Mai Otome Zwei Review – 63/100

Mai Otome Zwei, to come with a Blackadder-quote, is like a broken pencil: utterly pointless. Basically, in an attempt to milk out the Mai Hime-franchise even more, the creators ran an on-line poll, where visitors were allowed to vote for their favourite characters. These characters would then be featured in a four-episode long OVA. It baffles me to think that out of all possible characters, the three main ones ended up winning this poll, because yes, Arika, Nina and Mashiro somehow got most of the airtime and glory in this series, yet again, despite being the most annoying and aggravating characters in the original series already. Still, Mai Otome Zwei has one major advantage above the original series: it’s fun to watch. Most of the airtime is filled with pure and useless fluff, focusing on these three characters and a number of lucky others who managed to score high in the poll, but at least it’s fun fluff. It’s quite refreshing, compared to the original series, which portrayed predictable and dull struggles between angsty teenagers. I actually laughed more in the four episodes of this OVA, than the entire 26 episodes of the series. Still, the fact does remain that Mai Otome Zwei is full of weaknesses, especially when it starts getting serious and focuses on its storyline, which seemed to have surpassed the original series in terms of dullness; and let’s not forget the obligatory and suggestive bath-scene. A story as cheesy as Mai Otome just mustn’t take itself seriously. It’ll only end up falling flat on its face, and the best way is just to include lots of comedy. The final episode of the series made a good start and Mai Otome Zwei continues this trend decently, but the fact remains that Mai Otome is, was and will always be a trainwreck. And then to think that Sunrise is planning to milk out this concept even more with yet another fully fledged continuation. Will the pain ever stop?]]>