When the villain asks you to give yourself up in exchange for someone else, you just know it’s going to go well.
What They Say:
On the day after the student council training camp ended, Shigure Haruka disappeared. The military’s indifferent reaction and Taito’s disgust with how powerless he is leave Himea feeling miserable, which is when the half-breed Serge appears before her. Serge proposes a deal which will return Haruka to Taito. What are the Spell Breakers Serge and Hasga trying to accomplish…
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With the whole very awkward training camp thing done and over with and the gang back at the school, things have gotten even more difficult for Taito since Haruka herself has ended up disappearing on them. It’s a difficult spot for Taito to be in but he’s so earnest in wanting to get her back and does what he can to beg in his own way for Gekkou to help him that he does get some assistance with it. But it all takes an even stranger turn when the school is suddenly surrounded by the military who have come to defuse some mysterious terrorist bomb that’s supposedly inside the building.
As awkwardly executed as all of this is, it gets even worse here because of how the school is dealt with and the way they bring in the whole church aspect by setting the sides between the two and thrusting the kids in the middle of it. The whole show has been pretty difficult in its story execution, presumably much like the original work since this author doesn’t exactly work in a linear war, that getting to this point really has it seeming like it makes no sense. It’s built up some impressive moments visually, but now with their teacher making plenty of implied statements about what they need to do in order to save Haruka while also stating that they best just forget about her is plain awful. And to just muck it up even more, the show introduces a character named Serge that comes to talk to Himea.
Being a Spell Breaker, he’s there to make a deal with her about events that are about to unfold by saying she can exchange herself for Haruka and just end everything quickly and simply without any further problems. Of course, she pushes back against this but eventually decides that to do what she can for Taito that she’ll go forward and exchange herself, though aware that it may just be a trap in and of itself. Like most of the series, it’s done with a good look to animation, design and atmosphere, but it’s just such a hackneyed premise at this point and so overdone with shows that you just roll your eyes through it because you know how it will go. And with Gekkou involved, you also know that it’s going to be fairly violent as well.
In Summary:
At some point during this show, I’m not quite sure where, it went from being annoying and problematic to just pissing me off. With only a couple of episodes left, I find that I can’t turn away from it and just ignore it as I want to see if they can actually pull it all together in the end. The series opened strong for me in the atmosphere and mood category, but it’s waffled and gone in less than clear directions several times already while giving us lots of clingy and overly emotional girls. It’s pretty, there’s no discounting that especially with the great ending sequence here, but it’s just a frustrating show to actually follow when it comes to the story. Things that happen are seemingly nonsensical and treated so seriously I feel like I’m watching a show where the creators get it, but forgot to clue the rest of us in to it properly.
Grade: D
Streamed By: Nico Nico
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
