Review of Majikoi: Oh! Samurai Girls

This is a review from someone who hasn't read the visual novel. I have only watched the anime. I started it because it looked really funny, and I saw a scene from a youtube video - it was ecchi and comical. I liked it, it was super funny, but it left a bad taste in my mouth. The first half was formulaic, but in a GOOD way! It had just the right amount of ecchi to comedy balance. The characters were great too, each with their own quirks. And somehow, there was a sense of camaraderie, like there was no jealousy or infighting. It's somethingI never really see.

The intro and outro music were catchy too, I enjoyed them quite a bit.

I was settling in for a comfortable ride of comical ecchi nonsense, but then the series took a turn and made a couple changes -

The last several episodes introduced a plot (yes, that late) and changed to a battle anime. It was almost exclusively battle, with no comedy. The tone shifted to a more serious drama. Which not only felt contrived, but the battling was also just kinda....lame. Like, "Oh crap guys, we forgot to add some plot and interpersonal conflict -- lets fit this in at the end. Ok? Great. Good meeting guys"

The characters I liked, were then consumed by jealously and drama --- they became obnoxious. A good amount of cat-fights ensued, and typical character archetypes took over. It was annoying. The enemy characters had plot armor, were conveniently good at everything, and had a lame, mostly unexplained ambition. It was hard for me to even adapt to this haphazard change

(You may be thinking "Oh, he just likes ecchi comedy scenes and doesn't like change -- watch something else" , but I do actually like battle -- and I actually tried to rationalize and enjoy this change)

There were a number of elements introduced early on that could have been expanded upon. They were introduced only to be left alone. These would have been better ideas to cover instead of shoving a bunch of battle scenes at the end.

The feeling I have is disappointment. That feeling of enjoying a good anime, and being let down and frustrated at the end. It's arguably worse than watching a consistently bad anime since you know it's bad.