Hidan no Aria - Review

Art (8/10)
Just what you would expect from an anime in 2011. Nice detail and color used in virtually all scenes. With this being the first anime with guns that I have watched, I may have overrated the art a bit. Despite this, I truly do believe that the guns and bullets were animated quite well. The way they bounce off and hit objects looked real for the most part. Solid artwork overall.

Characters (8/10)
At first, I thought that the stars of the show were only going to be a loli tsundere female and a useless male protagonist. I'm glad that I was wrong. With the addition of a yandere (Shirayuki) and a kuudere (Reki), along with the seemingly bipolar Riko, I found the nice variety of personalities extremely interesting. For the most part, I found all the characters likable in one way or another. Yes, even a yandere like Shirayuki (whom I hate) had at least one good point in her character. With each of the aforementioned females having at least one episode that centered around them, the series became more interesting. Although they had limited screentime, I felt that the other side characters (Mutou and the rest of Assault) didn't get enough character development. However, I understand that since time restraints may have been the cause for this.

Sound (7/10)
This time, I'll focus on the voice acting first. With Kugimiya Rie and Majima Junji (Taiga and Ryuuji in Toradora!) pairing up once again, it felt a bit nostalgic when I heard Aria and Kinji speak. Aside from the excellent voice acting, the other sound aspects of this anime fell short. Although the OP and ED are not terrible, they are certainly not memorable. The BGM felt like it wasn't even present with the instrumental version of the OP being played at the most critical scenes. After accounting for all of this, the voice acting by itself wasn't able to impress me enough to increase my score for this category.

Story (9/10)
After reading the synopsis, I was given a brief idea of what this anime would be about. The idea of a loli twin-tailed tsundere wielding pistols and fighting against evil with the help of a "sometimes skilled" partner sounded generic but interesting. However, I was quite surprised at how the story developed. Yes, there were some really predictable and lame scenes but I was quite forgiving since this was my first time watching this type of anime. According to others, this adaption was done poorly but since I haven't read the LN yet, I'm basing my score on what I saw, regardless of what happens in the LN.

Overall (8/10)
A decent anime overall. Nothing too spectacular but it didn't bore me to death either. With a great variety of characters and a interesting story, I enjoyed watching Hidan no Aria. As for a second season, I don't really mind if there is going to be one or not. If there is, I will definitely watch it since this season met my expectations. The somewhat cliffhanger ending was a bit annoying though. If you got nothing better to do, just give Hidan no Aria a try. There's a chance that you may like it despite what many critics say about it.