Review for Kämpfer: Series And OVA Collection

Introduction

Why’d it have to be German? Umlauts flying all over the place, making this review a pain to type. There was a time when English was the exotic language of choice in anime, when sorcerers in Slayers would fire off spells like Dragon Slave and Levitation. That’s easy to type, easier to understand, and convenient to poke fun at when the Japanglish goes haywire. But more recently, with shows like Rozen Maiden, and now Kämpfer, it’s another European language that gets all exotic and romantic for Japanese audiences. Of course for a parochial Brit like me, who chose Spanish and French at GCSE, it feels like I’m being left out. Fortunately, Sentai supply translations for the episode titles.


Kämpfer are legendary warrior women, called forth to do battle for... well that isn’t quite clear at the start of this series. What is clear is that their magical bracelets turn them from everyday people into warriors, armed with swords, guns, or Zauber (an internally generated energy weapon), and they’re supposed to battle each other according to what colour bracelet they wear; red vs. blue. Their Bowel Familiar plush toys (suicidal animal dolls with their entrails hanging out) come to life to guide, and generally annoy their owners in regards to the Kämpfer battles.


This shouldn’t be Natsuru Senou’s problem. After all, he is a guy, whose sole motivation in life is getting close to his neighbour Kaede Sakura, one of the beauties that attend his school. But the Kämpfer Moderator has a way around that too. When Natsuru’s bracelet activates, he actually becomes a girl, and he has no control over that process, whether it’s random, or triggered by the presence of another Kämpfer. And there are more Kämpfer at his school. The mousy librarian Akane turns into a flame-haired foul-mouthed gunslinger, and it’s fortunate for Natsuru that they are both on the same team. School President Shizuku wears a red bracelet, but rather than try to kill Natsuru, she’d rather torment him/her instead. She starts by insisting that Natsuru transfer over to the girls’ side of their segregated high school, where the tall blue-haired girl makes an immediate impact. And while Natsuru the boy is in love with Sakura, Sakura is in love with Natsuru the girl, and to top things off, Akane’s in love with Natsuru the boy, and as for Shizuku... Life is certainly getting complicated for Natsuru.


Kämpfer and its OVA spin-off Kämpfer: fur die Liebe were released separately on DVD by Sentai in the US, but MVM are releasing both in a three disc DVD collection. The Blu-rays in both the US and the UK have the OVA as standard.

Disc 1

1. Schicksal
2. Glühen
3. Lilie
4. Kriegserklärung
5. Komödie
6. Heimkehr


Disc 2

7. Einladen
8. Liebste
9. Hochsommer
10. Falle
11. Wählen
12. Weinachten

Disc 3: Kämpfer – für de Liebe

1. Versuchang
2. Jeden Tag Leben

Picture

Kämpfer gets a 1.78:1 progressive anamorphic widescreen NTSC transfer on what look to be discs re-versioned for Region 2 from the Sentai masters. The transfer is lacklustre to be frank. The animation isn’t the most detailed or complex, opting for the simpler character and world designs that you’d expect from a fan service comedy. But on these discs the image is soft, and of relatively low resolution. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that it was an old school NTSC-PAL standards conversion, and it reminded me quite strongly of the treatment that Rosario and Vampire got on its DVD release. A forum post on an anime website did point to some pixellation in one episode, but I have to admit that I missed it when I watched it through first time. It’s only with reference that I skipped back and located it at 9:44 into episode 6. It’s the same kind of glitch that plagued Inu x Boku SS all the way through that release, but it only happens the once here.


Note that the transfer quality improves for Disc 3, the für die Liebe OVAs, it’s clear and sharp throughout with no glitches or visible compression. Frankly it’s what the whole series should have looked like on DVD. Fortunately in this case, MVM are also bringing out Kämpfer on Blu-ray, and that ought to be a lot better.

Sound

The sole audio track here is a DD 2.0 Japanese track with optional English subtitles. It’s as you would expect from an anime release these days, the dialogue is clear, the stereo does enough to bring to life the action sequences, and the audio is free of glitches and dropouts. The actors are well suited to their stereotyped roles, with the oddity of the same actress playing both male and female Natsuru. The subtitles are accurately timed, but I noticed a typo, ‘dosing’ should have been ‘dozing’ in one instance, while on the OVA disc in episode 1, they twice got ‘Sakura’ mixed up with ‘Shizuku’, confusing to say the least.

Extras

The discs present their content with static menus and jacket pictures, and each episode is followed by a translated English credit reel.

Disc 1 offers trailers for Koihime Muso, 11 Eyes, Ghost Sweeper Mikami, Akane Iro ni Somaru Saka, Needless and Guin Saga. You’ll also find two textless openings and one textless closing,


Most significant here is the Amazing Bowel Familiars short animation, which lasts 11:30, and is a picture drama, a scripted bit of comedy nonsense that has the three stuffed toys from the show debating their lack of cuteness. It plays like a radio drama, with static stills of the characters on screen when they are speaking, and it’s subtitled in English quite naturally.

