Genre: Adventure / Action / Fantasy / Comedy
Anime Type: TV Series
Director: Koichi Mashimo
Original Creators: Miku Yuki, Rei Omishi, Satoru Akahori
Character Design: Hisashi Abe, Keiji Gotoh
Distributor: A.D. Vision
ANN Link: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=85
Availability: Common
Package: Complete Collection, 4 DVD's, 26 Episodes.
Price Paid: ~$40 
Retailer: Best Buy (Retail Storefront)

In my quest for quality fantasy anime, I am often times taken in by nice box art and intriguing synopses on the back cover of the box, especially on value priced complete DVD collections. As was the case when I noticed the "Sorcerer Hunters" complete collection at my local Best Buy. The price was right, I forget the exact amount but it was about $40 retail.

First what I got was my first taste of the fantasy comedy genre of anime.  I also got straight up "fantasy" but definately not what I expected, sure it was part traditional "fantasy" but it was also part something else, sexual fantasy. It taught me an interesting lesson in what Anime can be, based on the culture divide between the US and Japan. 

Let me elaborate; there was an overt level of sexual fan-service in this anime. Our main cast of characters consists of "Carrot Glasse" a girl-crazed fighter-type who's libido is in 5th gear all the time and becomes a raging beast when hit with magical spells, "Tira and Chocolat Misu" two sister femme fatales who transform into dominatrix-type S&M characters to fight the bad guy or whip Carrot-turned-beast into submission, "Gateau Mocha" a body-building brawler type who's shirt keeps coming off to reveal his musculature, and Carrot's brother "Marron Glasse" an aloof bishounen mage. Now Tira and Chocolat are very definately male fan-service, especially in dominatrix form. Both Marron and Gateu are female fan-service. However, that's not all though. The series hints very heavily that Gateu may be bisexual and has a thing for Marron, and that Marron is gay though he looks it (because "bishounen" characters are generally "pretty") he never really acts it...in fact of all the characters Marron seems to have the best clue of what's really going on with the world. Now don't ask me why the characters have food names but that seems to be some kind of oddity that the Japanese creators thought would be terribly funny in Japanese, but is just rather stupid in English. Get used to it as throughout the adventure you'll meet other characters with names like "Butter", "Sandwich", etc...

Now essentially Carrot, Marron, Tira, Chocolat, and Gateau are "Sorcerer Hunters", a group of adventurers who hunt down Sorcerers who use forbidden magics to oppress the people of the world, namely the Spooner contienent upon which most of the adventures take place. These hunters are employed by the head priestess of the world's holy shrine, who's just called "Big Momma". Big Momma has a group of protectors called "Haze Knights" and a helper, a winged, half-elf half-angel looking female character named "Dotta" (which is pronounced like a mafioso saying "Daughter"). Dotta "poofs" (this is what they call it, essentially she magically appears in a poof of smoke) to the hunters to give them their assignments. However when we see Big Momma at her "Church" with the Haze Knights there are sometimes flashbacks that give hint that there is a larger more serious story arc in play besides the single-episode arcs we are treated to.

This fairly odd band of characters with heavy fan-service doses of sexual inuendo makes for an instantly interesting adventure. However it's very tounge-in-cheek (or perhaps other places!). Carrot is constantly chasing women in each town they visit, and Tira and Chocolat always attempt to constrain his leacherous ways. Mostly because Tira and especially Chocolat are always throwing themselves at Carrot, but he always acts disinterested. Marron is always very serious and on task. Gateau is either serious or showing off his muscles. Alot of it is adult humor, somewhat sophomoric, and somewhat risque, but always fun.

Most episodes have their own arc, making most of the series easy to watch in single doses without having to see all of them. Usually they have a serious side, a kind of moralistic commentary that shines through the immoralistic comedy. This redeems the series in my opinion. However there is a much larger arc over all 26 episodes, as I implied before, that revolves around Big Momma and her antithesis, a former Haze Knight called Zoha Torte. As expected the culmination of the series is that our valiant troupe of Sorcerer Hunters faces off with Zoha Torte in the final episodes.

Overall the series doesn't take itself that seriously, so you shouldn't either. The full Zoha Torte story arc is rather serious fantasy RPG fare, but it's never that overriding of the light-heartedness of the series. However I would recommend that mature audiences (at least 14 or 15 and older) view this series because of rather overt (and hard to explain to young children) sexual allusion.

Visually I really enjoy an anime of this vintage. It has that wonderful heavy shaded, sharp lined, super detailed animation that I love. It's at the same time bright and colorful, and dark and moody, depending on the situation being portrayed. The animation is detailed in costumes, especially that old-school anime-style fantasy armor that is generally oversized with long wrap-around cloaks and gold trimmings. It is also detailed in many of the backgrounds, some are quite beautiful. This anime predates CGI so it's all cell animation, much of it really well done. I didn't notice any major flaws or poorly produced episodes. The whole series was rather consistent in quality.

Aurally it wasn't anything outstanding, fairly standard and generally appropriate to the scene. The opening and closing themes were appropriate to the content. The opener being a rockish number and the ending being something of a club-mixed pop tune, both of which I did enjoy listening to.

On the whole this series is rather well done for a TV series. I find it appropriate in single servings over a month or so as something to watch regularly or when "nothing else is on". It's light and action packed, and the humor is rather appropriate for more mature audiences. I'd say it scores a solid 3 out of 5 stars in my anime collection.