You know the service isn’t as good as hoped when the sexiest things in the series so far are Claire’s eyes. It’s looking like another long season.
Claire and Hayato have their duel, and it ends in a mildly surprising fashion. Later Hayato and Emil go out on a “date.” Somehow everyone seems to believe Emil is a man when she is the most girly female in the show. Not to mention her very obvious displays of female jealousy over Hayato. Whatever.
There’s also a battle for Emil at the end of the episode, and implications that many more battles are coming in episode three. But in terms of fanservice, all we get is Claire’s tight fitting battle suit during her duel with Hayato.
As you can see, the service is as tame as it is sparse. The lack of detail on the balloon boobs, the feeble attempts at ass shots, and the anime’s inability to take advantage of Claire’s garter leggings sends a clear signal that the makers of this anime don’t care as much about sexual stimulation as the original novels did.
That coupled with the total lack of censorship attempts is an ominous (though cynically predictable) outcome for ecchi fans.
In terms of the actual anime, well…
As before, Hundred does a commendable job of avoiding or minimizing the annoying and cliched elements that plague so much of anime these days. That’s not to say there aren’t cliches, there are a ton of them, but they are handled in a way that is less in your face and abrasive. So far there are no overly emotional screaming characters, the plot is only mildly contrived, and there are some minor surprises here and there. Both the writing and the directing have a touch of competency.
At least so far, Hundred has done less to push my eye-roll button than similar demographic shows such as Absolute Duo , Asterisk War , Rakudai Kishi no Cavalry , etc. Also on the positive side: there’s some decently attractive character designs, a competent story and a surprisingly good VA cast (Yui Horie brings a good deal of charm to her character, Charlotte Dimandius. Claire, Emile, and Hayato’s seiyuu all do a good job of hitting the right notes for their characters).
The problem with Hundred is that it has no ambition to be memorable. There’s nothing exciting or exhilarating about this show, and the service so far has been much tamer than the light novels suggested. Hundred seems destined to be the type of anime that is instantly forgotten (despite doing a lot of things right).
Many other shows at least try to be sexy to make a lasting impression, but so far Hundred hasn’t even done that.
Quite honestly, I’d probably drop the show right here for the purposes of chronicling fanservice in a typical ecchi anime season, but this is pretty much what we’ve got right now. Hopefully Big Order can step things up in a big way, 2016 needs it pretty badly right now.
