Vitaly and her Hunters are making speedy progress through the innards of Little Garden. They are of course heading for where LiZA is being contained in her coccoon, in Sector 11. En route one of the Hunters is fried by an electrical trap, but Vitaly shows no mercy. Mei-Mai shows up while Vitaly’s torturing them with her sound device and starts shooting at her, so Vitaly runs off alone while Mei-Mai stays behind with the Hunter trio.
Vitaly reaches LiZA at last, and Judar is waiting for her. Vitaly’s master plan is finally revealed: she wants revenge on Judar for abandoning her after they were intimate. Killing LiZA will hurt Judar and all of Little Garden. But first she wants to torture the Slayers a little.
Up on deck, the Replicants start to emit very high-pitched soundwave attacks. Anyone with the Slayer virus in their body is affected, rendering them all but
unable to move, leaving them as easy prey for the Replicants. With Vitaly on the inside and the Slayers helpless on the outside, Vitaly is confident that Little Garden will soon fall.
Judar, however, is not swayed in the slightest. He smoothly offers Vitaly an out, saying that he wants to be with her again, but Vitaly does not fall for his ploy. She shoots madly at Judar, but none of her bullets hit him. And now LiZA is awake! Judar in turn reveals his plans to her: he wanted LiZA awake (presumably to protect Little Garden from Vitaly), and has been making calculations since the beginning of the series, putting everyone and even Little Garden itself at risk in order to see it happen. Vitaly shoots at Judar again, but his bullets are blocked by LiZA’s spirit. Judar fires one bullet at Vitaly and hits her. Judar holds Vitaly as she dies in his arms, and ironically it’s the only time during the series where he doesn’t look like a cold, calculating jackass. After Vitaly dies, Judar tells LiZA she can rest again, but she defies him saying she has something she must do.
Hayato and Emilia are still struggling with the Slayers, and in the stadium, Sakura and Karen are still affected by the sound attack too. Then LiZA appears to them, and tells the two singers that their song will nullify the Replicants’ attack. Before LiZA leaves she kisses Karen on her forehead, eradicating her illness and giving her back the ability to stand and walk again. The concert is back on! All Slayers are back in action!
Hayato decides to go all out, pushing his power to its limit in order to take out the biggest Replicant of all, the Trenta-class. He smashes it through the barrier, but now he’s done for the rest of the battle. Furthermore his plan backfires when the massive Replicant begins to move and attack again from inside Little Garden.
The Hunters suddenly appear, fighting the Trenta-class Replicant in order to protect Little Garden from Vitaly. Nakri is quickly knocked out, so Krovanh starts going berserk on the Replicant. Claire leaves the command office, prepared to kill the Trenta-class if she has to. But before she arrives, Nesat activates her Trace On ability, merging with the Replicant to become a human-Savage hybrid. She kills the original Replicant easily, but now she’s in danger of exploding from her overwhelming power like LiZA was. Char comes over the com system to tell Claire that Nesat must be stopped, or else she’ll destroy Little Garden and everyone on it.
In his subconscious, LiZA comes to Hayato and tells him that he must save Nesat, Little Garden, and Claire. She gives him a gentle kiss before fading away. Hayato awakens and asks Claire to wait until he’s had a chance to try to save Nesat. Claire reluctantly obeys, but tells him she will step in if the situation looks like it will get out of control.
Hayato tries to persuade Nesat to calm down, to let go of her pain and believe in him and the others. He tells her that she’s free and that Vitaly won’t control her anymore. He tells her that she can believe if anyone she wants, and that no one on Little Garden will betray her. But as Nesat starts to lose control, Hayato launches one final attack at her and enters her mind. He repeats that she needs to believe in him, and reaffirms that she can trust him. They’re friends after all, right? Nesat takes his hand, and her self-destruction is halted.
After the battle, LiZA’s spirit appears to Claire and thanks her for protecting Little Garden. Later that evening there is a celebration complete with fireworks. Emilia and Hayato are talking privately, and Emilia says that her wish is to be with Hayato. They kiss, and Hayato says that he wants to be with Emilia too. They kiss a second time, and that’s when the rest of the harem shows up, shocked because it appears to them that Hayato and Emilia are two guys kissing. (I have my own thoughts on homophobia in anime, but that’s a lengthy discussion for another time.) After Claudia’s outburst, Emilia is forced to confess that she is not a guy, but actually a female princess. Then Claire shows up with her massive Hundred gun, and aims a blast directly at Hayato and Emilia!
