Upotte!!

Although guns might not be the most modern invention, they have been the most crucial to modern warfare. They can take down armies with out them, and even armies that have guns, the ones with the more powerful guns win. Now, imagine of the most used guns of a country were made into girls. You have to wonder how would they act, if they would all be aggressive since the nature of using a gun usually is, or how relaxed would they be. Upotte answers that question, and even provides some insight on the specs of the gun.

The story for Upotte!! is almost slice of life, except the girls are going to a school for assault riffles, and the after school activities revolving around target practice and the such. There is the arc of the tag team battles, which revolves around teams of two going out and trying to win the competition and the arc with the school trip. Both arcs were surperb, but I wish they went a bit further with the anime story wise, so we could meet more of the guns of the world.

The characters were the highlight of this anime, due to the fact they were all assault riffles, such as the M16A1 from America, whom they called Ichiroku (Lit. one, six) and F.N.C or Funko, from Belgium. Also in the main cast was SIG550, or Shigu, from Switzerland, and L85A1, or Eru, from England. True, there are other guns in the cast, such as the M14 and the AK47, but these guns don't play as big of a role in the anime as the four main guns. These girls have distinct personalities based on not only how the gun works, but also where they come from as well. For example, the M16 tires out quickly on cleaning duty due to the fact she has a three round burst, and she has to keep her self in order due to the fact that if the M16 has the slightest little problem, it will jam, but also she is loud mouthed like the stereo types for America. The L85 gets sick a lot due to the fact it is not a sturdy gun and the magazine will fall out sometimes.

The art for this anime was actually pretty good. It had some elements of the moe-blobstyle, but also the girls had well defined features. The guns that the girls were able to with draw looked very similar to the real life guns to even the point they were identifiable. The girls them selfs were drawn a bit rounded and shapely but for this anime it worked.

Overall, I liked this anime due the Hetalia like nature of it, although it was bishounsn but rather girls. Although it was aimed at military otaku as well those fans of moe. I recomend this to everyone and I will be the first to admit thatI learned a bit about guns from this anime, such as the M16 has a three round burst and the SIG550 was a long distance assault riffle. It's a good, comedical way to learn about guns and how they work.

Also would like to thank my gun fanatic friend for watching this with me :D