Written by Plot
The plot revolves around Natsuru Senō, a normal high school boy with blue hair. One day he wakes up to find himself turned into a girl. A stuffed tiger “Harakiri Tora” comes to life and tells him that he has been chosen as one of the “Kämpfer”, a female fighter. The Kämpfer are destined to fight with other Kämpfer. He then finds out that his crush is a lesbian and will only like him as a girl. Yes my friends this plot involves lesbianism. /Facepalm.
Characters
I’m sorry their’s not enough too these characters to talk about. Just know I hate them all, they all form Natsuru’s harem, and they are all Kampfer.
Seno Natsuru: Saint Protagonist
Akane Mishima: Tsundere friend. Also want to point out that Wikipedia said she “appears to be ambidextrous” which is another way to say that the animator’s messed up.
Shizuku Sangō: Student council president, and a Kurudere.
Mikoto Kondō: Childhood friend; can someone PLEASE throw this trope in a fire?
Kaede Sakura: Love Interest
[Review Begins Here]
/Facepalm
That’s what this anime is, one giant facepalm. 6 hours of something that didn’t need to exist. And you know what the worst part is??? I paid money for this! I paid $26, for Kampfer! After watching this, I wouldn’t have paid $2 for it! Deepbreath/ …… O.K.. Let’s calm down, so I can tell you why I hate this anime so much.
First off, lets start off with some positive stuff………. um, the animation is nice, but not very impressive. It looks like a standard 2009 anime, although the sky’s look terrible. Umm other nice things…other nice things….. um, did I mention the animation is decent?
Now for the fanservice, and oh God the fanservice. Remember when I said I was O.K. with fanservice as long as it was added more like the butter on popcorn? Well Kampfer basically just gives you a plate of melted butter and says “Eat up”, and then because you don’t want to see the puppy-dog look in its face you do eat up, and then spend the rest of your week in the bathroom vomiting.
So now after that, let’s look at the alleged ”comedy” in Kampfer. I use quotes because there’s almost nothing funny in this show. So many jokes in this show are reused, and none of them are funny. For example Akane constantly thinking Natsuru is trying to have sex with her, when he’s just talking about random stuff, that sounds mildly innuendo-ish is not funny! It wasn’t funny the first time, and it wasn’t funny the fifth time. Another thing they kept repeating is the parodying of other better shows or movies after the ending credits. I know you can skip past it, but I feel the need to talk about it. All they do is just take the plot of a movie like say Star Wars, read the plot, and just take out names of say Luke Skywalker and replace it with Natsuru. That’s all they do. Ha freaking ha.
What about the Op, you may ask? Well the Op, “Unreal Paradise” had a slightly catchy song, but is otherwise forgettable. Next!
Now for another rant on Saint Protagonists. This anime made me realise something important, that every anime with SP’s make perfect sense if you add in some back story of them being originally being a girl and changing into a man right before the first episode. Imagine it. You’re a girl, who’s just become a guy so your on edge, and of course your straight so the prospect of 5-5000 girls chasing after you is not appealing so of course your going to hate it. Your going to have been going through massive emotional trauma, so you’re not going to exactly have much of a spine, or be trying to stand up for yourself etcetera, etcetera. So what I’m basically saying here is that Natsuru seems more like a girl, then he does a guy, and wow that’s sad.
Now I want to ask a question, and if any of you can answer it please leave a comment. Who exactly is this series aimed at? Seriously think about it. This is an Action, Ecchi, Harem Comedy, so lets break each of those down. As established above, this series is not funny so comedy’s out.
Now for ecchi, and I have never understood why people like this. If your enough of a pervert to actually seek out ecchi, why don’t you just go watch Hentai? If that’s what your into, I can guarantee it’s much better than just ecchi, so that’s out.
I suppose there are some people out their who like Harem type shows, but if you really liked that kind of thing than you obviously are in it for all the characters. But there are so few new or interesting characters, that are done so much better in other anime’s. For example the Tsundere, Akane. Nymph from Sora no Otoshimono is a much better tsundere because tsundereism is only good when introduced as a character flaw that the character eventually overcomes, not one of the defining characteristics of the character in question, as is the case with Akane.
