The opening episode of the broadcast series Majikoi: Oh! Samurai Girls (2011) hits the viewer like a flying body block as the students at Kawakami High fight an all-out intra-class martial arts battle. Yamato leads his team to victory by directing a cadre of powerful female lieutenants. The filmmakers never recapture that initial energy, but the first six episodes of Samurai Girls are essentially a raunchy fan-service harem comedy that suggests a mash-up of Love, Hina, Freezing, and Real Bout High. All the girls love Yamato, and squabble over him endlessly. Panty shots, double entendres, and contrived nudity fill the screen. There's even a rare example of fan-service shots of the male characters, when the irrepressible Capo and self-styled "King" Kuki pose on phallic floats in the school festival. But the show inexplicably shifts its tone in episode seven. Yamato becomes the center of a debate over the supposedly decadent state of Japan. Dueling enemies start launching explosions and energy blasts reminiscent of Dragon Ball Z, as arms smugglers and half-human cyborgs join the fray. Based on an adult visual novel released as a DVD in 2009 and adapted to a manga in 2010, Samurai Girls plays like a mixture of two or even three series ineptly cut together. It's hard to accept characters who duel to the death in one scene, then fight over the nerdy Yamato's affections with even greater fervor. Yamato, who collects porn magazines and cracks dirty jokes, lacks the charm of Tenchi or even Keitaro in Love, Hina: what do the girls see in him? Samurai Girls offers plenty of nudity for lonely fanboys, but little for other audiences. (Rated TV 14 VSD: violence, violence against women, risqué humor, tobacco and drug use, nudity, sexual situations including implied lesbianism and sadism) --Charles Solomon

(1. Come at Me, Seriously! 2. Complete the Mission, Seriously! 3. Go Crazy for Me, Seriously! 4. Talk to Me, Seriously! 5. Get Mad at Me, Seriously! 6. Carry It with Me, Seriously! 7. Come with Me, Seriously! 8. Explain What's Going On, Seriously! 9. Come Out to Me, Seriously! 10. Go at It with Me, Seriously! 11. Sortie with Me, Seriously! 12. Love Me, Seriously!)

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