My-HiME was placed amongst one of the top ten anime series at the Anime Grand Prix in Japan 2005, and it is easy to see why this is after watching the first volume.

Mai Yokiha and her brother Takumi, transfer to Fuka Academy (A large boarding school that encompasses an elementary, middle and high school as well as student accommodation on its campus). Travelling to the school by Ferry Mai and Takumi meet some other students when a young girl (Mikoto Minagi) is found floating in the sea unconscious. Mai saves Mikoto through CPR Things go quickly down hill as the ferry itself is attacked by Natsuki Kuga who is chasing Mikoto, it turns out both these girls are HiME, and so is Mai. When Mai arrives at Fuka Academy she finds that Mikoto and Natsuki are both also students there. She is told that several HiME have been brought to the school in order to combat mysterious monsters known as “Orphans” although there also seems to be other reasons for this.

The first episode is very action packed, and this may mislead the viewer into thinking My-HiME will continue this way. While the action and fight sequences in the other three episodes on this disc manage to live up to the expectations raised by episode one, the series becomes more and more comedic. This is especially true of episode four, which involves an underwear thieving Orphan, which leads to lots of hilarious events due to the fact only a few people at the school even know the Orphans exist in the first place. The episodes on this disc are all very enjoyable, even though a lot of questions about the HiME and Orphans are raised, which hopefully will be answered in time.

There is a large cast of characters introduced in this first volume; most of the characters are given a fair share of the spotlight, although the majority if screen time is shared between Mai, Mikoto and Natsuki. All these secondary characters are highly distinctive, and at times My-HiME feels like a simple school drama, at least until an Orphan shows up. The level of animation is of a high standard, backgrounds and characters are highly detailed, although it appears that most of the series is likely to take place in or around the impressive school grounds.

The first volume of My-HiME is a great start to what looks to be one of the top series of 2006. If the subsequent volumes keep to or surpass the high standards of volume one then it is very likely the series may even go down as an anime classic.