anime review

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Review: Cardfight!! Vanguard – Asia Circuit Hen (カードファイト!! ヴァンガードアジアサーキット編)

Posted by ranpha on 5th February 2013

Posted in: anime review, sport genre standard, STOP THAT BLURRY ANIMATION TECHNIQUE NOW!. Tagged: Cardfight!! Vanguard – Asia Circuit Hen (カードファイト!! ヴァンガードアジアサーキット編), Cardfight!! Vanguard (series). Leave a Comment

The main male protagonist!

The second review for the year of 2013 is for a 2012 title, titled Cardfight!! Vanguard – Asia Circuit Hen. This anime is the sequel of Cardfight!! Vanguard, reviewed in this blog some time last year. As a series aired in 2012, this anime is supposed to battle Another for this blog’s ‘Anime of the Year 2012’ title, but the various handicaps this second season has inherited from its predecessor pretty much kills any chances of this anime of doing so. This second season has managed to improve in some parts when compared to the first season, but has regressed in one key element when doing so. To know what part this second season of Cardfight!! Vanguard has managed to screw-up, read the rest of this review. Oh BTW, because the last entry of this blog doesn’t have any pictures, this one instead will have a lot of them.

Rather than wasting precious real estate to casinos, Singapore is better off building Vanguard stadiums instead.

Story:-
After winning the national championship in the first season, the main male protagonist’s team has disbanded, and he spends the rest of his days moping at the fact that he has lost the love of his life (Kai). Suddenly, out of the blue, a mysterious kid appears, kicked the main male protagonist’s ass in a Vanguard game and stole his valued Vanguard deck, replacing it with a deck foreign to him. The mysterious kid then taunted the hero, saying that he has to win the Vanguard Asia Circuit tournament in order to get his old deck back, using the new deck given to him. Therefore, the main protagonist and his old teammates has to criss-cross the Asia-Pacific region in order to retrieve what has been stolen from him.

Let’s go straight to the major regression this second season of Cardfight Vanguard has, that its predecessor doesn’t. That would be the ‘save the world’ ending arc, which is a completely unexpected turn in plot, and absolutely out of step with the story themes of the first season, and most of the materials in the second. I can understand it if the main male protagonist have to save Planet Cray from devastation (that’s what he does in the first season too), but the ‘save the Earth’ plot in the ending is a step too far. There is nothing wrong, for example, with a final tournament in knock-out or round-robin formats, between the winners of all Vanguard Asia Circuit as the plot of the final arc, which blends seamlessly with prior events in the second season and also the first one.

This pretty much sums up what the game is all about despite what Animax tagline says.

The storyline for this second season, excluding the ending of course, has slightly decreased in quality. But this regression in quality is more than made up by the lack of forced drama scenes and misapplied flashback sequences that plagues the first season. The second season has two beach episodes though, which is still nowhere as good as the gold standard of all anime’s beach episodes. The decrease in quality may have to do with fewer episode count when compared to the first season, more emphasis on tournaments (which makes the ending arc so out of place) and the obviously intentionally-placed throttle on developments for characters that isn’t the main male protagonist.

One of those scenes where a player 'conveniently' get a suitable trigger card at the right moment and the right time.

One thing that the second season has improved upon the first is the gameplay of the Vanguard card game. Make no mistake here; this game still depends hugely on luck when drawing trigger cards to determine the result of a card duel (exactly the opposite). And just like the first season, the writer has used this fact to skillfully manipulates the direction of the storyline. But the addition of extra game modes in Vanguard circuits after the Singapore one makes the card duels in this sequel better than the ones in first season. The notable game mode I really like is the tag battle mode in Hong Kong leg of the circuit. These game modes gives more variety to the card battles, instead of the usual best-of-3 game mode seen exclusively in all tournaments in the first season. These variable game modes also helped this second season of Cardfight Vanguard become better than its predecessor, indirectly, when it comes to story presentation.

With the new game modes seen in the tournament circuits, the already excellent pacing in in-tournament battles in the first season has actually improved in the second season. This is a major surprise to me, because initially I don’t think there are any room for improvement for this anime in this department. This is achieved by getting rid of the usual 3-battles per-round game format with single-battle per-round format that drastically reduced the amount of episodes needed to cover all the 4 tournaments in the Vanguard Asia circuit. Adding to this fact, the pacing of the general storyline also increased, allowing less episodes to be used for them. This may explain how the second season can pack as much action and plot as the first season, in only 39 episodes. For comparison, the first season has 65 of them. The flow of the storyline has also be improved, especially by the lack of the misapplied flashback sequences I mentioned earlier above.

