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Short Synopsis: Ryoko Mitsurugi is the K-Fight champ! What's a K-Fight, you ask? It's a fight sponsered
by Daimon High to decide which combatant is right. Everything is going perfect for Ryoko until she picks up a mysterious,
jeweled necklace. After that, Ryoko is tranported to a mysterious world to fight monsters. Now Ryoko has to deal with crazed
fans, rivals, monsters from another world, and a crush to boot!
Story: Don't look for anything groundbreaking here. In fact, this is the weakest element of the anime.
It starts out fine enough with the K-fights, but then the creators had a 'great' idea! "Hey, let's make this into a fantasy
anime! Yeah, the kids will love that." Wrong. They try to pull an Inuyasha: a girl is transported to another world to fight
monsters and demons. It doesn't work here. If you can get over this "little" problem, then Real Bout Highschool: Samurai Girl
is an entertaining way to spend a rainy afternoon.
Characters: Once again, nothing special here.
Ryoko is a spunky fighter that is interesting enough, but she won't be making anyone's "favorite character list" anytime soon.
The guy that uses fire was pretty entertaining, too (but I guess he wasn't interesting enough for me to bother remembering
his name). There are a slew of other half-baked characters here. Once more, not great.
Animation:
For once in this review, I actually get to say something good about this anime. The art here is bold, clean, clear, and beautiful!
You can thank Studio GONZO for that. Although this anime is three or so years old, its animation is on par with current releases.
The only problem I had here was with Ryoko's character design. She's supposed to be a tall fighter, but she appears to be
more stubby and stout than anything else. Also, the faces are round and somewhat ridiculous. Other than that, beautiful art!
Music: Mediocrity. That sums the music up in one word. Nothing special here (that seems to be a reoccuring
theme in this anime). The opening theme is the standard bubblegum JPOP. It gets the job done but is barely memorable. The
ending theme is an even more forgetable experience. The BGM is even less memorable! I can't recall a single BGM tune. Don't
buy the soundtrack to this one. You can if you want to, but why would you?
Dub: Now this isn't too
bad. The dub here is very watchable. It has voices from Wendee Lee (Kiva from Megas XLR) and Joshua Seth (Tai from Digimon
and a slew of other voices). Both voice actors always provide an enjoyable experience, and Samurai Girl is no exception. Check
it out!
Overall: This is a classic example of a rental anime. Download it, rent it, or just borrow
it from a friend. It will entertain you for 4 hours and then you'll be done with it. Great animation and a good dub save this
one from being completely sucky.
Seth's Ratings:
Story/Plot: 6.5/10
Characters: 7/10
Animation:
8/10
Music: 7/10
Dub: 8.5/10
Overall: 7/10
Final Verdict:
Don't buy this; just download, rent, or borrow
this.
The Good:
+ For the most part, the animation is great.
+ The dub is very enjoyable.
The
Bad:
- While the coloring, etc. is good, the character designs are lacking.
- It's just not particularly
great in any area.
The Ugly:
* This will probably keep you entertained for one afternoon.
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