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Title:
  Master of Martial Hearts

UK Distributor:  Manga Entertainment

BBFC Certificate:  15

Suggested Retail Price (SRP):  £19.99

Episodes:  1-5 (of 5)

Audio Options:  English 5.1, Japanese 2.0

Subtitles:  English

Release Date:  4th April 2011

Reviewer:  Rich (Webmaster)
 

Manga have become so prolific with their releases of late that it's sometimes hard to keep up with them all.  New licenses are announced pretty much on a monthly basis and inevitably some slip under the radar, overshadowed by the likes of Black Butler and Casshern SinsMaster of Martial Hearts is one of these quiet releases.

The story focuses on schoolgirl Aya Iseshima who gets drawn into a clandestine world of street fighting after stumbling across a fight on the way home from school.  When one of the fighters, a timid shrine maiden called Miko, looks sure to be beaten by her air stewardess opponent Aya steps in and rescues her, but in doing so she becomes embroiled in a mysterious tournament.  The women are fighting for a mysterious artefact called the Platonic Heart and the chance to have any wish granted, and with Miko's wish of finding a friend fulfilled by Aya our heroine suddenly finds herself invited to the tournament!  Confused as she doesn't have a wish to fight for, Aya's world is turned upside down when Miko suddenly disappears, seemingly abducted by the mysterious tournament sponsors.  With finding Miko as a goal Aya takes part in the tournament with renewed vigour, spurred on by her friend Natsume and with her fighting prowess increasing with each bout.  However, the battle isn't as straightforward as it may seem.  Each person is fighting for their dream, and they're giving it everything they have.  Not only does winning mean crushing someone else's dream but the loser from every bout disappears shortly afterwards, leaving each fighter so desperate to win that they pretty much have to be beaten to a pulp before they'll lose.  With such high stakes and each fight taking its toll both mentally and physically, does Aya have a chance of finding Miko again?
 

 You may think that the story sounds like pretty standard anime fayre, and for the most part that's what it is.  Director Yoshitaka Fujimoto is best known for the fanservice-laden fighting series Ikki Tousen (Battle Vixens), and Master of Martial Hearts is largely cut from the same cloth.  All of the tournament protagonists are women, and each of them conforms to a specific job stereotype with Aya's schoolgirl facing down policewomen, nurses, cosplaying idol singers, fortune tellers and mechanics amongst others.  The fights are brutal in places

but high on completely unnecessary nudity - Aya alone most go through about twenty school uniforms over the course of the series - and pretty much every character ends up half naked due to that strange anime fighting technique which destroys clothes without bruising the wearer.  The storyline is pretty trite for most of the series, with a standard 'fight for a magical item' tournament storyline and some unconvincing soul searching about the dreams Aya has destroyed.  There's even a bog-standard romance subplot chucked in for good measure as Aya tries to get close to Natsume's dashing brother.

The art, animation and character design is pretty good, with the fighting game-style cast suitably distinct and wielding some bizarre but inventive weapons.  Like with Ikki Tousen loving care has been lavished on the fanservice, with the buxom female characters shown in all their bouncing glory, and the series is pretty good clichéd fun with plenty of action.  The central characters are decent enough, with Aya and Natsume's stock schoolgirls counterbalanced by their colourful opponents and in particular their teacher Miss Suma.  There's some really daft humour scattered liberally through some battles too, with Miss Suma's attacks based around the Periodic Table of the Elements and the air stewardess using a jet-powered flight bag to increase her speed good examples. There is some well delivered mystery about the tournament organisers and the disappearance of the losing fighters, and the fighting scenes are well executed and paced.  However, it's quite by-the-numbers and there is a darker heart to proceedings that isn't really explored.  Until the last episode, when it changes from some titillating fighting fluff to something Chan-wook Park would be proud of.
 

   The end of this series was one of the biggest WTF endings I have seen since Neon Genesis Evangelion.  Trying not to talk about the direction the story goes in is quite difficult, but suffice to say it's not exactly what you expect.  The plot takes a dramatic change of focus that turns everything that has happened up to that point on its head, and elevates the series above the quality of similar series like Ikki Tousen and Tenjho Tenge.  Considering the mildly entertaining action-packed perviness that goes before it is something of a shock, but

it still can't gloss over the fact that the vast majority of the series has little to set it apart from the crowd.  Still, I have to be honest and admit that the series is the first for a fair while to really surprise me, and when you first watch it the high note the series ends on is what sticks with you afterwards.

For the sheer audacity of its ending it's almost worth giving Master of Martial Hearts an extra star, but sadly it only papers over the fact that the majority of the series is pretty average.  The ending will lose its impact on repeated viewings and to be honest this will leave little more than the battles and boobs to keep you coming back.  In the end Masters of Martial Hearts is mostly merely distracting, entertaining enough to hold your interest but not really clever enough to really draw you in or get you hooked.  The ending does that very rare thing of making the rest of the series seem better in hindsight, making you realise there were clues to the eventual conclusion scattered around that were glossed over by the series sheer averageness .  Overall the series is worth a look, especially if you like things like Ikki Tousen or Battle Club, but despite its sucker punch of an ending the majority of the series is nothing special.

Extras

Better than I would expect from something like this, the usual trailers are joined by an in-vision commentary track for the first episode from the three primary Japanese voice actresses.  It's one of those bonuses we don't often get in the West and it's nice to see it here, although there's little else of note.

Ratings

Feature:   Extras:
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