Kämpfer
Plot. Natsuru Senō attends a high school that separates the boys from the girls. He has a crush on school beauty Kaede Sakura, who has a peculiar collection of , stuffed animals styled in brutal ways of dying. One day, Natsuru discovers he has turned into a girl. His stuffed tiger named Harakiri Tora awakens and tells him that he has been chosen as a , a female fighter who must fight against other Kämpfer that are not part of her team as indicated by a colored . Natsuru attracts the attention of various girls at school who are Kämpfer, including a  shy bookworm girl Akane Mishima who transforms into a gunslinging loudmouth, the beautiful but scheming student council president Shizuku Sangō, and later Natsuru's childhood friend Mikoto Kondō. Natsuru is sometimes able to change back to being a boy, but because his emotions might transform him, he must then live as a male student as well as a female student with the same name at the school while keeping his switching identity a secret. To complicate things, Sakura herself is strongly attracted to Natsuru's female form, and seems to be tied to the overall formation of the Kämpfer. Later  stories involve Natsuru and the girls involved in fights with other Kämpfer groups. Originally the Kämpfer are divided into two opposing factions, Red and Blue, but White Kämpfer are formed after a truce is reached between elements within the Red and Blue Kämpfer. Characters. Messengers. The role of the is mainly to assist those chosen to become Kämpfer in understanding the rules and mechanisms of Kämpfer combat. They take the form of Entrails Animals, stuffed animals that are notable for having their intestines sticking out from their bellies and names referring to different methods of death. Many of them have  been described in the novels as having voices similar to those of specific real-life voice actors, who would in turn do the voices for them in the anime. There are five major Messengers in the anime series. White Kämpfers. The White Kämpfers are a group of Kämpfers who follow orders from Kaede, after receiving their messengers during the Miss Seitetsu contest. Their surnames are similar to some voice actresses, who in turn voiced them in the anime. Media. Light novels. The light novel series written by Toshihiko Tsukiji, with illustrations by Senmu, were released under Media Factory's MF  Bunko J imprint, with 15 volumes released between November 24, 2006 and March 25, 2010. The main series covers 12 volumes, while the remaining three are short story collections. Manga. A manga adaptation, written by Tsukiji and illustrated by Yu Tachibana, began serialization in the April 2008 issue of "Monthly Comic Alive". The first "tankōbon" volume was released on October 23, 2008; ten volumes have been released and has been concluded as of September 26, 2018. Anime. A 12-episode anime series adaptation produced by Nomad, directed by Yasuhiro Kuroda, and written by Kazuyuki Fudeyasu aired in Japan on TBS  between October 2 and December 17, 2009. The opening theme is by Minami Kuribayashi and the ending theme is by Marina Inoue and Megumi Nakajima. The anime has been licensed in North America by Sentai Filmworks. Distributor Section23 Films, through its Sentai Filmworks division, released the series in a complete collection on January 18, 2011. An additional two episodes, titled , were screened at an event held at Odaiba Cinema Mediage theater in Tokyo on March 6, 2011, with only one of the episodes aired on TBS on April 8, 2011. Sentai Filmworks re-released the series on Blu-ray with  an English dub on May 28, 2019. Reception. Theron Martin of Anime News Network called the series a "spiritual descendant" of "Maze: The Mega-Burst Space" and "Ranma ½" which feature characters who regularly switch genders, but is a "harem comedy." However, Martin argues that the action-oriented and harem-oriented elements are not balanced in the series, with the harem comedy stronger, and said that the "perverse and sometimes twisted sense of humor" of the show works best, and even says that while there is fan service, it is "fairly tame by recent standards." He also said that the  music score has "fun little themes" and said the plot "is a mess."