Oft times the release of a new anime series can be a major gamble not just for the original rights holders but also for the anime studio creating it, and more so if that series is based on a toy or game line and is intended as a display for said line.
Case In point Busou Shinki armoured war goddess.
This 2012, 12 episode series from studio 8-Bit [of Infinite stratos and recently Rewrite fame] is based around the aforementioned Busou Shinki line – a series of poseable figures produced by Konami that had a media tie in line-up from comics to statues to even its own online combat game series Called Battle rondo [imagine Angelic Layer but on the PSP and you get the idea].
The series itself is set in the year 2036 where Rihito, a young high school boy who lives alone in his own apartment – alone apart from his three Shinkis – happy go lucky Ann, tusndere Ines, the ever calm and homely Lene and the newest arrival grim and determined Hina.
The animation itself is more than serviceable, with clear backgrounds and attention to detail both to the character themselves but also to their interactions with said backgrounds – no clippings or badly done work here. However, while the series hints at a more expansive and in some cases darker world [in one episode the subject of Shinki’s being used as terrorists, whilst another touches on the subject of the fate of Shinkis who are either abandoned or lose their owners] that’s all we get – just hints – with each episode effectively acting as a stand alone with little connection to each other [with the exception however of the last 2 episodes].
Also we get to the fly in the ointment – namely Konami, the rights holder for Busou Shinki. While no-one can be certain of the official chain of events one thread that some accept is that, after a tweet from someone working on the anime stating that Konami had difficulty with the production of the figures, the line had been rapidly pulled so that, by the time the series had originally aired in Japan, the Shinki toyline had been cancelled completely!
So where does this leave this series? Well, while it achieves its intended goal of introducing the Shinki toy line and acting as an advertisement for the toy line [and giving a tip to the hat to the ardent Shinki toy collectors] on its own however it comes across as a less than stellar entry in the “cute robot girls doing cute things” that other series have done before and in some cases [such as the recently aired Frame arms girls anime, itself a tie in to a model line by figure company Kotobukya] have done much better.
Busou Shinki armoured war goddess was released on DVD, Blu ray and streaming via the HIDIVE service from Sentai filmworks for the US, on DVD and bluray in the UKvia
MVM – and via my own amazon affiliate page below:
Busou Shinki: Armored War Goddess Collection [DVD] [2017]
Chuo - Dori 