I didn't know where else to say this but Mai Hime is really awful for a yuri series... This probably was said a million times before but I can't believe it was one of the most famous and popular yuri animations out there... I should've left it "on hold" forever.
When I was at chapter 11 I decided to contact a friend to ask "where's the yuri? I'm getting a fucking tons of het and cheap ecchi" and he only said "It's shit" so I jumped to chapter 18 and what do I get? more het... And it seems like there will be yaoi too up ahead. Words can not express my disappointment well enough, I don't care about the ending (I deleted the whole series) at this point... Mai Hime should never be recommended to fans of yuri, that's a cruel joke and I had 4 days without internet, I almost watched the whole thing.
It's a product of a time where yuri was almost non-existent, so people would get whatever they could. There's a canon lesbian that I'm sure was supposed to just be a cheap villain, but was well received by the public, so they redeemed her. She's like a less cool Homura. The series actually had some interesting concepts and from time to time it would actually gets good, a little. The whole if you lose, the one you love will disappear did gave some pretty nice drama. It made the het triangle in an interesting melodrama in the end when winning meant the guy would die.
Unfortunaly everyone revived in the end, making the whole series useless.
Mai-Otome starts as a way better series, but soon they make Arika fall in love with the grown up Tate, and it just becomes shit from there. I won't even start with the OVAs, where they make the only lesbian character make lap dances the drunk old men.
I don't recommend Mai Hime and Mai Otome to no one, no because it's not yuri, but because it's not that good. I was worried Izetta would be bad because it's the same writer, but it's a way better series, even with its problems.
Mai Hime was relevant in the past. Nowadays you have a lot more to choose from.
