MAI HiME (2006) aka MY HiME

Positive Experience/Entertaining? Definitely a lot of fun. However, it's a little uneven. There are very serious moments followed by downright silly moments followed by very serious moments. So, beware--this anime series is far from perfect. Oh and a note on the name--in Japan "Mai" is a girl's name. "Hime" is the word for "princess" but in this series "Mai" is the name of the lead character and "HiME" is an acronym. Why they changed it to "My HiME" when it came to to the US is beyond me since it makes little sense.


Technically any good? The designs are excellent. As with the best most popular anime shows, the women are all cute as all get out and look older than their ages. The character development is very strong in this, but sadly the story is not. The story, while structurally interesting, is convoluted and never very well-explained. The voice acting is absolutely brilliant. Everyone sounds incredibly real--of course, I refer to the Japanese language dub and not the English dub. I've only watched the former and you should, too. In my opinion all media should be watched with the native tongue of the creator being heard. Just my opinion, of course.


How did it leave me feeling? A little unfulfilled, which is a very common trait for anime shows. Lots of times you spend the entire series building up to something and then the pay off is much less than you expected. This is the case here, but ultimately, it could have been much worse. I found the resolution of the plot to be fairly solid nonetheless, though it didn't end up making much sense of the rest of the series (this was the "less than expected" part). It was tragic and sad and a tear-jerker right up to that point where it got a shrug from me. Still, it did leave me wanting more and luckily, the sequel series Mai Otome/My Otome is now available on DVD in the US (here: http://urltea.com/1jun) and there's another sequel series airing in Japan right now called Mai Otome Zwei (don't ask me about those titles because I just have no idea).


Final Rating? SIYL - See If You Like - I give it 3.5 stars, over all. I think it's a good show for teen girls to watch because it's about girls maturing and using their "new powers" to make difficult choices--this works pretty well as a metaphor for what girls are going through at age 15 (the same age as the characters in Mai Hime). Ultimately, if you can ignore the fact that there is never any explanation for why things are happening, then you'll probably enjoy this series.

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Orignal From: MAI HiME (2006) aka MY HiME