There are two official titles to this action-packed pistol anime, just like how Madoka has the prefix of Puella Magi Madoka or Mahou Shoujo Madoka.

For now I would pick Hidan no Aria over Aria the Scarlet Ammo, since the former is easier to type with less characters.



Plot Summary: The story takes place in Tokyo Butei High School, a special school where armed detectives — "Butei" — are trained to use weapons. Kinji Tooyama (voiced by Junji Majima ; he also voiced Ayumu Aikawa in Kore wa Zombie desu ka and Ryūji Takasu in Toradora) is a second-year-student who has a special ability, but he keeps it a secret to maintain an ordinary, peaceful life. However, when he gets caught in a bombing on the way to school, he encounters Kanzaki H. Aria (voiced by a certain tsundere loli seiyuu Rie Kugimiya who also voiced Aisaka Taiga in Toradora and Shana), the most powerful S-Rank Butei student in Assault Studies.

Alright I shall try to explain the last sentence, since I have only watched the first episode (when there's already 4 episodes out for now)... I will rant / form a rough judgement on what is to be expected of Hidan no Aria.

Storyboard opens with main guy Tooyama encountering some killing machine-gun bot that follows him at probably over 70km/h while cycling to school, and his belief that girls don't fall from skies. Unfortunately, Aria did fall from the rooftop and her chests right smack into his face, while gunning down the killer machine bot. So he got saved.

OP sequence starts around here. So I will just shift the OP here too.

OP: [Scarlet Ballet] by May'n



Then he recalls how he enrolled in the Butei High School, and a series of events mentioning a Butei-killer, whose job is to assassinate people in that high school as the Butei people are said to be able to maintain peace and order by any necessary means (in other words, a totalitarian method / governance). Why would anyone hate a bunch of Butei peacekeepers, I have no idea, it's probably some drug ring leader or yakuza group trying out the assassination, it seems.

After the recollection, main guy ends up in a crate with Aria's body over him, her shirt half taken off by the impact, and um, he sees that she has this 36A -> B bra. Fanservice time!

Something shakes within him, and then he suddenly treats Aria like princess and reversely protects her from the attacks of other machine-gun bots. He later explains that it was from a gene trait that drives him to protect girls or something.



Generally the first episode felt like there was a distinctly similar atmosphere to Shakugan no Shana. The plot devices are nothing too new in the action / comedy genre, so it might get boring. Nevertheless, Type B otaku who go for the fanservice and moe characters would not get bored easily from this.

I'm guessing (based on episode 1 alone) this would turn out to be the average action / comedy blend of anime that has a decent chance to get forgotten after about 5 years later if it doesn't renew itself with more fresh media. Currently there are 9 light novel volumes of Hidan no Aria and 2 manga volumes. A total of 13 anime episodes have been planned by JC Staff. It's hard to say where this would head to, since even something as controversial as Shakugan no Shana already has such a huge fanbase. I think Shana fans may have something to like now, though.

I will stick around to see what the next few episodes have in store. But the decision whether I would recommend it to friends later on, is also under consideration.

ED: [Camellia no Hitomi (カメリアの瞳)] by Aiko Nakano (中野 愛子)