mikoto.. Meanwhile, the boat is being evacuated and Yuuichi and Mai as well try to get out, but Mai forgot something and goes back to her room.. And up on the deck Mikoto uses her sword and splits the ship all the way down right between Mai and Yuuichi. Mai tries to find a way out, but unluckily ends up on the deck as Mikoto is hit and flies into her. Here comes that robot and.... Mai puts her hands out and some kind of flame barrier protects her. Hidden powers always show up right when you need them, don't they? ;) Natsuki sees that and says "So you can see that star, too" (Mai had seen it right near the beginning of the episode). And she also tells Mai not to go the Fuuka Academy. Because if she goes she'll die.

So the ship sinks and Mikoto and Mai fall into the water... the scene changes and now Mai and Mikoto are surrounded by a circle of flames in front of Fuuka Academy. And the students there don't look too happy.

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So there you have the first episode. In case y'all were wondering what "HiME" means - "Highly-advanced Materializing Equipment", referring to that robot, I would guess. Anyways, this was a good first episode. The action scenes were great, and Mikoto's cool swordwork made them even better. Yes, there's some Mai fanservice, but it's not too much, I think. If the fanservice isn't overdone, and the fighting as well (though it is really cool), and some kind of story develops I'll like this one. As for the technical aspects of Mai-HiME. Animation was great, especially in the fighting scenes. I liked the music. And the acting and voices were generally good as well. Not too bad a job, I say, so I'll keep on watching :)

Next time, himitsu no houkago, "Secret After School Hours".. And how many times was moe said during the preview? Looking forward to it ;)