Samurai Bride
It’s been many months since Muneakira Yagyu and his Master Samurai girls defeated the great evil Gisen; now he’s back from his journey of training and longs to see how his dojo is doing. But in his absence the dojo has faced its deadliest opponent yet – a financial crisis! To cover the costs of running the dojo, the girls have been forced to open a maid café, much to Muneakira’s utter shock. However just as the café opens, four Dark Samurai arrive with full-size busts, weapons and powers, ready to take on the dojo and especially wish to challenge Jubei Yagyu. But Jubei seems to have lost her ability to become a Master Samurai, and the other girls seem to be no match for the new opposing force.
Samurai Bride is a direct sequel to the 2012 release Samurai Girls; in normal circumstances it would be advised to watch the prequel first to fully understand the sequel, and in this case it would be easy enough, since both parts are readily available on DVD. But as Samurai Girls and Samurai Bride are primarily fan service shows there’s little reason to backtrack if you’re just here for the visuals. Oh sure, there’s a big plot with resurrecting samurais, a dark evil wishing to destroy the world and the long standing fear of Muneakira losing his powers to a curse. But despite the show going full throttle with the plot in the second half (to the point that they ditch the Maid Café scheme entirely by Episode 7) it all just adds up to noise; exposition speeches, grand master plans and who wants what are lost in the winds of ‘kei’ powers and bouncing boobs. So if you’re here just for the money spots, you can easily pick this up and enjoy the ride for what it has to offer.
If you’re invested in what’s actually going on outside the thin underwear straps, the build-up of the ‘big bad’ is handled a lot more gracefully than in the previous season in that we actually have the villain built up over time rather than just plonked onto the series towards the end. The problems however mostly come from the characters themselves on either side of good and evil in that none of them stand out or have a proper arc of sorts to really give the big final battle any weight, despite being well animated. The eight girls who live in the dojo had slightly more personality in the first season as they were all out for Muneakira’s affection and had their own ways of winning his attention. However that doesn’t seem to be the main focus in Samurai Bride; now all the girls are working side by side, in skimpy outfits, yelling where appropriate to the point that they start to blur into one another. The only females that seem to have any character to define them are the side characters that have yet to become Master Samurai, which they all get a turn at doing this season, but once that ‘arc’ is complete, they’re pushed into the fog of characterless characters once more. The same is even more apparent in the Dark Samurai; they’re introduced as counterparts to the mains but with even less to define them. It doesn’t really help that Musashi Miyamoto and Matemon Aki are interchangeable due to similar voices, personality and facial models to the point that it’s easy to forget which one was in which scene; the other two Dark Samurai barely make a dent in the story, apart from when they’re stripping.
Before the series attempts to dive into its plot, it almost convinces us that it’s entirely devoted to the maid café idea, and it’s silly, but it allows the fan service to be what it is and get to the point for its intended audience, rather than trying to sell itself as something more substantial. However it suddenly backtracks halfway through and completely reverts back to its dojo roots, which makes the whole detour seem rather pointless overall. However even when the maid outfits are put away, the fan service is still a ‘tour de force’ across the whole series. No lengthy speech goes without a camera shot up a girls skirt, and there’s always an excuse for the girls to strip off entirely to take a bath, so full-frontal nudity is a given at least once per episode. The series seems to have taken a new obsession with nipples as well, to the point of having them show through a thick robes. Since the series is still animated in the glorious manner of the previous season, taking the majority of its influences from ancient Japanese artwork, ink blots and all, the fan service is in good hands (or ARMS if you want to get technical).
Due to the gorgeous artwork it’s advised to invest in the Blu-ray edition, especially if you’re here for the fan service. Extras include Japanese preview and Blu-ray trailers, plus clean opening and ending. Then there’s the Samurai Bride shorts which (if you can believe it) are even HEAVIER on the fan service. There are five episodes, all 2-3 mins long where the girls are either in the bath, or trying on swimsuits or any other situation without a male in sight, with lots of zooming in into breasts for the audience’s pleasure. Despite the way they’re numbered on the disc, they don’t make any references to the show so can be watched without fear of plot spoilers.
If you enjoyed Samurai Girls then you’ll be glad to know that Samurai Bride is more of the same, complete with gorgeous animation and bouncing boobs to boot. If you didn’t find much in the former, than you’ll certainly have no need to check out the latter.
