Himawari!

[Munsu]

Episode 1 by Mendoi:

http://bt.nanashi-fansubs.com:2710/t...4d540f.torrent

"Kasumi Kogen, the so called Village of Mist, is a town located somewhere in a tasteful and rural place in Japan. In this town, there is a training school. Surprisingly, it is the Sinobi Gakuen, a training school of kunoichi, or the female ninja. It gathers competent students from all over Japan to train them to become kunoichi. Needless to say, the villagers are alumni of the school, and they run and jump, appear and disappear, as if the whole town were a big ninja house.

To this strange town, there came a girl and a man. The girl is Himawari who wants to be a ninja and respect “Ichikawa Raiso” as her master, and she came here to enter Shinobi Gakuen. The man is a new assigned teacher Marikoji Hayato. He was deceived into paying money and came here to repay his debts.

They encounter in this Village of Myst. Whether their encounter is by chance or inevitable? A teacher and his student. Forbidden Love? Other students like Azami, Skimi, Himeji, Yusu wait and see their situation secretly.

Whether can Himawari become a full-fledged Kunoichi?
Whether can she protect her master?"

http://www.starchild.co.jp/special/himawari/
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/ency...me.php?id=6160
http://anidb.info/perl-bin/animedb.p...anime&aid=4176
http://www.animenfo.com/animetitle,3...himawari_.html

[Munsu]

Watched the first episode, I think many of you will like it, especially if you like a fun series about a ninja academy and such. The animation is pretty good in my opinion, and the characters seem interesting.

[Gnompf]

i have watched first episode it looking good going to se the rest of it

[Mog]

After the start of the episode I got the impression that the main character was overly important, with special abilities like a lot of other anime. But when the Ninjas referred to themselves all as test tube babies (I don't really know if they were including the main character knowing she was one too or not) I was thinking maybe she's just the same as them. Either way it's interesting seeing as how she seems so out of place in the group being that she's not really good at all.
Something that I find with this anime is that the voices seem very different, or unique in a way. No idea why, maybe they just used new voice actors, but I like how they sounded.
I also liked how they made the ninja movies to be like normal non-fantasy movies, and something you can learn from, kinda made it more realistic.

[Ryllharu]

Himawari herself is a new seiyuu, but I've heard most of the others elsewhere.

I enjoyed the first eps. It has a lot of potential. It might not be the funniest series this season, but I've been missing a good ninja series since I stopped watching Naruto.

[IFHTT]

First ep wasn't too bad. I can only imagine what the poor teacher is going to have to put up with throughout the series though... I'll probably keep watching this one as well.

[Kraco]

It was quite interesting. Certainly good enough to keep watching. The very beginning (intro) almost looked like it was from another series altogether, but I guess it fits well enough together with the test tube babies stuff. The intro wasn't comedic, but since the show is classified as comedy, I suppose the actual episode was a better indication. But still it suits me as it's not comedy with other story elements but a story with comedic elements. I'll keep watching this series for sure. Finding out the meaning of the birthmark alone is a reason big enough...

[Ryllharu]

Though it's pretty obvious that Himawari has misidentified the teacher as the person who saved her. The rescuer's was a curved shuriken, and the teachers is straight.

[Munsu]

I don't think Himawari misidentified him, I think she knows he is a different person. Though she thinks he is someone related to the person who saved her.

[Kraco]

Yeah, that's what I thought as well. There's practically no way it could be the same person after what happened in this episode (unless it's some lousy amnesia plot or double personality). Of course Himawari's memories could be a bit foggy, but I think Bud is right: It's reasonable to think there could be some connection between those two (and I'm not talking about the plot mechanically).

[Ryllharu]

I think Himawari is really that stupid to make a mistake of that magnitude. Several of her actions made her look completely incompetent. The other test-tube girls give off that attitude too. Himawari is just not that bright.

