Campione!

Genre: Action/Adventure
Age Appropriate: Teen+
Emotional Response: Excited followed by disappointed
Notable Features: gods, magic, fan service
Language: Japanese
Length: 11 episodes
Overall Recommendation: Disappointing

"I'm his wife!" - pretty much all of the girls

Godou is a young man who is sent on a delivery run by his grandfather. With nothing better to do, Godou goes out to return something to his grandfather's acquaintance and ends up falling into a bizarre world of girls, swords and gods. After running into a swordmaster girl, Erica Blandelli, and managing to defeat a strange god, he is now the Campione. His new job is to defeat evil gods as the show up in the world, attempting to take power for themselves. Through his defeat of Verethragna, a Persian diety, his new status of campione comes with special abilities to help his cause. Each of these abilities is gained through different means and they all are attributed to 10 different representations.

In this harem adventure, Godou collects young ladies interested in fighting the good fight. They all have different personalities and different motivations, but they have one thing in common. They all fall for Godou. This is completely despite his awkward fumbles of accidental impropriety. The series ends with a cliffhanger as to where the group will go next (but it appears the manga keeps going).

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There is a good reason that the series ends in a cliffhanger. It didn't get enough viewership to bother with a second season. I was really excited when I first started watching. If there was anything I was into when I was younger, that wasn't vampires!, it was mythology. You can blame TV for that one (yay Hercules!). I did jump into mythology quite quickly and it carried all the way through high school ancient history. So, when I found this anime, I was really curious about how it was going to work out.

I was sorely disappointed. I don't usually expect a lot out of a harem anime. I've seen a number of really engaging ones that simply use the awkward boy/pretty girl thing as a good comedic vehicle. This one had so much potential! For me, it fell short. Basically, I don't recommend it. I was sad when it was cancelled, but only because I hoped it would find a way to redeem itself. I may consider giving the manga a chance though. I suppose it's possible that it could be better in print.

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Kid fun!: Avatar: The Last Airbender