The game modes makes the second season card battles far more interesting though.

But when it comes to character development, I have a very deep feeling that the writer is actively trying to sabotage the character developments of certain characters, especially the main male protagonist’s teammates. The signature feature of the second season is the ‘Limit Break’ technique, where a Level 3 card gets specific stat bonuses, special abilities or other positive features if the player has at least 4 damage inflicted upon him/her. As expected, the main male protagonist gets to use Limit Break from the first leg of the circuit, but his two teammates are a little bit slow on mastering this Limit Break thing.

In the first leg of the circuit at Singapore, only the main male protagonist is able to use Limit Break, while his other two teammates doesn’t. Okay I said, this is only the first leg, surely the other two will follow suit and use Limit Break in the next tournament. Then the South Korea leg comes and goes, and only the main male protagonist is using the Limit Break technique while the other two doesn’t. Okay I said, after being schooled by opponents that uses Limit Break in Seoul, surely they will follow the lead of their group leader and then use Limit Break in the next tournament.

Then the Hong Kong leg comes and goes, and yet they still doesn’t use the Limit Break technique, although they are now capable of beating opponents that uses the technique, even without using it. It was here then I started to wonder what the hell the writer is thinking. In anime titles like this, especially in sports titles, characters in those titles usually learned from their mistakes and improved in the next tournament. This doesn’t happen here at all. In fact, if the character development strategies seen in the first season is used in this second season, all three members of Team Q4 should have been able to use Limit Break already by the time the Hong Kong leg plays out.

The second season could have been better with a more radical match-ups though. How about Aichi vs. Asaka and Misaki vs. Ren?

Then after the defeat in in the final at Hong Kong, all three members of the Team Q4 received a new card each, and then participates in the final leg of the circuit that is held in Japan. Okay I said, surely this time, with new cards for everyone, the main male protagonist’s sidekicks will be using Limit Break in the do-or-die tournament. You know what happened? Only one of them (the brat with spiky hair) actually used Limit Break, and the other one (surly white-haired girl) doesn’t, as Team Q4 finally wins the last leg of the circuit. Wooooah, I said, the last person’s Limit Break must have been saved for the final Royal Rumble free-for-all tournament with the winners of Singapore, South Korea and Hong Kong legs of the circuit. Surely, that’s what will happen, right?

But no, the awful ‘save the world’ final arc comes after that, where the main male protagonist does most of the fighting while his teammates donned up some pom-poms cheering him at the sidelines. You will never see the Limit Break technique of his white-haired teammate even after the final episode stopped playing. What a messed up character development strategies this anime has, which is nearly up there with the abomination that is the ending arc.

A pivotal moment in the whole series: A love confession at the end of the cape!

But in the third season of Cardfight!! Vanguard, that is airing right now, I have glimpsed a few new exciting features that should make the third season better than its two predecessors. In the third season, the main male protagonist enrolls in the same high school as his white-haired teammate. Not only that, the blonde member of the crappiest idol group in anime history also transfers into his class. I never thought she and the main male protagonist are of the same age; that would explain the strange attraction of him by her throughout 104 episodes of the first and second season (in retrospect, she is extremely important plot device used by the writer to advance the main male protagonist’s character). In the new high school era for the main male protagonist, if the writer wants to write in romance elements, like for example, a love triangle between the main male protagonist, his classmate and his white-haired senior, all I want to say is: YES PLEASE!

And God no, please no more of ‘save the world’ plot again.

If this brat is of the same lineage as Lee Kuan Yew, then Singapore is doomed if you ask me.

Not only that, the third season completely do away with character development problem in the second season that I mentioned above. The third season’s signature feature is the ‘Break Ride’ technique, when you chain two Level 3 cards in the Vanguard position to obtain +10000 attack power, which can be made more devastating when combined with the Limit Break technique. In the third season, not only that the main male protagonist can already use it, but the new character in the third season that is new to the card game can actually use it too! Even only after a few episodes, the third season sure has lots of promise.

As long as there are no more ‘save the world’ plot

My commentary of the still running third season of Cardfight!! Vanguard is included in this review of the second season, because for the first time in years, I have decided to watch this anime on a weekly basis. I will not write anything more about the third season after today, until the last episode of the third season finished playing (hopefully it is sometime in 2013).

Quoted For Truth!

Character Design:-
My comment for this section in the first season’s review still applies.

Voice Acting:-
My comment for this section in the first season’s review still applies.

