Battle Girls: Time Paradox

Yoshino Hide, nicknamed Hideyoshi, would much rather be texting her friends than doing her history homework on the Warring States period. So as a big test looms, our young teenaged heroine calls in at a local shrine and – in a flash of blue light – finds herself transported through the space-time continuum back to feudal Japan. Except this must be a parallel world, as everyone, from the great warlord Oda Nobunaga to the lowliest peasant – is female. And well-endowed. (Hideyoshi still has her history text book with her, so she’s able to check out the names of all these historical personages). And so, our unlikely heroine becomes a retainer to Nobunaga and joins in her epic search to reunite the scattered pieces of the Crimson Armour (and subjugate all the other states along the way). The only male character is Shiro, a talking white dog with a pervy attitude. And…is that a familiar face from Hideyoshi’s everyday life back in 21st century Japan?

Certain aspects of Battle Girls: Time Paradox (2011) make it seem more like a LRPG weekend in cosplay than a timeslip into an alternate historical reality. Or an old-fashioned girls’ school story. Lord Nobunaga is the statuesque head girl and sports captain, strong-minded and formidable, who inspires starry-eyed crushes amongst her own prefects – and a grudging admiration from the other team captains from rival schools.. Nobody gets hurt – and even when Hideyoshi falls sick, she’s never really in any danger. Ghost stories are told, hot springs are soaked in, a play with strong yuri overtones is put on, all the usual… And does Hideyoshi eventually make it back to her own time? (Do you really care?)

Battle Girls: Time Paradox – an alternate view of the events and major players of the Warring States Era – with cute, colour-coded jiggly girls as the heroes and villains. Original, huh? Well, not so much. The Ambition of Oda Nobuna (2012) gave us ‘Ordinary high schooler Yoshiharu gets pulled into a time slip to the warring states period. There he meets Nobuna Oda – not Nobunaga, Nobuna. In this world, all the famous warlords of the era are female.’ (ANN encyclopedia). Ok, so this one was made a year later. But wait – here’s Sengoku Collection (also 2012) ‘many samurai…are accidentally removed from a parallel universe inhabited by well-known historic characters. Unlike the historical war period known to us, all inhabitants in this unique world look like high school girls.’ The variations on the Warring States theme seem to be endless and varied but this is not one of the strongest. Plot-wise, it brings new nothing to the table. The character designs and animation are pretty basic. And – get this! – it’s based on a pachinko game, the CR Sengoku Otome pachinko game series developed by Heiwa. Which may, or may not, explain why it is what it is.

A word of praise, therefore, to the US dub actors, especially Brittney Karbowski as young Hideyoshi and Shelley Calene-Black as Nobunaga for giving genuinely sympathetic performances.

The hyperactive Opening Theme “Kagerou” is sung by by Tenka Tori Tai (Satomi Akesaka, Mariya Ise, Sachi Kokuryu, and Rei Mochizuki) as is the ballad-like main Ending Theme, “Atsuki Ya no Gotoku” except for Episode 10, where it’s performed by Eri Kitamura. All five singers play leading Warring States generals. The final episode concludes with “Ashita e” by Rina Hidaka, the Japanese voice actor for heroine Hideyoshi.

Perhaps the vast number of Warring States TV series that come from Japan are because this time period is on the senior school curriculum and it’s one way to try to make the era palatable and understandable to present-day students? I advise the equally fantastical but amazingly watchable Sengoku Basara series as an antidote to this slight and frankly forgettable offering. Yes, there’s fan service there too, but there’s also a plot, stirringly crazy fights, and impossible (but heart-warming) heroic deeds.