The year 2013 was top heavy for the ecchi genre, with a few great offerings that will be remembered for years to come compared to relatively few low budget throwaway ecchi series.
This reflects the fact that over the past few years “average” nude ecchi series tend to do poorly in sales, with only the best of the best making bank.
That probably also explains why we saw a higher than usual number of sequels and spinoffs to established ecchi franchises this year.
Before I get to the “awards” section, here’s a recap of every 2013 anime to show frontal nudity, to the best of my knowledge.
Winter season
Vividred Operation
Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai NEXT (eroge game screen)
Spring season
Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Bride
Queen’s Blade – Vanquished Queens
Dansai Bunri no Crime Edge
Kakumeiki Valvrave (sort of, barely)
Summer season
High School DXD New
Rescue Me! OVA
Kimi no Iru Machi
Fall season
FREEZING Vibration
Yuushibu
Sekai de Ichiban Tsuyoku Naritai!
Walkure Romanze
Unbreakable Machine-doll
Strike The Blood
Infinite Stratos 2
Noucome
Magi: Kingdom of Magic
Notable non-nude ecchi series
Senran Kagura
Date A Live
Namiuchigiwa no Muromi-san
Most pleasant surprise
Sekai de Ichiban Tsuyoku Naritai!
Runner ups: Vividred Operation, Yuushibu
Yuushibu deserves mention for giving us nipples despite being adapted from a non-nude source. I’d nominate Vividred as well simply because of the company that made it. A-1 deserves credit for being willing to stoop to nude service levels despite being one of the most successful studios of the 2010s.
I originally leaned towards Vividred Operation, because A-1 Pictures animating nipples is a pretty big fucking deal, not just for them but for the other high and mighty studios that have turned their noses to the current ecchi boom. I doubt we’ll see Gainax, Shaft, or JC Staff return to their once great ecchi form any time soon, but moves like this in the industry could be a sign of things to come.
The reason I picked Sekatsuyo is because I didn’t know what to expect from it. Despite the kinky premise, the manga actually focuses on story more than you might expect and keeps things 100% non-nude, with a huge emphasis on soft service. Had this anime been done by pretty much anyone other than ARMS, I don’t think it would have had nipples.
Thanks to some filtering work we’ve known for a while that those shower scenes weren’t just for show. But fanservice specials were hardly a given considering the series low budget. And even if ARMS did include them, nudity volume was a legitimate question. Not only did they give us specials, but that first special from earlier this month was among the most satisfying fanservice specials I’ve seen in a long time.
A mud wrestling ecchi anime has been near the top of my wish list since forever, and Sekatsuyo gave me faint hope of obtaining it. Then, the first BD special realized that dream.
To 90% of anime fans, Sekatsuyo is the worst kind of trash. But to the handful of contented pervs like me, stuff like this is golden. I’m glad that ARMS didn’t half ass it here. If you are going to make a classless anime, you might as well go all out.
Biggest disappointment
Date A Live
Runner Ups: Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai NEXT, Senran Kagura
I know for most this distinction would go to Haganai Next. After all, Haganai’s first season had multiple instances of brief nudity and series producer AIC has one of the best track records for nudity in the business. And while it certainly sucks that it was so stingy with nudity this go around, I am 100% not surprised by it. I was also unsurprised by Senran Kugara’s chastity, though it still sucked seeing such a wasted opportunity.
After all, mainstream anime fans, by and large, are uncomfortable with nudity, especially if it is used in ways that are clearly not tasteful. Haganai’s first season had enormous success (deservingly) and other than a “WTF” final episode, the second season was terrific as well. You can’t really expect nudity out of very good anime series, at least not these days.
AIC has been “selling out” to woo the mainstream fanbase lately too. Given that they struck out with quite a few nude ecchi series in 2011, I don’t blame them for turning gun shy, especially since their non-nude tilt in recent times is making them money.
Speaking of which, the success of Date A Live (another AIC hit show) worries me. It worries me that AIC’s days as a bastion of nude service anime may be coming to an end. Date A Live had ample opportunity for nudity and even teased us with unnecessary and deceiving false positive censorship.
And it’s just my opinion, but I think Date A Live would have actually been a better show with nudity in it. It just had that same familiar “feel” that every nude ecchi series has. Except, it forgot to deliver the goods. And yet, it was massively popular, which I think speaks to just how polarizing nudity can be among anime fans. A lot of the fans you win with great animation can be lost quickly the moment you show a boob which, in their minds, debases the anime.
Most overlooked
Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Bride
Runner up: Queen’s Blade – Vanquished Queens, Rescue Me!
A month has gone by and we still don’t have a full BD release for this show, despite it being arguably the 2nd best ecchi series of the entire year. That’s not a dig on raw providers on fansubbers, it’s more an observation about the growing lack of urgency to release blu-ray rips immediately, particularly in the case of ecchi.
Samurai Bride does it by the book but it does it right. Overall it’s (so far) a solid improvement on a very good first season. It’s one of the better efforts put forth by ARMS in the last few years.
Most innovative
Infinite Stratos 2
Runners up: Sekatsuyo, Walkure Romanze, Yuushibu, High School DXD New
This is, by far, the most innovative year ever for the ecchi genre, with all of it occurring in the two most recent seasons.
Sekatsuyo deserves mention for being the first nude ecchi series to take the female wrestling angle. Walkure Romanze gets a mention for going the BD re-draw for nudity route as opposed to obvious censorship, and then leaking it to the public so they’d know about it. Yuushibu gets a nod for partial, tactical ATX uncensorship as a brilliant sales tactic.
High School DXD New wins this award any other year for it’s revolutionary “director’s cut” style of added scenes to each and every episode. Ages ago ecchi series used this tactic frequently (Kakyuusei 2, Ultimate Girls, Koi Koi Seven), but those old-timey DVD revisions pale in comparison to the drawn out fanservice eruptions that DXD New has randomly inserted into their blu-ray episodes.
That said, I give the nod to Infinite Stratos 2 here. Releasing a series the first episode all by itself on blu-ray for $70 (with 15 minutes of extra footage) is pretty damn ballsy, though they are only expected to do this once. I would love to see this idea ripped off in the future by a different anime that is far more inclined to use that time for creative nude scenes.
Best ecchi anime series 2013
High School DXD New
DXD New’s blu-ray added scenes strategy was a stroke of genius. No pun intended.
I also really liked how they “saved” nude scenes for certain bit characters (namely Souna and Tsubaki) during the first season only to splurge on them here… that was good thinking on TNK’s part.
Akeno and Koneko had some desperately needed service boosts as well. The first series weighed it’s fanservice very heavily towards the nude side, and the second season has even more nudity than the first.
High School DXD is easily one of the very best nude service harem series ever made. To Love-Ru is the only nude service harem franchise that rivals it.
