Upotte!!: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		2.0

Upotte!!: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie Review

Ready, aim—you’re fired.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 13, 2014

Anthony Mann’s iconic 1950 western Winchester ‘73 “starred” its titular rifle, which passed from one owner to the next (including one played by James Stewart, the human star of the film). This odd focal approach gave the film an inherently unique take on an already well worn genre, positing an object rather than a character as the main through line, and in the process creating what almost seemed to be a living and breathing character itself out of the rifle. Take that basic concept—i.e., a living, breathing rifle—and expand it out rather generously (and curvaceously), and you might have at least some idea of the completely peculiar Upotte!! (evidently one exclamation point wasn’t enough—and frankly two might not be, either). Upotte!! is based on a manga by Kitsune Tennouji which ultimately morphed into a web based short form series (or ONA, in the ever expanding world of internet based acronyms) and then shortly thereafter to this full fledged anime. Upotte!! deals with a bunch of buxom (and scantily clad, of course) young girls who are actually anthropomorphized guns. Yes, you read that correctly. They all attend Seishou Academy where they’re in training to always find their target’s bullseye, with the ultimate goal of being paired with a human shooter. This is already a bizarrely ironic setup, in that we’re offered “girls” with innate power who nonetheless, like women of a previous generation, see their real prestige is in finding a life partner. Upotte!! just plops these girl-guns down and then indulges in fairly typical shōnen shenanigans, without much context or even adequate development of its weirdly unique premise. The really ironic thing about Upotte!!, however, is that if you jettison the very thing that sets the anime apart from various other similarly themed anime, there are actually several passably likable characters to enjoy, even if the overall ambience of the show is a bit on the smarmy side of things.

One of the very oddest things in this overall pretty odd enterprise is how it actually deals with its premise. The girls of the Seishou Academy don’t transform into guns—they are guns, though they don’t look like guns and in fact pick up actual guns to do their shooting. (Yes, that’s a perhaps unprecedented amount of italics, but it hopefully helps to indicate how weird this show is.) The show actually pauses at regular intervals to “label” the various characters with their “weapon” identities, but the show also indulges in some absolutely peculiar ways of dealing with these girls who are also guns. This includes them referring to their “hammers” at regular intervals, and the school nurse talking about their various private parts as elements in a gun. Is this supposed to be titillating?

The ostensible main storyline here deals with a new teacher (never really named, but identified as Genkoku on the insert) coming to Seishou Academy, who shows up with no idea that his new assignment includes dealing with some unusual students. Genkoku actually wanders into a street festival as the series gets underway, helping the main female character, FNC (who goes by the nickname Funko), win a shooting game that she has been attempting to help a young kid win. The nefarious carnival worker has disallowed Funko from helping the kid since she is, after all, a gun, but once Genkoku shows up, he handles things more than capably, eliciting more than a passing schoolgirl crush in Funko.

The bulk of Upotte!! tends to ping pong back and forth between various battles between various classes of guns and more typical slice of life “adventures” that involve Funko and several of the other girls. There’s an odd kind of similarity at times to Strike Witches, in that the nationalities of the various girl-guns are at least alluded to, and at times seem to be part and parcel of their personalities (without posting any spoilers, one particular nationality is made out to be the regular villain of the show). The series is also more than a bit indulgent in nonstop fan service, with everything from panty shots, skirts fluttering in the breeze and lots of communal baths featuring naked young girls.

Though some may roll their eyes and accuse me of over thinking what is obviously not an exceptionally deep anime, I can’t help but wonder about the wisdom of setting an anime in a school where the characters are gun, and to include rampant shooting at each other in virtually every episode. We live in a time when school shooting tragedies are all too common (just yesterday there was a police shooting—and killing—outside the high school my sons attend, sending shivers through every parent’s heart). Kids and, frankly, those who will be drawn to this kind of entertainment probably won’t give extracurricular concerns such as this a second thought, but for those a bit older and experienced, there’s an inescapably disturbing subtext to what is otherwise already a weird but ultimately forgettable series.

Upotte!!: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Upotte! is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Sentai Filmworks with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This is generally an okay if ultimately kind of uninspired looking anime that does admittedly boast some vivid and brightly saturated color and overall crisp line detail. Some of the recurring segments, like those in the communal baths, look a tad soft when compared to the rest of the show. Character designs are rather surprisingly generic, especially given the gun aspect of the series. There are a couple of interesting things about the design aesthetic, though. First, each episode actually starts with a live action shot of an ammo container (see screenshot 6, though I turned subtitles off so that the episode title is not translated). Also, as mentioned above in the main body of the review, various interstitial elements regularly crop up that identify the weapons ability of various characters. These brief moments look agreeably sharp and well defined.

Upotte!!: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Upotte!! features lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mixes in English and Japanese. Unlike some other recent anime, there really isn't a huge difference in the mixes here other than the voice work. Dialogue and effects are presented very cleanly and clearly, though some may be a bit surprised at how relatively anemic some of the gunfire sounds (a surround track with a dedicated LFE channel would have no doubt upped that particular ante). There are no issues or problems of any kind to mention here.

Upotte!!: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Clean Opening Animation (1080p; 1:32)


• Clean Closing Animation (1080p; 1:32)

Upotte!!: Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I'm obviously not in the preferred demographic for this type of show, but I frankly have to wonder who is. This would seem to be a rather peculiar fanbase, one that is interested both in ubiquitous fan service, shōnen hijinks, and an incipient gun culture. Some of the characters here are quite appealing, but the story is tired and rote, despite the odd elements of the premise. This is one anime that definitely misses the bullseye.