Music:-
While the OST is still as good as ever, just the way it is in the first season, the same thing cannot be said for this second season’s OP/ED themes. The second season only has one good themes, which is the 2nd ED theme. This is so unlike the first season that has many good OP/ED themes.

The second season still have their own share of freaky Vanguard teams.

Animation/Direction:-
Just like the first season, the blurry animation technique is being used, so one point will be docked from the final evaluation. The animation quality has improved from what I have seen in the first season; no more PowerPoint slideshows for character animations. General animations is still good; no improvements but no regressions either. The director can be credited with the tightening of pacing in in-game battles, but not for allowing the ending to be the way it is now.

Conclusion:-
5 out of 10. Still the same score as the first season. Hopefully, the third season can improve on this.

The overriding ambition of the main male protagonist, which ends up unfulfilled.

Shortlink: http://wp.me/prgSo-B7

Review: Sword Art Online (ソードアート・オンライン)

Posted by ranpha on 8th January 2013

Posted in: anime review, no screenshot, romance genre standard. Tagged: Sword Art Online (ソードアート・オンライン). 11 comments

The final anime series I watched in 2012 is the spiritual prequel of Accel World, titled Sword Art Online, but I only get to write the review for it a year later. While aired later than the former, the latter’s source novel actually comes out in Japan first, which makes sense actually. This review will be the only second entry in my blog, since Starship Operators, that will not have any screenshots, Starship Operators is an excellent sci-fi space anime title that has earned a very respectable score of 9 out of 10. If Sword Art Online can repeat what Starship Operators have done, it may have a great chance to dethrone the current Anime of the Year 2012 holder, Another, which incidentally also has the same score. You must be wondering now if this anime, apparently HorribleSubs’ favorite title in 2012, can actually do so or not. Therefore you should just continue reading this blog entry.

Story:-
20 years before the events in Accel World, people in Japan are still hanging on their iPhones and Samsung Galaxies (and maybe Nokia Lumia too?) touch-based smartphones. But any semi-intelligent shareholders of Apple and Samsung should have started to short their shares in those companies, because a certain genius guy named Kayaba Akihiko has invented a certain device called Nerve Gear (which I believe is the precursor of the neuro linker in Accel World). The killer app for the said Nerve Gear is the virtual-reality MMORPG titled Sword Art Online, which is also created by Kayaba Akihiko. Sold out faster than iPhone 5, 10,000 players then login into the game’s world, and right on the start, those people within the group of 10,000 that has played the (ancient by then) .hack JRPG series will start to have the feeling of déjà vu. I wonder if the main male protagonist is one of those people.

Imagine the crossover between the main male protagonists of Sacred Seven and Little Battler Experience, and you will get the main male protagonist of this anime. Or if you haven’t seen both of those anime titles, this anime main male protagonist is comparable to an overpowered Squall Leonhart of Final Fantasy 8 J-RPG. In fact, if you ask me, this anime’s main male protagonist is more similar to Squall Leonhart than the hero of Sacred Seven is. And this is true, character-wise and also story-wise.

The reason why I focused on the main male protagonist’s similarity with Squall Leonhart is because, just like Final Fantasy 8, the ups and downs of both Sword Art Online and Final Fantasy 8 correlates with the blatantly identical character regressions of their main male protagonists, with romance (a.k.a. the main female protagonists of both titles) being the main culprit in both occasions. Man, this anime ripped off Final Fantasy 8 more than it does the .hack franchise. At the start of the anime, the main male protagonist is the brooding emo type of character that is shrouded in darkness (and this has nothing to do with his dark outfit) and during that period, this anime is actually better than Accel World. But when the writer of this anime take a leaf from Final Fantasy 8 and turned the ‘lonely emo boy Kirito’ into ‘lover boy Kirito’, this anime’s chances to become better than Accel World in the end evaporated.

This anime’s storyline can be roughly divided into 3 phases; the first one taking the first 7 episodes or something. As I watched this phase that takes up the first seven episodes or something, I have started to wonder whether this anime will take a very divergent path away from Accel World and tried to become episodic slice-of-life anime series instead of Accel World’s typical shounen genre. Still, in this phase, the main male protagonist is still in his ‘more acceptable’ form. But just like in Final Fantasy 8, the poison that is the main female protagonist started to infest the series and the main male protagonist with her vileness.

