If you've watched anime regularly for the past ten years or longer, you'll remember the sudden boom in trashy harem light novels that occurred in the early 2010's, as well as the rush of anime adaptations that accompanied them. The plot for every single one of them went pretty much the exact same way: a boy with a hidden ability, who appears inept and hapless at first glance, meets a powerful, usually red-headed girl who is at the top of her class in every aspect and has a personality as fiery as her hair color. Their first encounter involves a fortunate accident of some sort, following which the girl calls the boy a pervert / sexual harasser / other words to that effect, and swears to remove him from every plane of existence. Yet as the boy's hidden power is unearthed, and his unwaveringly honorable and occasionally kind personality comes to the fore, the girl's smoldering grudge slowly burns into a blazing romance. Throw in some gratuitous fanservice, enigmatic enemies and a generous smattering of jealous childhood friend, and you have Aria the Scarlet Ammo.
And Campione. And Chivalry of a Failed Knight. And Bladedance of Elementalers. And Sky Wizards Academy. And so on, and so forth.
In the end, what makes Aria the Scarlet Ammo stand out is that it doesn't really stand out at all. It doesn't try to over-complicate things, or be more than what it needs to be. You shut your brain down, laugh at the stupid things, cringe at the cliches, and smile at how cute the girls are. In that sense, this anime is the best of its kind, but also the worst of its kind.
Premise (2/5): The first paragraph of this review tells you everything that you need to know, though the minutiae of the premise are still somewhat interesting in their own right. Aria, an S-class "Butei" (the series' term for a teenager who somehow knows more martial arts and gun fu than most action movie stars), is trying to clear the name of her mother, who's been sentenced to jail for so many crimes that her total jail time is set to last just under a millennium. Which, in a world where criminals run so rampant that the police alone can't be trusted to bring all of them in - hence the need for Butei - doesn't seem all that crazy. The Japan that's depicted in Aria the Scarlet Ammo looks remarkably peaceful for a place that's supposedly plagued with wrongdoers, but not much of the setting itself is shown, so one can only speculate about what goes on beyond the characters' purview.
Aria's struggles to free her mother and find those who framed her eventually pit her against the mysterious criminal organization known only as "EU". I don't think Aria the Scarlet Ammo is Brexit propaganda, so I still have no idea what EU stands for - though I suspect that question would be answered if I read the light novels, which I don't plan to do. Along the way, it's also revealed that the characters are actually all descendants of famous fictional literary figures: Aria is Sherlock Holmes' great-granddaughter, and the descendant of Arsene Lupin, alongside the immortal Count Dracula himself, also make appearances. Which makes absolutely no sense, given that the characters' lineages have little to do with the actual substance of the story, but it is what it is.
Characters (1/5): Tsunderes are an acquired taste. Tsunderes who can actually kill you, probably even more so. If not for the guns strapped to her thighs and the swords on her back, Aria would give off the air of an angry kitten which you can't help but love even if it keeps trying to scratch your eyes out. I was more than fine with how she was, mainly because the other girls in the show were, to put it bluntly, mostly quite boring. Riko, a salacious anti-hero with a badly-explored traumatic past and the inconceivable ability to manipulate her hair without touching them, was perhaps the most interesting member of the rest of the cast, but the plain truth was that there simply was not enough time in the anime to elaborate on all the characters' backstories. Aria the Scarlet Ammo does its best with what it has, and I couldn't really ask for too much more.
The main male character, Kinji, has the ultimate harem protagonist power: his beleaguered mind houses a smart, savvy, slick operator of an alter ego who only comes out when he's aroused. Thus, a lot of the anime involves Kinji getting horny in his hour of need so he can actually be useful when the shite hits the fan. Most of the time, he's a wet-blanket failure of a Butei with nothing remarkable about him whatsoever. The main antagonist, who is apparently the manifestation of Count Dracula - although I don't remember Count Dracula being a werewolf - spawns out of the body of the students' hot homeroom teacher and takes little over half an episode to kill. Sounds stupid, but again he feels like a victim of the poor characterization caused by the short overall series length.
Horrible, I know. But what else did you expect?
Audiovisuals (3/5): For an anime that's clearly more about fanservice and eye-candy than the actual story, Aria the Scarlet Ammo pulls a lot of punches. That's not a bad thing, as I don't particularly like fanservice, and it means a lot of resources are devoted to other, more substantial things. For example, the action sequences are surprisingly decent, and the character designs are cute - though they may be off-putting if you're not used to seeing eyes that stretch halfway across a character's face, or absolutely humongous foreheads. (Just early 2010's anime things, I guess.)
The soundtrack was alright, though special mention has to be given to the OP and ED, which were great both audially and visually. Hearing the instrumental rendition of the OP playing during the climaxes gave me chills, and I appreciate the anime being tasteful about its use. All in all, the audiovisuals served their purpose, which is good enough for me.
Execution (2/5): Like a lot of light novel anime adaptations, Aria the Scarlet Ammo only gives viewers a taster of the whole series. Most of these adaptations are little more than glorified advertisements for the light novels - which is a shame, since I could see myself watching more seasons of this if it were animated, but I simply can't be bothered to chase the story via the light novels. The light novels are still running, which shows amazing longevity for a series like this, but I suppose it's not the most difficult thing in the world to make such a straightforward premise last as long as the author needs it to.
In any case, many of the aforementioned problems are purely down to the anime not being long enough. Nothing is really explained all that well, and so the story keeps tripping over its many deficiencies. Characters constantly shift in and out of focus, and a few of them end up serving little to no purpose. There probably is an elaborate and fascinating plot hidden in there somewhere, but nothing I've seen suggests that that might be the case. Aria the Scarlet Ammo is mindless fun, but its self-imposed limitations mean it can never be any more than that. Not that it really tries to be, anyway - I enjoyed the humor and the action wherever I found them, and the anime's linear and uncomplicated structure lent itself to that enjoyment.
Expect anything more than a cookie-cutter superhero harem story, and you'll inevitably drop the anime and watch something else. Expect nothing from Aria the Scarlet Ammo, and you'll never be disappointed.
