Saishuu Heiki Kanojo

Chise is an ordinary schoolgirl: small, frail, and not particularly intelligent. Her greatest joy is her budding romance with her classmate and childhood friend, Shuuji. They both live in a small military town in Hokkaido, where high schoolers have few concerns other than who is dating whom and complaining about the steep climb up "Hell Hill" every day before school.

One day, Shuuji and his friends make a trip to Sapporo to buy gifts for their girlfriends. A massive air raid on Sapporo that day kills thousands, including one of Shuuji's friends, and signals the beginning of a war. Fleeing from the carnage, Shuuji spots Chise, though now she has steel wings and a massive gun where her right arm should be. Against her will, she has been transformed into the ultimate cyborg weapon, capable of leveling entire cities.

As the war rages closer and closer to their hometown, Chise and Shuuji's relationship is strained by her transformation, and they are left to wonder whether she is even still human.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Chise Main

Orikasa, Fumiko Japanese

Shuuji Main

Ishimoda, Shirou Japanese

Akemi Main

Sugimoto, Yuu Japanese

Atsushi Supporting

Shiratori, Tetsu Japanese

Tetsu Supporting

Miki, Shinichiro Japanese

Fuyumi Supporting

Itou, Miki Japanese

Shuji's Father Supporting

Inoue, Kazuhiko Japanese

Nori Supporting

Shimowada, Hiroki Japanese

Take Supporting

Taniyama, Kishou Japanese

Yukari Supporting

Kojima, Sachiko Japanese

Tsuruzaki, Rika Producer

Takahashi, Naoko Producer

Tsukino, Masashi Producer, Storyboard

Wakamatsu, Tsuyoshi Assistant Producer

Reviews

Dec 16, 2024

Teramol

Recommended

Saishuu Heiki Kanojo, abbreviated to SaiKano is a tragic tale of love in a world on the brink of collapse. An innocent and full of life young girl named Chise just wants to live a normal life and experience true love with her boyfriend Shuuji but unfortunately for them, happiness was never on the menu in this universe. Shuuji finds out the truth about the body of his beloved and the story begins.

So if it wasn't obvious already, SaiKano is a sad and dark series that barely shows any glimpses of happiness, far from your typical romance anime. The show begins with a fantastic opener ... episode that immediately sets the tone and lets the viewer know what they signed up for.

However, I found the series to not always hold the quality parts of the tragic plotline, especially around the middle. Some episodes are just fully focused on trashy behavior and dialogue from characters, both main and support cast. Another issue I had is that the series has a lot of tragic events throughout but for most them I didn't really couldn't feel for because most of the side cast didn't receive enough screen time and or development.

And by far my biggest gripe with the series is the horniness. My god, the amount of lewd scenes and dialogue made it feel like the thing was written by a boy in puberty just discovering intercourse for the first time. And to wrap up my grievances, Shuuji's voice actor is a seemingly random dude with no other credited roles and it shows. His performance for the most part was just bad.

The best parts about the series to me was the emotional struggle of the characters wanting to continue living their normal lives and hoping for the best in a very obviously horrible situation. Chise in particular goes through so much turmoil you can't help but get your emotions all riled up.

The storytelling makes decent use of the show, don't tell style too. We don't get to see a lot of the conflict parts but everything is still somehow presented in a way that at least personally I wasn't bothered by the lack of information but rather, found myself actually more interested in everything specifically because we were lacking the information. Although worth mentioning the 2 episode OVA series is a fantastic supplementary work to the series which opens your eyes even more after the series. I highly recommend those after you are finished with the show.

And finally I have point out the OST. It can be a hit or miss depending on the person but I personally loved all the pieces using electric guitars. They significantly boosted the emotions going on in many scenes to a new level.

SaiKano overall worked for me. As I mentioned I definitely had some issues with it but found myself invested regardless. It's like one of those horrible accidents you just can't look away from.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Mar 15, 2026

Noy_Neim

Mixed Feelings

So, what can you expect to have while watching?
Shuuji starts dating Chise and... read anime name and think.

pretty dark love-drama story with harsh military moments (way too realistic).
Main heroes look a little bit retarded and unreasonable; Shuuji - new and only bf of Chise is an asshole. All heroes in this show aren`t deep-written, as well as world-wide plot. You mainly follow certain story about two people.
This anime doesnt give you traditional "love" and as follows - traidional love story. You cannot expect love-birds to be ideal people.

Pros:
kinda interesting plot
some pretty good depictions of war, including some soldiers side-heroes
you can follow everyone ends (I ... mean endings, but some death too). everyone will face reality change and make some choices. different one.
echi moments - if you like it


Cons
animation and graph overall mid or low-level at some points
as manga adaptation - anime made Shuuji look more like retard to who you could find no sympathy
mid music
anime missed some cool moments and side-stories from manga (which made this story more meal, more fun etc)
echi moments - if you dont like it

Don`t watch it if you want default drama-love-story; don`t watch it if you cannot stand violent depictions too. Otherwise - you can try.
Also - when and if you watched full, watch OVA too. Its good and adds to story some parts.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Apr 25, 2019

Grumar

Not Recommended

This is by far the worst anime I've ever seen. I don't usually write reviews but I'm making a special exception for this dreadful show. absolutely nothing is explained, nothing is resolved, stuff just kind of happens for no reason, they want you to just eat up all this garbage and I'd be willing to if there were characters or something to cling onto and enjoy through this mad libed story. moments seem to only exist to try to make you feel sad when they don't make you feel the least bit sad because everyone in the show is also a terrible human being who ... spend the entire run of the show self hating and the other half of the show having revenge sex. For some reason everyone is drawn with blush lines ALL THE TIME and they're drawn so badly they're actually sticking off their faces in side shots like they're facial hair. the music is some weird electric guitar 90% of the time no matter what the tone of the scene is, sex, death, eating lunch it doesn't matter. seriously just avoid this show at all costs

Reviewer’s Rating: 1

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