English Dub Review: Senran Kagura “Change the World”

More like “Change the channel.”

Overview (Spoilers Below)

The girls of Hanzo Academy are out doing some side work for Christmas time dressed in skimpy Christmas clothes to advertise for local businesses. Asuka, meanwhile, spends time with Yumi discussing their lives as ninjas, and how they must balance their personal time with their professional time. Asuka loses her glasses, and so she has to search all around town with her ninja powers to try and find them.

Meanwhile, a couple of snobby ninja hotshots from Gessen academy pick fights with the Hanzo Academy girls and give them a good thrashing. Once they’re done with the main group, they proceed to find Asuka and best her in combat as well. Yumi also runs across a mysterious stranger on the city streets.

Our Take:

So, my main issue that I have with this episode is that it hardly feels animated. It’s really obvious that, due to time or budget or whatever, the animators shrewdly shoved on tons of still shots of characters so they could avoid animating them. It’s really noticeable and makes some of the most boring anime a person could watch. At times, this hardly looks like a professional production, since it relies so much on these cheesy animation techniques in lieu of something actually interesting to watch.

The setup for this episode is a lot more of the same from the first season. Plenty of slice-of-life mixed with some anime ninja babes with a lot of cute thrown in for good measure. Some of its entertaining, some of it’s not, but a lot of it is just faffing about. However, one gets the feeling that “faffing about” is basically all this show is good for. If you’re not here for hot girls in skimpy Santa swimsuits, then I would have to ask what you’re doing here in the first place. This is the kind of show that mostly just exists for the eventual uncut Blu-ray releases if you know what I mean.

As for the story, well…there are things that happen between all the skimpy outfit shopping. Yumi and Asuka share a kinda-meaningful conversation about their goals as ninjas and the importance of living normal lives in addition to their jobs. This means just a lot of back and forth while walking around the city, intermingled with some panty shots thrown in, because why not? The most tension this episode brings is when the girls get into a fight with some snobby girls from Gessen Academy. There’s this “Sword and shield” business that works as a vague metaphor for the main cast to espouse at their opponents while talking about “justice”, as anime characters so often do.

Look, this is just ecchi garbage, plain and simple; like eating cotton candy while looking at softcore porn. There is a story loosely attached to keep things moving, but the plot is hilariously simple and the characters are shallow caricatures, more defined by the curves of their body than anything else. It’s the bottom of the barrel for anime, and the kind of thing I think the world would be better off without. But, if you’re looking for girls getting the shit beat out of them while getting a quick look at their panties, here you go.