I’ve had this show in my back pocket for a while now, but didn’t have time to talk about it with all the end of season stuff! This is an anime I’ve been dying to watch for awhile and for reasons you can probably guess. After the cut let’s take a dive into the ecchi series: Hybrid x Heart Magias Academy Ataraxia!
In the near three years I’ve been doing this blog, and in the five or since I returned full force to the anime fandom, I’ve dabbled in many ecchi series. I love them, I love the fanservice, I love the stupid plots, and most all I fucking love the anime tiddies. Yet during my time, I’ve come to notice a pattern in most ecchi series, in that they tend to fall into one of two different groups.
In one group, you have shows like High School DxD, Monster Musume, and Date A Live. These are shows that, while fanservice is present, it is not heavily sexualized, and feels quite tame. However they also have good stories, character development and actually keep viewers invested beyond the T and A. In the other group, you have shows like Shinmai Maou no Testament and Valkyrie Drive Mermaid . These are shows whose fanservice and ecchi goes right up to the line of, or beyond porn. There are sexual acts, far more tits and ass than usual, and perversion is cranked up to eleven. This however comes at the expensive of plot and characters, who often feel half-baked, or barely present.
HybridxHeart falls into the second category, oh my god does it ever. I was afraid that. coming into this series after the one-two punch of Interspecies Reviewers, and Redo of Healer, that the ecchi in display would feel quite tame. That after the Rubicon passing events of those two series, it would feel out of place, or not good enough. I am happy to say that I was wrong, because HybridxHeart remains top-tier in its display of ecchi. Its central premise of the male lead having to get the girls to orgasm to control their powers is taken seriously, and Hybrid clearly enjoys indulging viewers in some of the most perverse acts possible. While there is no full on sexual intercourse, there is almost everything put, with our lead Kizuna Hida doing everything he can to make sure the girls reach their heart hybrid.
There are just so many scenes. The love rooms with the masochistic Yurisha, the groping and fingering our the leading line Aine, the threesome massage fest with Scarlet, the tsundere antics of Hayuru, and the still jaw-dropping and hot-under the collar lesbian moments with Grabel and Aldea. Hybrid knows what the viewers wants, and the author and animators are dead-set on giving you that. There is little in the way of hesitation or attempts to skate around the fanservice, which makes it land so effectively. This is a show about doing perverted things to perverted girls so they can shoot laser beams at robots, and in that regard, Hybrid gets full marks. I would go far as to say that it has some of the best ecchi fanservice of its generation.
However, because it is part of that second group, Hybrid also suffers from a rather dull and boring cast when things are getting hot and heavy. While it is not truly offensive, there is very little meat on the bones of the characters, and the story itself feels rather ‘eh’. Kizuna Kida and the members of Ataraxia are tasked with reclaiming the conquered lands of Earth from the even Vatlantis Empire, and during the 12 episodes we seem them in one fight after another, as the girls slowly come around to having Kizuna do what he’s got to do to. There is some lip service paid to a greater evil, some foreshadowing with Aine’s backstory, and the presence of Kizuna’s mother, seemingly a puppet master behind the scenes is interesting, but there is little that really pulls you to the world. You just want to get to the next scene where our leading man is all up in those titties. If there is one thing that really works though, even if it is humorous, it is the way that Kizuna completely accepts his role. After the one or two episodes of expected embarrassment, he’s suddenly all okay with having to ravage these girls, even walking around the love room completely ass-naked with no problem. While a bit of whiplash in his character development, I couldn’t help but admire the show for just going. “Yeah, we’re not going to make this an thing.”
Hybrid x Heart Magias Academy Ataraxia, in terms of his ecchi and fanservice, still holds up in this post Interspecies/Redo world. I would go as far to say that among the PLOT heavy shows, it has set itself apart with just how far and lewd it takes itself. However it still falls into the same hole many of those ecchi do, with having barebones characters and a bare-boned plot. That won’t matter to many, it didn’t really for me, because what you are really there for is done so well. The Light Novels only take this further, and I would hope with the success of more sex-focused ecchi shows that Hybrid would get another bite at the apple, because I do think it would be really successful. Regardless, this is a great show for what it delivers, and doesn’t really drag itself down where it falls short. If you love ecchi and haven’t seen this show for some reasons, make some time for it. I trust that you’ll get exactly what your looking for, cause really. Who doesn’t love anime tiddies?
Also, Yurisha best girl. (at least until Kizuna’s sister starts getting in on the action!)
Shallow Dives in Anime 