4 October 2004: My-HiME
The first episode of Mai HiME has been subbed. As near as I can determine, the official English title is My-HiME, which is a bit of a pun on the lead character's name. HiME apparently stands for Highly-advanced Materializing Equipment. Oh, those wacky Japanese-type folks.
The first episode is quite a blast. It has good-looking animation, excellent music, and high-energy fight scenes. It also introduces us to (presumably) the three primary leads in My-HiME's large cast. All three are a bit different than regular folks: They can see a bright red star that normal people can't see. And, oh yeah, they also have MAGIC POWERS.
Mai
First, there's Mai, a transfer student taking a boat to her new school. Mai spots an unconscious young girl in the water and helps resuscitate her. This girl, Mikoto, is later attacked by a mysterious gun-toting motorcycle-leather-clad blue-haired girl, Natsuki. Natsuki's motives are unclear at this point, but she does warn Mai not to attend her new school.
Mikoto
The first episode also introduced a few other characters, but none of them are as interesting as the above trio—mostly because they don't seem to have MAGIC POWERS and didn't spend half their time kicking the shit out of each other.
Natsuki
Mikoto's weapon of choice is a huge black magic sword. It's way too big for her, so she wields it with both hands and rapidly spins around in circles dragging the tip on the ground, creating huge showers of sparks, until she generates enough speed to swipe it at her target. (It really looks a lot cooler than it sounds.) Here's a 37-second clip from Natsuki and Mikoto's big fight scene. (6.4 MB, 640x480, XVID. No subtitles.) [Update: File removed to save bandwidth.]
Anyway, it's a good start for a high-profile show. Best information to date suggests it will have a 26-episode run. Hopefully the quality will remain high. For now, it's got me looking forward to the next episode, but in all honesty, they had me at "magikal girls kicking the shit out of each other."
One final note: Saeko Chiba is unrecognizable as Natsuki. Or at least she is to people like me who are only familiar with her Azmaria voice from Chrno Crusade. Her Natsuki voice has a pissed-off, direct quality that works well here.
