Full name of the Studio GONZO anime series more often referred to by its abbreviation Saikano.

Written in Japanese as 最終兵器彼女, the title translates as "She, The Ultimate Weapon". An alternative translation of the title as "Ultimate Weapon Girlfriend" is now known to be incorrect in relation to the intentions of the creators.

The series is notable mostly for being good and having a decent and fully developed plot, as GONZO are notorious for producing eye-candy anime series that start out promising but fail to deliver any real substance. Examples of such failures include Hellsing and Full Metal Panic.

The title of the series was designed to present an unusual word juxtaposition, as well as to be a vague genre-parody. The phrase "saishuu heiki" (ultimate weapon) is (or at least was) commonly used in mecha and sci-fi anime to refer to the most destructive weapon/device.

最終兵器彼女
The Last Love Song on this Little Planet


Pain in paperback

Saishuu Heiki Kanojo was printed in collected form from 2000 to early 2002 in Big Spirit Comics (Shogakukan), written and drawn by Takahashi Shin.

The story spans 7 volumes, and along the way it takes its jabs at the characters and through them, you.

Minor spoiler warning.

It begins innocently enough. It leads you down the line of a romantic shonen story, cute girl asks guy out (except the guy in this case, Shuuji, is a bit of an ass with a mouth), and they date.

Begins innocently enough. Then the next part of the story starts.

And Sapporo is getting the shit bombed out of it.


End Spoiler.

Chise is, as the title implies, the Ultimate Weapon. Her body acts independently of her will for the most part. If enemies are detected within range it will automatically attack, and if attacked will automatically counter. This power begins to drive Chise mad as the only thing she sees, day in and day out, is death.

Shuuji, her boyfriend for the majority of the series, is a bit of an ass at the beginning. He's got a mouth on him and doesn't hesitate to shout "baka" or "aho" at Chise whenever he feels it necessary. Yet despite this he does grow up a bit and faces all the pain caused Chise and others with amazing stoicism.

The characters throughout the story do their best to survive, yet it is a losing fight as attacks are almost always constant, and frequent earthquakes threaten to take care of everyone and everything not done in by weaponry.

Short synopsis of the background behind the war:

The war began as a small skirmish between two nations, it's unclear who. As the conflict escalated, Japan developed and deployed Chise, the Ultimate Weapon (yeah, the Japanese WOULD build it into the body of a schoolgirl). This enraged the rest of the world, as such a weapon is (as we see) capable of bringing about armageddon. The world turns on Japan, and with Chise Japan retaliates. And starts WINNING. But the destruction Chise is capable of is immense as she can (as she says) erase a city with seemingly minimal effort. As the war continues the destruction and death takes its toll on Chise's sanity, her friends and family, and indeed the world as supply lines and infrastructure are obliterated and lost. Near the end of the story survival seems an almost impossible wish, even if all the bombing were to end.

According to people who have seen the anime and read the manga, the reasoning behind Chise's actions at the end was changed when it was taken to Anime form. Having not seen the anime myself, I can't comment on this. I am aware that much was left out of the anime that was in the manga.

Saishuu Heiki Kanojo will never be published in the United States.
In October of 2003, VIZ publishing announced it had licensed both the Saishuu HeikiKanojo anime and manga series. Questions abound as to what exactly will happen to the manga, concerning certain chapters and especially editing.

The seventh volume alone confirms this will present the greatest challenge, with roughly 30 pages of explicit sex (as far as Japanese censorship laws would allow) between Chise and Shuuji. This is the largest of the many occurances of nudity and sex that occur in the series, which happens many times throughout all 7 volumes. Despite all that was permitted in Japan, laws here regarding the ages of the characters would make it much more difficult if not impossible to publish in the States, uncut at least.

If you think the Sapporo spoiler was bad, you don't know BAD. Saikano has many events far worse than the sapporo incident, and it's the first one you see.

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