If there's one thing promised by anything with the title Akiballion: Battlemaids of Akihabara it's the best thing ever. I mean, seriously. not just Battlemaids, but BATTLEMAIDS OF AKIHABARA. This is a series that has no business sucking.
So, I guess the question you're asking is, simply, does it?
The answer is, sadly, not exactly. But nor is it the masterpiece of fetishistic fanboy pleasing one might hope for. What we have is a low to no budget production, as evidenced by the (apparently) single camera setup and noticebly lacking in overdub sound. Not that this is a bad thing in any way. Indeed, I personally prefer something with a low budget, as it's only really then that you see genuine effort and creativity. But it's worth noting that this is not exactly an A list production. Really I think the major problem here is simply in the pacing and editing. Frankly each episode could probably lose 5 to 10 minutes and would benifit from tightening up a little. There is a tendenacy to hold shots just a little longer than really necessary. Also the monster torturing the heroine scenes could REALLY stand to be cut down some. Seriously, they do go beyond the fetishistic and into just plain wierd and creepy territory. Not that we're talking graphic here or anything, but 10 minutes of the monster treading on one of the girls whilst they pretend to writhe in agony to varying degrees of believability does tend to stretch things a little to far.
Performance wise it's not terrible, but nor is it necessarily anything special. Kudos does have to go out for the fight scene choreography though. In that there actually is some. I've seen some stuff where the heroines have been hired more for their looks than their fighting ability, and it does show. Here the girls manage to not look entirely uncomfortable in action, and it's also worth noting that although masked when they transform it's always the actress doing the action. When you take into account just how short the uniforms skirts are this is probably for the best, as a stuntman would be the stuff of nightmares.
This leads us fairly naturally onto the visual production, so let's talk about that. The Akiballion uniforms look good. The skirts are of course basically only there to allow for upskirt shots when the heroines move about, and they achieve this effect quite wonderfully. If you weren't expecting something of this nature then what the hell were you doing watching Battlemaids of Akihabara? I mean, what did you think was going to happen? Fanservicey, but ridiculously or excessively. Well, not too much anyway.
The monsters are not bad, but again the budget does kick in a little. Perhaps they're just not outlandish enough for my own personal tastes, though the third one is pretty original now that I think of it.
Plot wise, well... Yes there is one, no it's not quite enough to fill out the running time. There are as previously mentioned areas that needed trimming down, but also there are areas that could have been more fully explored. Thematically it's quite interesting, and I love the way all the monsters seem to start out as creepy otaku before recieving thier power up courtesy of some Akihabara themed goods. Laptop, camera, microscope? I suppose we should be grateful they stopped before getting to the Doujins, or we'd have a very different style of production on our hands. we do also get a treated to a lot of shots of in and around Aki itself (notably during the overlong front titles) which is nice, though it does mean that the first episode takes quite a while to get going. It is kind of worth it for the Moe singing maid, who bizarrely is then never featured again. This is, I have to say, quite dissapointing. Especially when you consider that 2 of 3 members of Akiballion aren't even maids themselves. One maid, one nurse and one idol. So going for a broad a range of fetishes as possible really.
All in all I'd have to say that the idea's are sound, the concept is interesting and there's obviously some hard work gone in, but the production does seem to have come against the dreaded time and budget constraints. A good try, but quite 100% successful. I'd certainly be intrigued to see what they could do with a decent amount of money and time, along with a good editor.
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