What They Say:
Shinichirou has the Eye of Truth and it allows him to figure out people’s true names, but Sakuya doesn’t want anyone to know her true name, so she’s keeping Shinichirou away from her.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
ISUCA has moved through most of its first half by hitting pretty much every mark it needs to in order to be the same as most other shows of this nature. With little standing out in the way of things, we’ve gotten some mildly decent action, a bland set of trappings for the overall atmosphere and tone of the show and the inclusion of new siblings to help make things more difficult for Sakuya. And we’ve had weak and uninteresting fanservice as well, with only a spare moment or two where it’s actually fun or amusing. Even worse in a way is that are supposed male lead, never really a lead in shows like this anyway, has been so underserved in the show so far that he’s got less personality than a cat that suddenly appears on screen.
With the group having figured out that a Western mage is behind things, which introduces its own complications, the gang has to figure out what he true name is so they can figure out how to deal with her. Since Asano has the easy way to figure that out, well, easy enough in a sense, that makes him a valuable member of the team. But the problem arises in that because he has this ability, it’s something that Sakuya is quite afraid of as she doesn’t want him to find out what hers is for her own reasons. Of course, it’s also easy to imagine she doesn’t want him to find out because it involves the two of them kissing, and nothing makes a young Japanese high school student more afraid than the thought of kissing someone.
As events go on, there’s naturally a new specter that causes problems, such as the incredibly creepy wall monster that sucks people partially into floors and walls in a really disturbing way. There’s some decent action moments with pieces of this as it goes on, and the spider-like villain that they face certainly ramps up the creepy factor as well as the awkward fanservice with her large naked breasts, but it also has some decent moments with Sakuya and Asano together as they’re bound up in her webs as she’s being toyed with by our Western mage. Torture is the name of the game here and she’s doling it out on Sakuya in a big way simply because of some longstanding issue with the Shimazu family. The only way out of it all is to kiss Asano. And even as she’s being stabbed, she keeps refusing. Ah, teenagers. You know how it’ll go, but it’s just a slow trudge to get there.
In Summary:
ISUCA plays with things a little bit here, but with the show being just ten episodes, to spend the bulk of an episode over the how of Sakuya not wanting to kiss Asano to have her secret revealed was just plain forced and uninteresting. The episode is salvaged somewhat by the specter used here and the general creepiness of it all, but beyond that it’s just something that forced events quickly to take everyone out of the game for the moment and force the two to kiss. That was a given that it would happen, but the execution of it all was just amateurish at best. The small moments worked well enough here and having some good old fashioned torture has its moments as a way to shake things up a bit, but overall there’s still nothing here to make this series stand out.
Grade: C-
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