'You saved me, now I'm obligated to be your servant.' She explicitly said he saved her. By that time in the series, she had seen the birthmark and made a connection. I think she's refering to the first incident with the plane, not the kite incident slightly later in the eps. I can see how it would be interpreted either way, but the fall from the temple gate would not have been lethal, so I figured she was referring to the other one.

I definitely got the impression she thought the teacher directly was the one who saved her, not some relation.

[Munsu]

Well he responded by saying "I wasn't the one that saved you" and she responded that he risked his life, put his life at stake. This is clearly speaking about the kite situation. If she was talking about the first scene, then she would have said "No, you did rescue me..." etc..

[Ryllharu]

Even though she wasn't conscious, she also could have been referring to the fire and exploding plane, which was clearly putting his life at stake. This is why I said that line could be interpreted either way.

She flushes when she sees the mark, what I viewed as clearly showing her remembering the previous incident, to which she now believes he was involved.

For now, I'm sticking with my interpretation, because it allows for the better flow of her mistaking him for the original rescuer, which is apparently a large portion of the series, since that inspired her to become a ninja in the first place.

[Munsu]

Well interpret it any way you want, it's still wrong. There's no doubt that she think he might be the same person, but that doesn't mean that she is undeniably thinking he is just because he has the birth mark. She is interested in him because he has it, and in her mind there's still the possibility that they might be the same person, but she's not mistakenly believing that there is no doubt that he is the one.

You have to watch that dialogue about risking his life, there's "But" when she says it, she wouldn't use a "but" if he really would've saved her life, plus at the end of the dialogue she says "And he has the same birthmark as that person" so that means that she wasn't reffering to that incident in the first place, but she is seeing some kind of relation between the two.

Plus, whe she is tied up at the end she starts to make the story of how some other person had saved her life in an airplane accident, and in no moment was she reffering to the teacher as the ninja who saved her at that time.

Again, my main point is that she at this moment thinks there might be a possiblity they might be the same person, but she is not mistakenly believing it as a truth, she simply sees some connections that are worth investigating.

[Munsu]

Episode 2:

http://bt.nanashi-fansubs.com:2710/t...5ae5c7.torrent

[Kraco]

A rather interesting episode. Very character and character interaction oriented. Nothing much about the academy itself is learned. Or about the actual job of the teacher Hayato. Maybe this was an episode to give some depth to a few characters so that the audience would later better remember them.

The next episode preview showed some intriguing things... I always have hard time remembering this show is scifi as well, not just ninja fantasy.

Partly in accordance with Mog's comment I have to say the voice actress of Himawari does sound quite interesting and quite unlike most of the voice actresses I have before heard. There is something unique about her voice and performance. I'm not saying it would be exceptionally good or anything like that. It just feels different.

[Munsu]

I could've sworn I had heard her before, but as said earlier, she seems to be new. I like her too.

[Ryllharu]

Most of the cast are either new or have had limited roles. The girl with the fox tail, Yusura, has had only one role before, Azami's (blue costume) seiyuu really only has had roles in Tenjou Tenge (Chiaki) and Mahoraba (Shiratori) other than bit parts. The pigtailed blonde one I only recognize as the racoon in Pani Poni Dash, and other minor shows that did poorly.

Shikimi's is perhaps one of the most notable of the bunch, being Aya Hirano. However, between Kiddy Grade as Lumiere, she hasn't done anything until recently, with two other series this season and one last season.

[Munsu]

Episode 3:

http://bt.nanashi-fansubs.com:2710/t...54851e.torrent

[Kraco]

Well, it can't really be said anything remarkable would have happened in this episode. It still felt like a character parade with an arbitrary plot. Man, I wanna already something related to the birthmark and what happened in the intro of the first episode... Even something dim, shady and small, if they can't yet launch the full thing.

However, the peculiar voices of many of the girls are growing on me. Not only Himawari, which I mentioned earlier, but also the blonde one that Ryllharu mentioned. She also has a different voice. Distinguishing characteristics are delightful, even if they don't actually advance the story or other strictly practical aspects.