The girls with guns genre of anime just might not be the same after this one.
What They Say:
Forget about Girls with Guns! These Girls ARE Guns!
Kiss kiss, bang bang! The arms race takes on a startling new development when the arms come with heads, legs, and very feminine bodies attached! Yes, at Seishou Academy every girl is literally a lethal weapon, and they’re all gunning for the top shot at getting their own personal serviceman! Needless to say, it’s going to be difficult for newly recruited human instructor Genkoku to adjust to working with a living arsenal of high caliber cuties with tricky names like FNC (Funko), M 16A4 (Ichiroku), L85A1 (Eru), and SG 550 (Shigu). Especially since many have hair triggers and there’s no bulletproof vest that can stop a really determined co-ed!
Genkoku will have to rewrite the operator’s manual on student/teacher relationships, and pray that his job description won’t include having to field strip and reassemble one of his cadets in the dark. But unfortunately (for him) FNC’s already thinking about becoming his personal weapon, and she usually gets what she aims for! Get ready for explosive situations, amour-piercing rounds, cheap shots galore and one very shell-shocked homeroom instructor in UPOTTE!
Includes all 10 episodes plus OVA.
The Review:
Audio:
For this review, I listened to the English Dolby Digital 2-channel 48khz 224kbps audio track. There were no noticeable dropouts or distortions during playback. As this show is largely dialogue based (despite what one might expect from a show featuring automatic weaponry), most of the work is done by the center speaker, though the prologic decoding does send some sounds to the rear speakers, especially for music.
Video:
Originally airing in 2012, the show is presented in its original aspect ratio of 16:9 and enhanced for anamorphic playback. I do not know what the state of the masters or the blu-ray video is, but the DVD has a few noticeable problems. In dark scenes, there was visible noise in the darker portions of the image at times. Outside of those occasions, however, the video upscales relatively well from the standard 480i MPEG-2 video. Xebec animated the show in very bright colors in general and those bright colors are appropriately bright.
Packaging: The front cover shows the main four girls in bikinis holding their own rifles. It’s clearly meant to sell this show to the fanservice-minded fan. The back of the cover has the catalog text accompanied by another group picture of the girls in tight and revealing outfits, with a line of still frames from the show (which mainly highlight the fanservice) above the technical grid which lines the bottom. The disc art repeats the back cover main image of the girls in tight outfits on the first disc and then provides an alternate one of the girls in their bikinis for the other.
Menu:
The menus feature more of the official promotional art of the main girls, with a clear emphasis on fanservice. Access times are quick and the layout is straightforward, with options on the main menu for the individual episodes and any other links listed along the right side of the frame. Snippets of the show’s music play in the background on short loops.
Extras:
Very little in the way of extras. The first disc has the clean opening and ending animations as well as the usual assortment of trailers from Sentai. Besides the disc credits, there is nothing else. The second disc contains no extras.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Having first watched Upotte!! when it originally ran in 2012, I already knew what to expect though I could see how a new viewer might be somewhat taken aback. That’s because the premise is absolutely ludicrous and the show is, frankly a touch on the stupid side. The idea is that there is a school in Japan where all of the students are guns, especially the cute girls who are the focus of our attention. No, it’s not that the students go around armed all the time (which they do, but…). The students are arms. Into this mix is thrown a human, who never gets named and is simply known as “Teacher,” “Homeroom Teacher” and “Japanese Teacher” (since he teaches Japanese literature). The first student he meets is Funco, which is just the nickname every calls the FNC, a Belgian made assault rifle who takes the form of s slightly pudgy, though not fat, middle school girl with light-purplish-silver hair. The show then proceeds to initiate us into the peculiarities of the different “girls,” whose dress and behavior is shaped and formed by how they are as a weapon.
For example, the FNC has what is called a “skeleton stock” (the stock is not solid but is only the main frame, likely to reduce weight though I have no expertise whatsoever about modern weaponry) so obviously she is required to wear a thong for her panties. We’re never actually shown Funco’s thong (and considering she’s a middle school girl, that’s not a bad thing), but it becomes a major recurring gag as the human Japanese teacher accidental sees them during their first meeting and somehow can’t help but mention them, which results in Funco going nuts and opening fire upon him. This is one of the major oddities of the show: the “girls” themselves are supposed to be guns, but they are also able to pull out the actual guns which they are supposed to be and can fire them. In fact, target practice and combat simulations seem to be part of their schooling.
