Sadly Over-hyped

Pretty Good

good back-story, and good acting

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

This anime series is set in a world where certain shrine maidens, Toji, are trained to battle strange beings known as 'Aradama'. To this end they are permitted to carry swords and trained at five special academies. Once a year the academies compete against each other. After certain events at one such competition two such girls, Kanami and Hiyori, go on the run and are pursued by other Toji. As the series progresses they learn more about the Aradama; notably how certain powerful people are doing things that could cause more powerful ones to appear. Ultimately they, and other Toji must face dangerous foes.This is one of many anime series were groups of young fighters are trained to fight a mysterious foe but seem to spend more time battling each other because of higher-ups with sinister motives. It contains plenty of action which is fairly exciting, unfortunately the plot seemed a bit of a mess... so much so that the catch-up episode was actually worth watching as it reminded me of details I seem to have missed or completely forgotten. Perhaps it will be better now viewers can watch several episodes at a time rather than having to wait a week between episodes. The characters were okay although most aren't all that memorable... I did like the design of the ultimate villain though. Overall I'm not sure I'd recommend this to anybody apart from fans of the genre.These comments are based on watching the series in Japanese with English subtitles.