My thoughts: What a great final episode. I was a little surprised at Vitaly’s death so early in the episode; I had thought up until now that she would be the final villain. That Nesat ended up being the final enemy was a neat surprise twist.
I wish we had gotten to see more of LiZA, as I was really interested in her backstory and how her abilities power Little Garden. Also, did Judar really only want LiZA to awaken because he wanted to her use as a defense against Vitaly’s revenge? :/ What a jerkface.
Lastly, is this finale one of the few times the male lead in a harem actually makes a decision regarding his personal life?? *gives Hayato a trophy*
Final Impression: For an ecchi harem, I was really surprised at how much I enjoyed this show. It was evident early in the season that I was going to like Hundred more than Saijaku Muhai no Bahamut from last season, but I didn’t think the differences would be so striking.
Overall, I can think of no major complaint against Hundred. From start to finish I feel like this is a solid show, even after the ecchi and fanservice is removed.
Story: The main villain of this series is kept hidden until almost the halfway point. Instead, the Hunters are portrayed as the initial enemy, while Vitaly’s name is only casually mentioned throughout the first half, and it’s not until the Hunters are subdued that she emerges as the actual baddie.
Because this is a harem, each member of the harem came with their own subplot, and I felt like the show wove them all together pretty smoothly. For example Sakura’s was her singing, her Hundred, and her shared past with Karen and Hayato. Claire’s subplot came with LiZA, Little Garden, and Judar, the latter of which also linked him to Vitaly. And Emilia’s schtick was that her past was tied to Hayato’s, because the incident at Gudenburg was how they both became Slayers.
What I’m trying to put in a nutshell is that there was a lot of content, lots going on, and it never felt like the plot was just plodding onwards with one goal in mind. Everyone was always working towards their own goals, there was just some fanservice thrown in along the way. The pacing of this show was also pretty fantastic.
Characters: I think the characters are what make this series go the extra mile in my mind. While some were a little one-dimensional, virtually all of them experienced some kind of character growth or development. And the ones that didn’t at least had something going for them which made them tolerable. An example of the aforementioned would be Claudia – she’s always freaking out about Hayato’s relationship with Emilia, but her verbal sparring with him and extreme reactions at least make her funny to watch.
Something I also want to note: I know this is only the second ecchi harem I’ve watched, so I have little to compare it to, but unlike Saijaku Muhai no Bahamut the fanservice actually applied to both genders in Hundred. Yeah Claire got naked a lot, but we got to see Fritz in a Speedo. And breasts jiggled all over the place, but Hayato had a very nice, form-fitting variable suit. I think there could have been more fanservice aimed at people who are attracted to guys, but I’ll take what I can get.
Also unlike other series I’ve seen, there were no characters I wanted to flat out strangle (Lisha from Saijaku Muhai no Bahamut and Mari from Nijiiro Days come to mind), which is always a bonus. Everyone in Hundred was likeable to at least some degree. And yay for the Emilia x Hayato ship being canon!
Music & Animation: Pretty stellar. I wasn’t a huge fan of the opening theme, but I liked most of the ending themes. The animation was strong, no major derpy moments that I can think of at the moment. I don’t know the names of some of the songs that Sakura and/or Karen sang throughout the series, but those were very pleasing to my ears and I’m thinking of trying to track them down.
Overall Thoughts: Even without the fanservice, Hundred stands strong as a sci-fi show about monsters, technology, and dare I say it, love. If you don’t mind seeing lots of bare skin and bouncing breasts, I would recommend giving this show a watch.
Final Score: 10/10
Yes, a harem hero actually chooses and sticks with one girl throughout the show! That’s so rare, although there was another one recently (Rakudai). Otherwise, I wasn’t as impressed with Hundred as you were – I found it watchable, but it just didn’t have that extra “something” that would raise it above any of the other battle harem series we’ve been inundated with in recent years.
I’m new to battle harems, so I don’t have much to compare it to. To each their own though right? 🙂
Novel readers say the 1st 4 volumes were adapted for the anime. The 11th volume was just released.
There’ still plenty of new girls and harem antics in the next books, so monogamy for Hayato’s still a long way off. (I think I see why Rakudai Kishi was so popular, especially since it defied normal convention by cementing the Ikki x Stella relationship so early on without harem fillers.)
The origin of the Savages are an ongoing mystery, although the main focus has been on the various factions trying to use the Savage for their own ends, like Vitaly’s revenge scheme (I was right!)