Opening Songs
OP 1 - Dimension Tripper (Nao)
Ending Songs
ED 1 - Neptune Sagashite (Afilia Saga)
Genre: Comedy, Fantasy, Science Fiction
Episodes: 12
So, you know, being a typical closet otaku I've always took interest in the "Neptunia" franchise. Cute anime girls, weird skimpy outfits and magical girl esque transformations? Man these 3 things combined were almost enough to pull me to buy the PS3 games. However, the key word is ALMOST, because I was quickly dissuaded by the sub par scores the game got. It didn't even do that well on famitsu, FAMITSU! However, that didn't mean that I had given up all hope on the franchise. Despite it being sub par as a game franchise, I still wanted to discover the world of "Neptunia" (because, you know, the girls just looked too moe, and I saw tons of "fan service" images online), and that just meant that a huge smile was on my face when the animation was announced. This review is coming out of a guy who has NEVER played the "Neptunia" games, so keep that in mind. If you're into the core fan service anime like "Senran Kagura", you should already know what to expect with "Neptunia", because that's what it is.
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| See this cast? You know what you're getting yourself into. |
Rating: 7.5/10
I know what many people will think going into "Neptunia", but I'll tell you right now, as an anime, its not that bad. In fact, I kind of liked it for what it is. The story isn't the anime's strong point, but what can you expect from an anime like this, it was pretty obvious from the get go that we were going to get a pretty sub par story at most. Everything else though, is on the higher end. The characters were super moe and pretty damn likable for the most part, except a small few (Blanc's twin sisters and Pische), and they vary greatly in personality, which keeps the show entertaining. The comedy is alright, you'll get a few easy chuckles out of the cheesiness that's present here, and the animation is quite solid. The fan service is honestly well done. Not only did most of the fan service segments feel, you know, "fan service"-y, but they were not over exaggerated. They were ridiculous (the eggplant scene was surprisingly arousing, lol), but not over exaggerated. And come on, the 4 goddesses getting bondaged by wires was pretty sexy.
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| HOLY TITS....need some help, Miss? |
The story centers around 4 goddesses and their 4 governing nations. For a long time, wars have been fought by these 4 goddesses over share energy, a common resource that all the nations needed. However, one day they got tired of the fighting, and the 4 goddesses signed a truce, a peace treaty to end all wars and have share energy shared among the 4 nations. Neptune, the protagonist, is one of the 4 goddesses. Normally, she's known as Neptune, a lazy, easy going girl that likes to play games all f**king day like a hikkimori (me). As a goddess, she is known as Purple Heart, an elegant woman with purple hair, armor and a deadly long sword. As Neptune though, she has been playing too much games, and as a result, her people don't think too highly of her, which caused their respect for her to take a dip, which in turn caused Neptune's nation, Planeptune, to receive decreased share energy. To regain that lost share energy, Histoire, the navi behind Planeptune's share system, kicks Neptune and her sister out of the office and tells them to go do some work, which leads to some drastic situations.
As far as heavy fan service animes go, I think I'll take "Neptunia" over most of the other ones that I've watched before. Good fan service can be subjective, but I like how "Neptunia" was felt as an overall experience. The future similar animes with character casts having nothing but big busted females should take a note from "Neptunia" in appealing to the general male otaku demographic.
Peace.