This is startlingly apparent in the second episode in the second phase – the phase where Sword Art Online was finally completed – when the main male protagonist does what Squall Leonhart has never done, and that would be soloing a boss fight. It was at the aftermath of that boss fight that I realized that the clinger that is the main female protagonist’s sole function is to try her hardest to turn this anime into the romance territory, dragging the main male protagonist down the rabbit hole with her. Unfortunately for this anime, he meekly acquiesce, just like Squall Leonhart did in Final Fantasy 8. The less said about the third arc, where the main male protagonist has to save the main female protagonist in another Nerve Gear-based MMORPG, the better. At that arc, I’m pretty sure this anime has become Final Fantasy 8 Mark II already. Why the Nerve Gear isn’t banned after the Sword Art Online was finished is beyond me, the Japanese government in this anime sure are masochists unlike the version in real world.

In the second phase, this anime do stop its slice-of-life tendencies seen in the first phase and started to have a real proper storyline where the toxic duo finished the game that trapped 10,000 people. This second phase alone have more plots in it than the whole of Accel World, and this is one part where this anime has done better than the latter. The story is actually quite good too if I were to ignore really hard the two main protagonists that is literally connected at the hip (you will know what I mean if you watch this anime yourself). Even better than the one shown so far in Accel World. The story in the third phase is even better, again if you can ignore the two main protagonists here. In the third phase, the main male protagonist is a hopeless case already, but the plot in that phase is even better than the one in second phase.

But while the storyline in this anime is better than Accel World’s, this anime do have many issues that the latter also has. One of them is deus ex machina moments which shows the writer’s inability to manage the overpowered main male protagonist. The writer is not alone though, his/her counterpart in Little Battlers eXperience also does the same mistake. But the second Accel World’s issue that this anime also has is forced melodramatic moments, and this anime does this way worse than Accel World has ever managed. Remember the scene after the boss battle I mentioned above? That’s one of them. Other cringe-worthy scenes that can also be included in this list is the one between the main male protagonist and his sister after their online identities was revealed, and also the one about the A.I. fairy after the two main protagonists get married. At least there are no plot-holes though.

Also unlike Accel World, this anime has a better mix of character developments and storytelling. It (the mix) could have been better if not for the fact this anime has quite a glacial character development relative to many anime titles out there that I have reviewed that isn’t Accel World. For example, the main male protagonist’s character development is glacial when compared to the Gundam AGE first arc’s protagonist, and comparable to the overpowered main protagonist of Little Battlers eXperience. Also just like the main male protagonist, the main female protagonist also has woeful character progression, although if I consider her actual role, that should be expected. Now which character has good developments in this anime again? Oh wait, there none that I can remember!

Still, this anime didn’t repeat Accel World’s mistake of neglecting storytelling, and that’s can only be a good thing in this romance-infested title. Therefore, I decided to just apply the romance genre handicap to this title, because the romance elements in this anime has a more central role unlike in Accel World. It has been more than two years since I last used this tag. Two long years! Maybe I should watch more romance genre anime titles in the future.

The pacing of the storyline in this anime is excellent, and the same thing can also be said for the flow. The ending is ruined by yet another deus ex machina moment in the final battle, but that’s nothing compared to the scene of the reunion between the two main protagonists. What a waste of a good story in the third phase of this anime. If this anime has a second season, I will definitely give it a pass. And if Accel World have a second season with a more fleshed out plot, I hope Accel World will not regress the way this anime is.

Character Design:-
Character design in this anime is similar to what is seen in Accel World, which means it (the design) isn’t exactly outstanding. There are no characters in this anime that is remotely similar to the main male protagonist of Accel World though. Kayaba Akihiko’s decision to make players adopt their real look in Sword Art Online is a good one too, and assuming that the imprisoned players sports their real hair colors, it seems that black hairs are rare in Japan of that era.

Voice Acting:-
One of this anime’s few advantages it has over Accel World is there are no character-ruining voice acting gigs in here. The voice acting of this anime’s main female protagonist is far better than her counterpart in Accel World, and is actually above average. Yes, this is also the only aspect where the main female protagonist is better than her opposite number. In general this anime’s voice acting gigs are better than Accel World’s, with more normalized overall voice acting quality. This anime’s main male protagonist is just average in this regard, not unlike his counterpart in Accel World. Good voice acting gigs here can be heard from the aforementioned main female protagonist and also the villain of the third phase arc.

Music:-
If voice acting in this anime is better than the one in Accel World, the reverse is true when it comes to soundtracks. At best, the OST of this anime is simply forgettable, and nowhere as good as Accel World’s. Damning for this anime too is the fact that all of its OP/ED themes are not exactly different than the OST too. All the shit thrown to the wall and nothing sticks. At least Accel World still has couple of victories in this department.

