Campione!

Kusanagi Godo is in Sardinia on a mission for his ethnographer grandfather to return a mysterious ancient stone tablet. He finds himself involved in an ages-old battle between gods and men when he meets the blonde and feisty knight of the Copper Black Cross, Erica Blandelli (these European girls are so forward). His grandfather’s stone tablet turns out to be a grimoire and before you can say ‘God Slayer,’ high schooler Godo finds himself fighting the ancient Persian god Verethragna – and winning. Now he is a Campione, a ‘king of kings’, a God Slayer, a demon with tremendous supernatural powers – and some powerful supernatural enemies. He also has Erica who has initiated him into his powers by kissing him (a Campione can only receive magical powers, knowledge, healing etc. by bodily contact). But having established this bond between them, Erica declares herself his Number One/first mistress and takes over his life and his bed, even following him back to Japan and joining his high school. (Of course, in spite of her sleeping shamelessly in the nude, he remains the complete gentleman and, apparently, doesn’t touch her, nobly averting his gaze as she cavorts around his bedroom.) But the goddess Athena (in the form of a young girl) has followed them and has her own obscure agenda that involves Godo.

Now that he is a Campione, Godo attracts the attentions of other magically gifted girls, most notably his shy classmate and shrine maiden Yuri Mariya, who becomes his Number Two. Others follow with bewildering rapidity. (Oh, of course, this is a harem anime – and there I was, thinking it was just a fighting fantasy adventure!) New godlike enemies (mostly but not exclusively from the world of classical mythology) appear, leading to more battles and a big supernatural climax in which the fate of the world yada yada yada…

After thirteen episodes, the (episodic) story feels unsatisfyingly unresolved in spite of this final confrontation – but then, it’s based on an ongoing light novel series by Jō Takezuki. And there lies the root of its problems for those – like this reviewer – who have not read the (untranslated) novels. Characters appear with little or no introduction (rival God Slayer Salvadore Doni, for example) and much of the information about Godo’s powers is conveyed (to him and us) by heavy snogging sessions, first with Erica, then (natch) the other cute young ladies lining up to get a piece of our confused hero. Info dumps about the mythological characters such as Athena, Prometheus and Perseus are perfunctorily done – and, biggest crime of all, vitally important plot points are not foreshadowed but just plonked into the action as Godo suddenly and helpfully recalls a vital conversation that the audience was not party to from earlier on. Alongside lazy story-telling, the equally lazy importing of random mythological characters (seemingly picked at random from Larousse’s Encyclopedia of Mythology or Wikipedia) quickly grows tiresome if the reason for them being in the narrative is not properly established or explained.

Then there’s the fan service. Fan service is all very well if it accompanies a sensationally good piece of story-telling. But here the story seems more like an excuse on which to hang the fan service, rather than the other way around. Godo’s little harem include shameless European Erica; meek and mild shrine maiden Yuri; would-be romantic novelist (and knight of a rival organization) Liliana, not to mention a couple of maids and other sundry females, all ready to throw themselves at Godo. And of course, there’s the obligatory hot springs/beach session (rather neatly combined into a single episode for once). But the balance is all wrong; we never get much chance to care about Godo and his relationship with the girls – neither do the antagonists who challenge him get enough screen time to pose a real threat (and with the excellent Chris Patton voicing Perseus in the US dub, that’s a shame). Every time Godo is in mortal peril, Erica or one of the other girls kisses him and he’s all better again. So here we have a series that’s not really sure what it should concentrate on to succeed (fan service? mythological battles? humour? moe girls?) that ends up just being rather uninvolving.

Character designs are pretty but rather standard and even though the fights are well animated, the rest of the show is no more than average on the animation front. (Blu-ray version not seen.) 

Both Japanese and US dub casts do their best with the material. Youko Hikasa and Monica Rial are suitably feisty in the role of Erica – and Yoshitsugu Matsuoka and the ever-reliable Blake Shepherd make the confused Godo more likable than he deserves to be, given the lack of character development.

Music-wise, Tatsuya Katou (Horizon on the Middle of Nowhere) delivers a stirring fighting fantasy-style orchestral score. The energetic Opening “BRAVE BLADE!” by Megu Sakuragawa is more suitable to the opening titles than the (ever-so-slightly irritating) Ending Theme (which isn’t always used at the conclusion of each episode) “Raise” by Yui Ogura.

Extras are clean Opening and Closing animations.

Viewers looking for a fantasy series based on mythological heroes will probably do far better with the excellent Fate/Zero – or for those in search of a genuinely entertaining fan service-based harem series, Is This a Zombie? is far more enjoyable than Campione! (Both series also from MVM).

In Summary

This god-slaying fantasy harem romp could have been much more fun if the production team had decided what aspects of the story they were going to concentrate on – and hadn’t tried to cram too much in. Less is more, people, less is more.