Anime: Koutetsu Tenshi Kurumi

Ah, "Steel Angel Kurumi". What can I say?

Steel Angel Kurumi (which I will now call "SAK") is one of those light-hearted comedies, with a little ecchi neatly packed in. As one reviewer has said, the main character barely develops at all during the series and continues to just be dull and...stupid. I agree with the reviewer that the three angels eventually become the 'main characters' as well.

With a tiny little story, SAK relies mainly on hot-looking angels who kick a lot of ass. It's a very short series considering each episode is about 14-15 minutes long, so I'd definitely say it's very rewatchable when bored and have nothing to do. Watching the fights are actually pretty entertaining, and so that (along with the angels' breasts) is mainly what appeals to the average viewer.

This is a decently comical series, thanks to Kurumi trying to please her master. If you're just up for a short and funny little time, then you'll most likely enjoy this. :)


Note: This is not funny in the parody sense, as in, say, Excel Saga.

Cute comedy with almost a little story inbetween.

Steel Angel Kurumi's animation looks at first sight as if it wants to compete with ecchi comedy-titles. This means that Kurumi and several other characters are overly well shaped, despite SAK not being a comedy-series which focuses on ecchiness.
Other than that, the character designs are fresh, genki and colorful.
The rest of the animation somehow looks pretty regular, but it feels fresh compared to most other series, although I can't pinpoint what it is which gives off that feeling.

The voice of Kurumi might get on your nerves for the first few episodes since she has such a high pitched voice combined with the childish character backing it up, but if you can get used to her voice, the series will become much more enjoyable.
The other voice which might annoy you would be the voice of Kurumi's master, who also holds a female'ish voice which is too high to make a good voice for such a little boy.
But although some of the voices are questionable, most of the other voices are done well and also the OP and ED finally are done wonderfully. The OP will stick to your mind like glue with the easy to remember lyrics which are mostly English pronounced in Japanese (Hajikeru Magikaru Wandafuru - Popping, Magical, Wonderful), while the ED sounds more like a combination of some old dance-song with a computer game from the old times. It is fun to hear them, but neither of them would win a prize for best song.

The story is almost there - almost a story but not quite. They manage to try to tell a story which they are supposed to be following and most of the time they do follow the story without making too many sidetrips. The only problem is that the story itself is not that great. So most of the time the episodes are all about Kurumi trying hard to please her master, resulting in comical scenes and dialogues, but there isn't much of a story inbetween except for the travels they make and the new characters which are introduced which are part of the quest.
And if the story itself wasn't enough, they also manage to come up with the most cheesy ending ever, which isn't too hard to predict.

The characters are done nicely, although at the end people suddenly seem to give in without reason, which doesn't make the story much better.
But the character designs are nice, the character combinations are done nicely as well - although it sometimes looks as if they didn't know well what to do with Saki.
Kurumi is a class by itself, which isn't necessarily bad, since she does make the main source for all the comedy in the series. But again, you have to appreciate her in the first few episodes of the series in order to bear with her.

Steel Angel Kurumi is mostly due to the good character design and the lacking plot, a nice rewatch since it's an easy watch and with the 15 minutes episodes (including OP/ED) they're also very easy to watch somewhere inbetween.
This series isn't the best out there and it's not really meant to be either, but they just want to make it a fairly funny series and they succeeded in that. SAK isn't much more than fairly funny and as long as you are okay with watching that, then this series might be just what you like ;)

Steel Angel Kurumi is fun, charming and has an awful story... Yup, that's SAK in a nutshell for me.

The animation is nice and Kurumi is cute even though I generally dislike the maid dress style. If you watch the op you basically see what I mean, they look real cute and the song is charming. You might actually notice the music in SAK and when you do its ok, the voice acting is also good quality imho.

The story in Steel Angel Kurumi sucked and during the first 3/4 of the anime you don't really notice the story. Once it actually starts it's just a big 'duh', 190% predictable, heck you can probably predict the story very early if observant.
As for characters the three angels just own. Completely my taste maybe, theMug said he found them annoying for example. While Kurumi is outgoing, loving (ehm) and sometimes mischievous the main character is boring, dull and bestowed with an inferiority complex. If you've read my reviews you know I don't like that. The character development varies, some simply don't develop (hi main character) while some have very suiting development for the setting (hi Karinka). Actually, from my perspective I'd say the three angels became the main characters. =D

Steel Angel Kurumi is fun with a pretty light story; it will probably suit most people that don't place too much value in character and story development. With each episode being 14 minutes it's also pretty short.
Closest other anime I've seen is Mahoromatic s1, I like Kurumi better than Mahoro but I'd say Mahoromatic has a better story. If you liked one you'd probably appreciate the other.