Sekirei

Sekirei (Both Seasons):  F

This is actually the most clothing I could find a picture of them wearing.

I am a firm believer that people are free to like whatever they like, and that not everything is for everyone.

Sekirei is bad and if you like Sekirei you are bad.

I watched one episode and I knew it was pretty bad, but I had to watch three to make sure.  And at that point, I had to watch all 26, because once I'd committed that much time, I might as well do the world a service and explain exactly what about it is so terrible.

So, Sekirei is a harem/panty fighter with superpowers.  I will be spoiling some things, but trust me you're better off this way.

Okay let's start with the premise: There are 108 alien creatures called Sekirei that some crazy guy found and used poorly explained magic science to raise to adulthood.  These creatures have superhuman powers and the ability to form a kind of contract with a human which increases their powers.  Right from this point, we start having problems.  Unanswered question 1: Can the contract be made only with specific humans?  Is there one 'destined' human that each Sekirei can contract with?  Or could the Sekirei choose any human they want?  It's never explained, and, given the obvious parallel of this contract with marriage (including several Sekirei referring to themselves as the main character's wives, in addition to the contract being sealed with a kiss and presaged by uncontrollably strong emotions toward the human), it really should be in order for the audience to know exactly what the show is trying to say about love, because later we're shown clear evidence of poor Sekirei who are contracted to abusive humans, and if you're going to have abusive relationships, you really ought to say more about it than 'they happen and those guys are dicks.'  Instead what you wind up saying is this magic thing happens for no real reason and has some Really Unfortunate Consequences.  Which is, I think it's fairly clear, kind of creepy.

Okay problem two: the main character.  He is explicitly a loser who has failed his college entrance exams twice, in fact, the story begins with him finding out that he's failed a second time when the first Sekirei we meet literally falls out of the fucking sky and lands on his face panties first.  That alone could be kind of funny and awkward, but she then proceeds to pick him up, drag him off and proclaim her eternal love for him, seriously within minutes of meeting him.  Naturally she is the first of the Sekirei to form this contract with our main character.  But this ties into the above problem: was she destined to fall in love with him?  Or was it because of some hidden reason?  (There is some evidence for this but it's never stated explicitly).  Or, weirdest of all, was it in spite of the fact that he is a total loser?  Really, all of these have varying levels of creepy undertones:  If the Sekirei are destined to fall in love with our loser protagonist, why are SIX OF THEM destined to do that?  If he's got some superpower that makes him irresistible to Sekireis, doesn't that mean he's robbed them of their free will and thank goodness he's a decent guy?  And if neither of those, what the HECK do these girls, who have, seriously, city-wrecking superpowers see in this loser who, after 26 episodes, can say very little about his own accomplishments other than he has managed to be a decent human being where most other male characters are at best assholes and at worst horrific examples of humanity?

So that's the creepy parts out of the way.  To be honest, if it were creepy but well-written, well-animated and well-paced with characters who felt characterful, I probably would have given it as much as a C, even a B.  But Sekirei as a series fails at every single criterion that I use to judge anime.

Animation:  The first season is horrendously poorly drawn and animated; from square one it looked odd, especially the breasts, which you see a lot of.  And as I've said, I enjoy the lovingly animated female form, but season one has some uncanny valley stuff going on.  The character designs are outstandingly uninspired and bland even in the second season, when the show gets a decent animation budget.

Writing:  From square one it never decides if it's a drama, a comedy or an action show, in addition to constantly contradicting itself.  In episode one we're told the Sekirei project is a secret, and then three Sekirei start fighting, using superpowers on a busy street where they had been handing out fliers literally moments before (this is in the same episode, mere minutes later).  At another time, we are told gravely that if a Sekirei is defeated and loses her crest, she can no longer be with her contractor, but then at the climax of the first season First Girl loses hers, then gets it back for completely unexplained reasons (note that it's just her, we later take someone else's and it's bad).  The 'comedy' is basically the same six jokes (one for each character) repeated once or twice an episode, and while there are some genuinely lovable characters in the mix, they are drawn into this vortex of stupid by the plot and so wind up behaving erratically and unpredictably.  Finally, there is not a single character in the entire series is who does not have something to do with the Sekirei Project.  We do not see how the chaos of this affects normal people.  There are no normal people who decide to try to help or hinder the project, everyone is either a Sekirei, contracted to one, or an important member of the corporation that controls them.

Pacing:  Both seasons, the endings come kind of out of nowhere and are very unsatisfying.  In the first season ending, the big bad (who isn't actually responsible for anything, she just has some unexplained grudge against First Girl) shows up, First Girl gets beaten, then First Girl gets better and blows them all away with secret unknown power (that never shows up again) and that's it, the end (it hurts that the animation in the ending is the worst in the season).  Second season everyone is inside a skyscraper whose self-destruct device went off and they're all okay (this actually offended me, being an American who was alive when 9/11 happened, but my offense aside this is still stupid) just dusted with dirt and weakened, which makes us wonder what the whole suspense about escaping the collapsing building was about in the first place, then the big bad shows up again for no reason other than because she wants a fight, then First Girl powers up again, loses, and the rest of the girls stand up and say well we can fight you to a draw if we all work together!... and the Big bad goes 'y'know what I don't feel like fighting any more I'll leave'.  No super combined power attack, villain just walks away rather than fighting.  How unsatisfying an ending can you fucking write.

In conclusion, there were several moments where I found myself enjoying it, a bit.  But whenever I stopped watching and actually thought about what was going on, I realized how things that needed to be explained weren't and that the things we were focusing on were detracting from the actual story, or, rather, contributing to its lack.

Sekirei's biggest failing is that it didn't have to be terrible.  The idea of warring demigods fighting in and amongst humanity has been done in other places and can make for an interesting story.  Sekirei fails even to be a silly fan service riddled romp, which it could have done if it had left out the creepier aspects of certain characters and the entire setting and hadn't tried so hard to be dramatic.

Don't watch Sekirei, unless this has made you want to see just how awful it is.