Battle Girl High School is a twelve-episode anime adaptation of the Japanese social network game released by COLOPL.
The anime was originally green-lit to celebrate the one year anniversary of the game. Directing the show was Noriaki Akitaya, whilst it was written by Yosuke Kuroda. The studio that produced the anime was Silver Link.
Battle Girl High School aired during the summer 2017 season of anime, and can be watched on the HIDIVE streaming service – for UK residents, at least.Battle Girl High School is yet another anime adaptation of a game, which seems to be very commonplace these days.
The plot isn’t very original: school girls who attend the ‘Hoshimori Class’ fight monsters known as Irous to protect their world. As far as anime plots go, it’s pretty standard stuff.
A problem that seems inherent in game adaptations such as Battle Girl High School is the need to include as many characters from the game as possible. This makes it somewhat difficult to keep track of who everyone is.
This is a problem that Battle Girl High School seems to acknowledge a bit, considering that almost every episode has subtitles coming up to tell you who each character is when they first appear.
The characters’ personalities are varied, though some will have more impact than others. The anime does take time to dedicate episodes to certain characters, or groups of characters, so its not like watching a bunch of blank slates.
Good luck putting names to faces, though…
Miki and Misaki effectively serve as the main characters
If you were to identify main characters, that honour would probably go to Miki Hoshitsuki and Misaki as seen above. Even then, there are episodes where they have very little to do.
Misaki is particularly notable. She’s the type of character who would rather work alone at first, but learns the value of friendship over the course of the series. Out of all the character, she is arguably the one who gets most focus.
Miki ready for battle
The battles against the Irous in Battle Girl High School tend to be perfectly serviceable. The girls get transformation sequences, and there’s a decent enough variety of weaponry to be seen.
The Irous designs are good, and Battle Girl High School shows quite a decent variety of them. They do use CG for them, though, so that might not appeal to everyone.
It’s not all about fighting the Irous though, and that’s where Battle Girl High School pretty much becomes a Girls’ Club anime. Whilst the typical Girls’ Club antics are present, they tend to take a back seat whenever the Irous show up.
Battle Girl High School doesn’t really set out to do anything new, and a certain twist regarding Misaki has almost certainly be done before. It doesn’t break any new ground in the anime world.
Score: 6/10
Battle Girl High School treads on very familiar territory. Whilst it’s not exactly spectacular and keeping track of the cast is a little tough, it does do a serviceable job in showing the Hoshimori girls’ fight against the Irous.
Rory Muses 