Animation/Direction:-
This anime doesn’t use the blurry animation technique that Accel World employed, so that’s a big win for this anime. The quality of the animation is good, and that’s about it. Choreography of action scenes in this anime is better than in Accel World too; another win for this anime. The directing in this anime is better too; a great feat considering the train wreck of a relationship.

Conclusion:-
4 out of 10. This anime is so totally ruined by the worst theme of romantic relationship I have ever seen in an anime title. Will not look forward to a second season, unlike Accel World, and just like Minami-ke. But I will make an exception if this anime pulled a leaf from Princess Lover playbook and make a special OVA exactly for that ‘scene’. Princess Lover also scored 4 out of 10, but its unrevieweable OVA is better. Sword Art Online OVA anyone? By Subdesu-H fansub group?

Shortlink: http://wp.me/prgSo-AV

Review: Accel World (アクセル・ワールド)

Posted by ranpha on 3rd December 2012

Posted in: anime review, STOP THAT BLURRY ANIMATION TECHNIQUE NOW!. Tagged: Accel World (アクセル・ワールド). Leave a Comment

The main male protagonist, made from chrome.

A few months ago, the horror thriller anime Another wins the audition for this blog ‘Anime of the Year 2012’ title, and today its first challenge comes from a surprisingly good anime series, titled Accel World. Nevertheless, this anime failed to unseat Another from its title because of some very obvious problems with the storyline and at least one unanticipated issue that will really surprise you.

Story:-
4 years before the events in Little Battlers Experience, people in Japan has already stopped using their iPhones and Samsung Galaxies in favor of an augmented reality device called neuro linkers. This device allows their users to dive into Second Life-like virtual worlds, using custom avatars, doing things that the Residents has done many decades previously. The pudgy main male protagonist, a neuro linker user that used it primarily for MMORPGs, was introduced to a dodgy neuro linker app called ‘Brain Burst’ by a mysterious beautiful girl at his middle school. The ‘Brain Burst’ app then allows him to accelerate his biological brain functions, paving the way into the ‘Accelerated World’, a C-like alternate dimension where he has to fight for points, levels and of course, the woman. Unfortunately (for me), there are no signs of 12TB thumb drives in this anime.

If there is anything I can say about this anime’s plot, that would be that it (the story) has a vast amount of potential still left unexplored within it after the last episode, scratching only the surface of a potentially expansive storyline. You know, kinda like Legend of Legendary Heroes, Giant Killing and even Infinite Stratos. And definitely so unlike C, which potential has already been largely exhausted in its final episode. But from what I have watched so far in this anime, the quality of the plot is somewhat inferior to the first two anime titles I mentioned in the sentence preceding the one before this one. But personally I think the inferior plot quality is by design and intentional, mainly because of a reason I will explain below.

The reason why this anime’s plot is inferior to Legend of Legendary Heroes (shortened to ‘LOL Heroes’ from now on) and Giant Killing is because the writer for this anime focused much more on character developments and relationships while keeping the rate of the development of the storyline very low. In LOL Heroes, its writer managed to balance character and story developments better, while in Accel World, its writer focused more on the character developments aspects while somewhat neglecting the plot. And this is where my first complaint comes in: the execution of the writer’s strategy in this anime really can do with more polish.

Accel World: The Greatest Love Story Ever Told.

While Accel World and LOL Heroes has different rate of plot developments, both of them has similar episode count. With the former focusing more on character developments than the latter, does that mean the former performs better when it comes to character developments strategies? The answer to this question is ‘only barely, if at all’. LOL Heroes already has good character developments, with higher regular character counts, and without sacrificing the story advancement too much. This anime, which has lower regular character counts (which automatically gives this anime an advantage) somewhat still cannot outperform LOL Heroes in this aspect, with a margin that matched the effort. Only the main male protagonist has the rate of character developments that commensurates the efforts put by the writer in this anime.

I think the main reason why the character developments in this anime isn’t really as good as it can be to match the efforts put in is because there are not much story to go around within the whole series. The amount of plot in this anime would have been common in a 12-episode series than in one double the length. A subtle time jump inserted somewhere in the middle of the series doesn’t help either, and frankly speaking, this anime needs more of the ‘bouncer episode’ that happens before the time jump. If this anime has a second season, more emphasis should be put on advancing the storyline, so that the balance seen in LOL Heroes is used in Accel World’s future iterations.

