3 Star

Honour with Duck and Cover.

AllTheAnime bring us Hideaki Nakano‘s (My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU, Golden Time, Devils Line) Aoharu x Machinegun, a tale of guns, girls, loyalty and justice. As team Toy Gun Gun go up against the best of “Air Soft”.

Hotaru Tachibana (Monica Rial, RWBY, Fairy Tail: The Movie – Dragon Cry, Assassination Classroom) is a high-school student who heads up the student council and she hates bullies, as her sense of justice runs right through her like a stick of rock. She has speed and strength on her side, despite her small stature. In fact most people think she is a he due to the way she dresses and acts with her short fuse for injustice.

Her best friend Kanae Yajima (Shanae’a Moore, Cross Ange: Rondo of Angel and Dragon) is always trying to get her to girly up and put dresses on, but Hotaru won’t have any of it. She is more looking forward to becoming independent and having her own apartment.

It is this branching out that totally changes her life, because when she gets to the building she finds a big blonde good looking guy leaning on her front door talking on the mobile phone (it’s the filth he is talking that annoys Hotaru). It turns out he is Hotaru’s neighbour Masamune Matsuoka (Corey Hartzog, High School of the Dead, Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma) who works as a Host at a club. Masamune likes this feisty young lad and is friendly to him.

It’s the next day and she is with Kanae and she finds out that Kanae has been conned out of her monthly allowance by a host at a local club, which incense’s Hotaru and she vows to sort it out.

When she bursts in and demands to see the host who conned her friend, guess who was the host. Non other than Masamune.

What ensues is a challenge from Masamune, a duel with “Air Soft” guns. He gives Hotaru a fully loaded gun while he just has one pellet. If Hotaru can hit him with just one pellet he will allow him to join his Air Soft team. Thinking with her speed and strength she should easily land a shot on this cocky neighbour of hers, she goes in full tilt jumping from table to table causing carnage as she goes, as Masamune dodges each pellet with ease.

Hotaru fails, but Masamune says he wants him on his “Toy Gun Gun Team” and he can pay off the damage he caused by playing in the tournament coming up. He will be the third member of the team along with Masamune’s childhood friend Toru Yukimura (Chris Patton, Dragon Ball Kai, Baccano!, Fullmetal Alchemist).

All very well but it turns out that Toy Gun Gun Team doesn’t allow girls into the team due to past events and this is going to cause Hotaru a lot of grief, with her sense of justice and her lack of natural talent with a firearm.

Watch as Toy Gun Gun Team battles the honourable Air Soft combatants and those less scrupulous Zombie players (cheats). 

Aoharu x Machinegun is a well drawn and animated series that should appeal to both young girls and boys for this world wide combat sport. (Safety First)

“Bruising! A girls life depends on her face. This is unacceptable. I won’t stand for it!

Hotaru shouldn’t be playing this. I have to make her quit!”

Aoharu x Machinegun is available on Blu-ray and DVD.