Review: “Bikini Warriors” – You Get What You Pay For

I’m about to review Bikini Warriors, and I almost feel like saying, “What’s the point?” The “high concept” name tells you everything you need to know about it: scantily-clad girls battle supernatural monsters in fantasy landscapes. Really, why even review it? The name either excites you or nauseates you.

This will be a short review, and there’s a very simple reason: the “show” itself is incredibly brief. The entire set is only 48 minutes long. Each episode is only about 5 minutes, which includes the closing credits scroll. The show is nothing but a glorified series of omakes, those bonus shorts that are packaged with DVD/Blu-ray releases, and are often comedic in nature. Except in this case, those ARE the show. With so little time per outing, do you think there is much of a story, or that you will care about the characters? If you do, I’ve got a fabulous bridge for sale off the corner of 5th and Main. Bring cash.

What are some of the typical “plots” in Bikini Warriors? Well, in one, the four leading ladies take advantage of their hero status by raiding random citizens’ homes for money under the excuse of upgrading their armor, and instead selfishly spend it on lavish swimwear. The citizens wise up, stalk them down, and strip the ladies of their ill-gotten gains. End of episode. In another, the four are in an underground cavern and open a series of treasure chests, the majority of which lead to the girls in various stages of undress. In yet another, one of the characters must undergo a series of tests from the mayor to get a dungeon key, one of which involves a creature that invokes the obligatory tentacle rape scene. The final episode just drops all pretenses of a story and just smashes random scenes together in some sort of montage of fighting, yuri, and nudity.

The presentation is similarly lousy. While the leading ladies are attractively drawn, the animation is bare bones. Get ready to see lots of still shots and pans where only the mouth moves. Occasionally there are flashes of movement, usually of the jiggly mammary variety, but for the most part you’re watching a bunch of static drawings. Oddly, despite all the bare flesh on display, the show uses convenient censoring constantly. The characters’ hair or foreground objects ensure you never quite see the nipples. I may have gotten some readers to lose interest just for that sentence. If so, mission accomplished.

Special features? Ha! Two textless endings and a few trailers, THERE are your special features. Don’t whine; there are starving kids in China who would be happy to have those features! (Incidentally: a quick glance at the Wikipedia episode guide reveals three additional OVA episodes that this set lacks. So it’s not even a case that no extras exist for the series. FUNimation was unable, or didn’t care, to get them!)

I really can’t recommend Bikini Warriors to anybody. It’s too fanservice-y for those turned off by non-stop skin and bouncing breasts, and those who can’t get enough fanservice anime would be better off grabbing the stills and stitches from the series instead of wasting their money. It’s hard to even get angry about Bikini Warriors. It was mercifully short, so I don’t feel like I wasted a lot of my precious time watching it, as I have with so many other bad anime I’ve reviewed here. That said, I’d probably be singing a different tune had I actually paid money for it, which is why you should stay away.