Opening Songs
OP 1 - Mukaikaze ni Uta Renagara (Minori Chihara)
Ending Songs
ED 1 - OVERDRIVER (ZAQ)
Genre: Action, Romance
Episodes: 12
Now this is a surprise. Who would have thought that "Rail Wars" wasn't a complete, colossal failure of an anime? I mean, its a show about f**king TRAINS! Who the hell can cook up a story about a bunch of teenagers and TRAINS?! Fortunately, its not nearly as bad as it sounds. "Rail Wars" is substantial enough to have a decent story, some rather fun characters, and overall it works as a semi harem/romance themed show as well. It also has a good amount of action, though if you're here looking for a great action anime, you'd have better luck looking elsewhere. Though the anime mostly uses fan service to play to its advantage, the fan service is rather decent and well, you'd know that this would be quite fan service heavy before walking into it. Otherwise, well, there you go! If you're another one of those that can't stand scantily clad girls with ridiculously good bodies with clothing that emphasizes on their curves, this isn't for you (panty shots and boob bounces galore). If you don't mind that however and you're willing to give this a go, then prepare to be decently surprised. An anime talking about trains isn't as boring as you'd think.
.jpg) |
| Well, I did mention fan service, didn't I? |
"Rail Wars" has a surprisingly good selection of opening and ending themes. The opening theme is "Mukaikaze ni Uta Renagara" by Minori Chihara. If you don't know who she is by now, you haven't been watching a lot of anime, apparently, because Minori Chihara is an amazing anisong artist. "Mukaikaze ni Uta Renagara" is a very powerful song, and sometimes, it sounds too overwhelming for something like "Rail Wars" (I feel like it'd fit something like "Horizon" a lot more). The ending theme is the real kicker here, its "OVERDRIVER" by ZAQ. Now I'm usually not too keen on ZAQ songs, but "OVERDRIVER" sounds incredibly sexy and catchy. Its auto tuned to perfection, and the electro feel that the entire song has is just perfect. One of the best ending songs I've ever heard.
Rating: 7.0/10
Now it isn't spectacular, but its pretty good to some extent. Its certainly not as bad it sounds, that's for sure. The show starts off pretty well, and gradually loses steam throughout, before gaining a little bit of it back at the end. The core concept of it is pretty stupid, with teenage kids being secruity guards for the local train station. There isn't a lot of post pounding action going for it, nor is the romance in it any good at all (seriously, its just standard harem "romance", nothing much). However, what it DOES do well, is in its fun characters, scenarios and writing. While the girls are portrayed as somewhat slutty, they're actually not TOO BAD (though they can feel a little bit like anime girl stereotypes). Even though there's another dude in the anime (who's totally the best character), its an obvious harem surrounding the main character. Fan service is used somewhat excessively, though most of it is fairly reasonable (no nudity). There are a ton of fun scenarios (like that one arc where the team rides an organ to save a life), but its very clear some are a lot more interesting than others.
.jpg) |
| All right, you know what you're getting yourself into when you see this. |
Takayama Naoto is your regular train loving brat who always desired to work with trains for his entire life. With the Japan industry booming with high tech trains, he wants to live his life as an engineer, so he enrolled into the JNR training program when he came of age, aiming to be an engineer. He gets teamed up with 3 others, Iwaizumi, a hardheaded fellow, Aoi, a tsundere police girl, and Haruka, a ditsy girl who's smart but also has a fairly weak body. Together, the 4 of them blaze through the entrance exams, and finally comes the day of the fated on job training program. They are posted together to the same station, and on the day of training, they witness a crime, a purse robbery case. Together, they work together with a combination of skill and wit catch the culprit. Then came the day where they were to be posted out to different stations to continue their lives at JNR. Well, it must be a coincidence that the 4 of them ended up in the same office as security enforcers. And thus, the 4 continue their lives together as full fetched security officers.
"Rail Wars" may not be for everyone, but for the general male audience who enjoy harems, this is a candidate. It's certainly not as bad as it sounds, or what some others make it out to be. It may be one of those animes that rely on fan service, but its honestly not too bad. Makes for a good distraction, and its a fun series. I hope it gets a season 2.
Peace.