Moving to character developments, as mentioned above, this anime has done really well in this aspect as expected from how the story is written. In fact, just like the storyline, there are plenty of developments left in the tank for almost all of the recurring characters. The best character in this anime, for the time being is definitely the main male protagonist, followed by his two childhood friends. The main female protagonist was written out from the story for the whole second half of the series, has a vastly slower character developments than the others in the first half but still is a quite decent character with hidden potential character-wise and story-wise in the future. But I have a MAJOR technical complaint about her that will definitely affect this anime’s rating negatively, and I will elaborate about this later below.

This deus ex machina plot device is one of this anime's problems.

As I have written in the paragraphs above, as of now this anime has inferior storyline compared to what you can see in LOL Heroes and Giant Killing. For now, that can be forgiven as long as this anime has a second season (which as of writing, isn’t confirmed yet), but unfortunately this anime’s plots was plagued by three problems. The first ones would be plot holes (as opposed to loose ends). For example, I was very surprised when I found out that Scarlet Rain is a level 9 Burst Linker, a level she must have attained after the main female protagonist went into exile. But then again, the non-aggression treaty should have been in force, so how on earth did she get level 9? Did she spam the Unlimited Field?

The second problem this anime has is the numerous amount of forced melodramatic moments has, especially the ones that has to do with the main male protagonist and his relationships with his two childhood friends. The Kaiji-like amount of crying by the former doesn’t help things either. The third problem would be the usage of deus ex machina plot devices and moments like the incarnate system shown in the screenshot above. Would have been nice if the main male protagonist become stronger by just pure effort the way it is in Giant Killing.

The pacing of the storyline that is being told in this anime is quite decent and the flow is flawless. Would have been nice if this anime has a longer storyline that matched Giant Killing and LOL Heroes. As expected, the ending of this anime feels like a typical ending of a story arc, which mean there are still loose ends left in the storyline at the final episode. Therefore a second season will be needed (essential even), but will this anime follows LOL Heroes and Giant Killing in not having one? I sure hope not.

I think it was supposed to be the other way around right?

Character Design:-
Apart from the main male protagonist, the character designs for all the other characters are just typical for the shounen genre. I’ll even say I have the ‘hey I have seen this character design before in other titles’ feelings. Black hairs are not frequent, but actually prominent. Accel World avatars’ design suspiciously looks so much like the suits of the two main protagonists of Tiger and Bunny, but worse in quality and I don’t really like the monotonous designs at all. Virtual reality avatars designs are much better, especially for the main female protagonist’s.

Voice Acting:-
As mentioned above, the main female protagonist of this anime is a decent character even when she play a very minor role in the second half of this anime. But my biggest problem with her is her voice actress, which has done one of the most awful voice acting gigs for a major character in all the anime titles I have ever watched. She (the voice actress) is decent when her character is in kuu mode, but become extremely bad when her character is in dere mode. The awfulness is also evident in some scenes where main female protagonist is in her Accelerated World form, like when she pronounce the end of her self-imposed exile period after the main male protagonist acquire his wings.

Voice acting-wise, she is way worse than Kaidou Jin from Little Battlers Experience (he is the major character that has wooden voice acting I’m talking about in that anime’s review) and also the minor character in Giniro no Olynssis, amongst others. This anime lost one point because of this alone. If this anime gets a second season, her voice actress has to improve greatly by that time or else the director should just replace her with someone that can handle kuudere characters better.

Voice acting by the rest of the characters is patchy at best. The voice actor for the main male protagonist’s best male friend is also below average, but nowhere as bad as the main female protagonist’s. The main male protagonist and his female childhood friend has decent voice actors, but some other characters like Ash Roller and Dusk Taker has very good voice acting gigs.

That awesome life-like fire animation last seen in Yumekui Merry makes its return in this anime.

Music:-
This anime has very good and elaborate electronic OST, especially during battles. The first OP and ED themes are good too, but it is just unfortunate that the second set of the OP and ED themes are not as good as the first one.

Animation/Direction:-
This anime used the blurry animation technique in its battle scenes, therefore one point will be docked from this anime’s final rating. This is a shame because this anime has good choreography efforts that would look better without all the blurring going on. General animation quality is good and flawless, especially that fire animation seen in the screenshot above. The director has done nothing wrong in this anime, a feat considering how this anime was structured.

Conclusion:-
7 out of 10. Yet another series that really need a second season. Whether we will get one or not is still up in the air though.

Even the second worst character when it comes to voice acting has a much better gig when compared to the main female protagonist.