Review of Kenka Bancho Otome -Girl Beats Boys-

This is not a good anime by any stretch of the imagination. There's nothing worth your time here, and unless you don't care about the quality of an anime, I can't see who this anime could be for. My best advice is to stay away unless you have some sort of compulsion to watch every single otome show out there or are really desperate for a halfway to mediocre time waster. Now don't get me wrong, this anime is not hateable or anything like that in my opinion. Actually, I think the idea behind it could have been kind of fun and entertaining. The show however,executes it really poorly. Prepare for a long explanation why.

Plot:

So the show is about a reverse-trap in an all-male school where she has to beat up everyone in order to be like, the boss of the student body or something. Of course, the backstory of her twin brother and a school that has an all-out brawl for an entrance ceremony isn't steeped in realism, but it doesn't have to be. We're here for the fights and the guys am I right? So who cares, the story serves its purpose. What we need are some cool characters to carry it.

Characters & Pacing:

These guys are in short, exceedingly generic. Their personalities are unfortunately flat and at first, you might be tempted to blame it on the length of the episodes since the show likes to hint that there's more to these guys than the story is really telling you. I disagree. The show makes many errors in their pacing, and there are many short shows that do an extremely better job at fleshing out their characters. The 8-min length of the episodes is not a good enough excuse to cop out on giving us interesting and/or engaging characters. The narrating that the characters do at the beginning of episodes is unneeded in my opinion, and having them do this takes time away from showing instead of telling what could have been the show's strengths; setting details, more and better fights, fleshed-out personalities. I really think the staff made a mistake in choosing to instead spend some of their precious episode time on unnecessary narration of all things.

In addition, the show seems to drag its feet in places, like in one episode where the characters take like two minutes to stare at books, do narration, and talk about homework. That could be easily compressed into like 10-15 seconds of speaking lines about homework and leave the rest of the time for other things.

This leaves some of the male characters with far shorter character arcs than others. While some guys get 1-2 episodes of their arcs, some get like 3-4. They really don't need that much. In summary, many things could have been cut or compressed to give more time to the characters. It's disappointing that the staff didn't do that and I don't think it's fair to blame it on the show's length.

The Protagonist and The Fights:

But who really cares right? In the end, fairly good-looking guys are good enough for you and you just wanna see some girl kick their butts. Forget romance and 3-dimensional guys, we want some action! Well you and me both. I came to this show thinking that maybe I might find something that might look like an interesting, strong, maybe gender-challenging, female lead. And well, the show seems to have a surface level idea of what that means but a lack of understanding of how to show it.

Hikaru(Hinako in reality) is the strongest in the school in terms of fighting skill so I would have given the show a higher rating if the fight scenes were cool. On one hand, they weren't boring, and it was nice to see a girl get punched in a serious street fight with a guy and hold her own for a change. That being said, they aren't anything special in terms of animation or exciting moves or anything like that. The only thing going for it is the novelty that it's guys fighting a girl, thinking she's a guy.

Hikaru(Hinako)'s motivations and personality are also a mystery but a generic female lead isn't exactly news in otome anime and games. This show tries to remedy that by making her personality seem more like a male character's instead. I can only assume that this is to make her seem like a more proactive character rather than a passive one (passive like Ema from BroCon). This backfires though, as the staff just give her run-of-the-mill male-like traits like determination, friendliness, and an unwillingness to give up. Hinako now becomes indistinguishable from a generic male lead.

Hikaru(Hinako) is also puzzlingly intent on saying and proving that she's a guy the whole show period, which is weird because there seems to be no reason for it. Why should she want to be seen as a guy? Does she not care? Then why is she so vehement about it? Does she identify as a guy? Then why does the show treat her as a possible girly love interest from time to time? The show wants it to look as if she likes being treated as an equal and as a friend amongst men, yet keeps putting her in somewhat fanservicy positions with them. If the show was trying to present an otome character that the guys saw as both an equal and a romantic interest, than why didn't it have any romantic development in the slightest?

The Romance:

Some of you might be in the other camp; people who want to see a trashy romance-teasing shipfest of an otome anime and that's fine. You won't find it here. Frustratingly, the show can't seem to make up its mind on whether it wants the main lead to be a romantic interest (UtaPri, Kamigami, BroCon) or a commentary on gender roles (Kashima from Gekkan Shoujo). It also does not seem to be a smart enough show to make Hinako both (Ouran High) either.

For some reason, the show teases that some characters have figured out that Hinako is a girl. This is obviously so that they can see her as a potential love interest, yet they never fall through. Hinako always denies it for no clear discernible reason, there's a fight, and then the guy says that of course she's a guy, a girl wouldn't punch like that. This is a problematic attitude and in the hands of a better show, Hinako would challenge this idea to make the themes a whole lot more interesting. However it never gets bellow surface level and in consequence, the show's themes come across as sexist rather than gender challenging. Nothing really happens romance-wise.

In Summary:

This show's themes are all over the place and it can't seem to decide what it wants to do. The male leads are only memorable by their candy-colored hair and lack of depth. The protagonist tries to avoid being a generic female lead by becoming a generic male lead. The fights are probably the best part of the show, which isn't a complement since they aren't "wow"-inspiring, and anything the show could have done to add some more "character" to their characters was derailed by its bad pacing and choice to fill up time with narration.

In conclusion, unless you need to watch every single otome anime out there or like me, are heedless of the quality and have a craving to see a romance-free anime about a girl being treated like a guy, this show is not for you.