And finally the action is terrible. It’s awful. In one later episode when Natsuru and Akane are fighting Shizuku, she basically kicks their butt into the wall, when Natsuru charges up a fire-ball, and instead of launching it at her head, or something sensible, he aims at the smoke alarm. Now first off, that would not work, because fire alarms are set off by smoke, not by having a fire-ball launched at them, that would just melt it. Second off this somehow manages to distract the hyper-focused Shizuku for long enough for Akane to pin her down and aim a gun at her head. Natsuru then manages to somehow launch at fireball directly at Akane’s gun causing her shot to miss. They then let this extremely dangerous enemy go, as long as she agrees to no hurt his precious girl-friend, which I might add she could still do, instead of killing her which would have eliminated the problem entirely. So basically it’s because the plot say so. And that is the only action scene for the next few episodes, of what are unarguably filler. That does not a good action scene make.
Now for one of the things I hated most about this anime, its final episode. What an unbelievable letdown. So here’s what happens, They spend the first 10 episodes dealing with important things like fanservice, and hilarious comedy, while trying as hard as they can to have as little of that horrible plot thing, that no one likes. Then Nomad finally came down to the basement of their animation studio to check on how the “undesirable” anime’s like Kampfer are coming. They then see that the Kampfer animators have been doing nothing but drawing terrible stuff, and told them that there are quite a lot of people who like that plot thing, and that they had better make one fast, or they are all gonna get fired. So they spend two days smoking cocaine and quickly come up with a plot that they write in two days, and spend the next few weeks animating. That is the ONLY possible explanation for an ending this terrible. They spend the first 10 episodes doing NOTHING and then try to pack a plot into half of episode 11. Not even all of episode 11, just the second half off it. They have a terrible plot twist, involving Kaede working for the Moderators. ( I’m telling you spoilers to spare you of any idea of watching this anime) The girls all fight (Natsuru doesn’t because he’s useless) and do they use their past experiences to beat the enemy’s? NOOOOO of course not, they just get arbitrary power ups for no reason what so ever, and roflstomp the enemy in 30 seconds. Then have a terrible non-end in which relies solely on Kampfer getting a second season, with no wrap up of the story at all. I can not express in words, over the internet, the shear amount of rage I had at this one episode. This entire anime is just pure concentrated stupid! Oh and what’s worse? They wasted all of episode 12 on a completely pointless body swap episode that had no bearing on the plot. FNLNJDJGNVNEFNVJNCFLJVGSNFSNFNGKJENF!!!!!!! /Nerd-Rage. (In no way is that statement an advertisement for Nerd-Age, but this sentence is)
SONIC HERO'S!
But even with ALL of that taken into consideration, even with all the terrible things I have mention previously, none of it is Kampfer’s worst crime. No, no, no dear readers: Kampfers biggest, worst, and most horrific crime is that it was given a second chance, and it didn’t take it. A few months back Kampfer was given an extra 2 episodes under the surname Kämpfer für die Liebe. Now this was released too long after the original to be an OVA, so it’s more like a mini second season. And didn’t I just mention above, that Kampfer was relying on a second season to wrap up its terrible plot? Now with this one last chance to try to make a complete and whole story-line did the creators take it? Well I’m happy to say that they did 
. Kämpfer für die Liebe laid all of my previous criticisms to rest. It finished with the Kampfers going to stick it to the Moderators in what can only be described as an action packed thriller worthy of an Emmy Award. Normally I would complain that this end felt a bit rushed and compressed to try to fit into only two episodes, but it all blends seamlessly in a way I had not thought possible. And I would be happy to say that it is my favorite anime of all time. Would that is, being because Kämpfer für die Liebe was so incredibly good that it caused some kind of quantum collapse that both erased it from reality, and from the minds of the human race, only to replaced with a completely pointless additional two episodes that had bigger concerns with having more harem/ gender swap/ obnoxious “comedy” instead of wrapping up the plot.
Now I will say that in all fairness to the show, two more episodes would not have been enough to finish the story without feeling incredibly compressed, but at least I would have had SOME form of respect for the show, for at least TRYING to tell a contained story, instead of the sheer idiotic pointlessness of Kämpfer für die Liebe.
So in closing I would advise you to avoid this anime like the plague, and go watch Ranma 1/2 instead! Phew, got that out of my system and now I can tell you what next weeks review is. It is again a stupid anime, but unlike Kampfer it is a fun (and indeed funny) kind of stupid.
If For Some God Forsaken Reason You Want To Buy Kampfer Complete Collection You Can Do It At Amazon.com
[Next Week: MM!]