Disc 3 has the textless credits for the OVA episodes, and trailers for Kids on the Slope, Colorful – The Motion Picture, Kämpfer, Psychic Detective Yakumo, Kill Me Baby, and Okamikikushi – Masque of the Wolf. Personally I’m getting tired of textless credits masquerading as trailers, as they tell me nothing about the show.

Conclusion

Comparisons to Rosario and Vampire are indeed apt in this case, not just because of the quality of the transfer. Kämpfer too is a romantic harem comedy with just a bit of an edge to it. Rosario and Vampire had its hapless teen male the sole human in a school full of monsters that hate humans, but surviving because the most powerful student, a vampire girl developed a taste for his blood, as well as an affection for him. Pretty soon, other monster girls joined his harem, so in between all the saucy comedy and awkward glances, there would be moments of peril, drama and action. Kämpfer comes from the same school of harem comedy, except that instead of monsters, we have girls who magically transform into warriors to do battle, and the hapless teen male is actually one of them, becoming female when called on to battle. This isn’t new in anime either, if you’ve seen Ranma½, which also had a protagonist who could change gender at the drop of a bucket, which caused him no little hassle in the romance stakes. Just like Rosario and Vampire, Kämpfer is pleasantly funny, not really bringing anything new to the table, but entertaining with its saucy antics, likeable characters (with multiple personalities), and some daft humour. It ticks all the right boxes if you’re in the mood for a harem comedy, and has enough energy to carry it through its run of episodes.


The sauciness obviously comes from a male character who finds that he’s randomly transforming into a female, and all the confusion that comes with it, coming to terms with another body, and coming to terms with how the other students relate to him/her. The school has only recently gone co-ed, and the genders remain segregated. Natsuru would think that escaping the expected male attention by heading to the girls’ half of the school would be a good idea, but remember that this is an anime harem comedy, where girls tend to greet each other by groping boobs, and going on from there. The girls in this school are particularly perverted, so nowhere is safe for Natsuru.


Kämpfer are supposed to fight to the death, so every time that he meets another Kämpfer, the encounter is fraught with the potential for lethal violence. His first encounter with Akane is in a hail of bullets, before they learn that they have the same colour bracelet and are on the same team. The student body president looks like an ominous warrior for the other side, until it becomes clear that she gets off on tormenting and teasing Natsuru. Natsuru’s childhood friend Mikoto returns, becomes a Kämpfer, and attacks female Natsuru for cheating on male Natsuru (it’s a thing), before the penny drops. The point being that all of these potential foes fall in love with Natsuru the guy, and so his harem grows. And unlike most other anime comedy harems, these three girls look as if they’d be happy sharing him. Every guy’s dream, right? Except that Natsuru is in love with Kaede Sakura, and can only see her. Unfortunately that love remains unrequited until Natsuru changes into a girl, and it becomes clear that Sakura is in love with female Natsuru, while thinking male Natsuru is a dork. So there is plenty of room for saucy comedy here.


On top of that, we have the Bowel Familiar dolls, stuffed toys that look like animal corpses come to life, with their intestines hanging out of their stomachs, toys that most people would shun away from, but it turns out that Sakura is a fan. Although on occasion, and from the odd angle, the intestines look less like intestines and more like genitals... They’re the goofy comic relief characters that also provide exposition for the show, as more and more about the Kämpfer battles is revealed. It turns out that there is a conspiracy behind all this, somewhat dark and ominous for the girls, and there is a familiar face scheming away, someone who’s getting impatient that the girls that should be fighting to the death, are batting eyelids at Natsuru instead. If there is one cliché that this show could have done without, it’s the tired one equating sexuality with villainy.


I didn’t quite engage with the series of Kämpfer as much as I did Rosario and Vampire, and I had a bit of a head-scratch as to why. Certainly it’s funny, the characters are likeable, and the story is interesting. It’s just that the humour seems somehow forced, constrained, and predictable. It’s an entertaining show that is above average, but not by much. And then I watched the OVAs, and it’s here the show really comes into its own. The fact of the matter is that the premise for the show really does raise expectations of sauciness and ribald humour that the broadcast standard series can’t deliver on, can only allude to through innuendo and asides. But for the two episodes of the OVAs, the gloves, or rather the panties come off, and things get a lot more frisky and steamy (without ever getting explicit). I enjoyed the OVA episodes much more than the series simply because they were more risqué, concentrated on the sauciness, and forgot the storyline, which isn’t really what makes the show fun in the first place. Kämpfer might have been more fun if it had gone for the full ecchi from the beginning, but it’s good enough to watch as a humorous diversion. Only make sure that you get the Blu-ray, as this DVD release could have been better.