In short order, we’re introduced to the main four: Funco and her friends (who are all also assault rifles) Sig (the SG 550, a Swiss model), Ichiroku (“16,” the American army standard M16A4 rifle), and Elle (the L85A1 British army rifle). The show is in general a rather strange combination of cute schoolgirls doing slice of life nothing, combat training, obvious fanservice, and a very strange technical manual for modern military weaponry. Fortunately the show does not go into overkill, but it does give the viewer quite a bit of information about the history and technical specifications of the various weapons who are girls. It also has some humorous conceits, such as mechanical breakdowns manifesting as sickness and illness for the “girls.”
Overall, it’s just a slightly weird combination of cute girl silliness with combat simulations, a much more ridiculous version of the “girls playing survival game” scenario that we have seen appear since in a couple other shows, as well as a different take on the “let’s anthropomorphize deadly weapons as cute girls!” idea which seems to be coming to its ultimate expression this year, with last season’s Arpeggio of Blue Steel and the soon-to-be-aired Kantai Collection. I sometimes wonder if this fetishization of lethal weaponry is in any way made to seem less threatening and menacing because Japan is officially a non-militarized (for the moment) country and has very strict domestic gun control laws.
As is all too common, sadly, in silly fluffy comedies, the writers felt a need to get dramatic and serious in the final two episode arc (there isn’t much of a plot to speak of, otherwise) where the Western weapons are challenged to a not-fun game of war by a squad of AK-47s representing the East. All of this had a very out-of-date Cold War feel to it (though Kitsune Tennoji’s manga upon which this is based only began serialization in 2009). The serious and dark tone of the final episode (which avoids a tragic ending with one of the most blatant cop-outs I think I’ve ever seen) is completely washed away by the OVA, which is pretty much fanservice galore as we see the girls and one of the hotter female teachers in swimsuits and then nothing at all. The fanservice level in the OVA is on a notch above the general series as it has much more in the way of close ups of certain areas and contains the only nudity shown.
It’s not ground breaking, it lacks seriousness (thankfully; if this were serious, I think I would not be able to stomach it) and is clearly meant to be taken in good humor. It’s cotton candy for the mind. As a guilty pleasure, a “turn off your brain and just relax” show, it might have a place on the shelves of some fans. If you’re somewhat put off by the idea that they’re supposed to be middle school girls (though in general they look a bit older than that) or are a pacifist who finds the idea of glorifying and celebrating anti-personnel weaponry repelling, then you’ll likely want to pass on this show. There’s also one scene involving…self-gratification…that comes across much more as creepy and unnecessary than either funny or titillating.
In Summary:
Upotte!! takes the idea of the whole “girls with guns” genre and runs off into left field with it by imagining those girls as guns. Literal guns who can fire rounds and cause havoc. The only thing that saves the show from being a complete train-wreck and potentially keeps it alive as a guilty pleasure is the fact that it clearly doesn’t take itself at all seriously and in general tries to avoid seriousness except in its final two episode arc. If you’re not put off by the premise (either because of its ridiculousness or the glorification of weaponry) and enjoy mindless fanservice, you might get some guilty pleasure out of this title.
Features:
English 2.0 audio, Japanese 2.0 audio, English Subtitles, Clean Opening Animation, Clean Closing Animation, Sentai Trailers.
Content Grade:B-
Audio Grade: B+
Video Grade: B
Packaging Grade:
Menu Grade: B+
Extras Grade: C+
Released By: Sentai Filmworks
Release Date: March 18th, 2014
MSRP: $59.98
Running Time: 250 minutes
Video Encoding: 480i/p MPEG-2
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 Anamorphic Widescreen
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL-32S5100 32-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV, Sony PlayStation3 Blu-ray player via HDMI set to 1080p, Sony Bravia DAV-HDX589W 5.1-Channel Theater System connected via digital optical cable.