Back to CorLeonis-_-'s Profile CorLeonis-_-'s Profile

*SPOILERS AHEAD - DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE NOT WATCHED TAKT OP DESTINY

Let me mention the elephant in the room before I get started with this review - we all knew that this anime was a glorified advertisement for a mobile gatcha game. I knew this before watching, and yet Mappa and Madhouse are two well-renowned studios, so I knew the animation would be top notch. What I mistakenly thought, however, was that there would be at least SOME semblance of a story, some reason to care aside from the pretty frames. And boy was I wrong.

The writers for this show did not ... even remotely try to create a cohesive plot, and it shows. The plot holes in this show...God I lost count. What the hell is a D2? Why do Musicarts exist? What is the connection to music, and why do sentient beings named MUSICarts have really nothing to do with music at all? The D2s are the most non-threatening beast-like incarnations that I have ever witnessed in a battle anime. I never once believed that the characters were in any danger facing these creatures, as they were the furthest thing from threatening. The Symphonica...where are they through the entire show? The final battle shows so many conductor-less Musicarts that we meet for the very first time, all who have unique looking abilities that would have been so cool to learn about. What is the purpose of conductors? Take is the only conductor who ever physically fights, where he displays ass-pull speed and power, which is never even remotely explained, considering no other conductor ever does something similar. Destiny and Titan constantly fight by themselves (Titan fights just as well after her conductor literally dies) but Destiny fades away even though Take is technically still alive? What kind of wishy-washy writing is that?

Don't even get me started on the villains. You have Schindler, who falls into the same useless conductor category as Takt when it comes to controlling his Musicart Hell, who turns out to not even be his Musicart. He summons D2s just to wipe out the poor and less fortunate, feeling as though the world needs less bottom-feeder people in order to rebuild...or at least that's what I surmised, no ambitions of any character have any substance at all in this show. At least Schindler had some ambition, because the "big bad" Symphonica leader Sagan is a complete waste of space. He is the embodiment of evil for the sake of evil, which the writers try to add development in the final episode by giving us some bs sob story about his love for the world. It's a villain with zero motives, who is given zero screen time, who the viewer gives zero shits about, and the writers try to cram some emotional background into the final 10 minutes of the show. Really, really solid storytelling.

The character development in this show is horrible, and practically non-existent. I wanted to like Takt, and to be fair, I kind of did in the beginning of the show. Until he truly showcases how flat his character is. The only time he shines as a character is when talking about what music means to him, which is well fleshed out in some scenes, but becomes extremely annoying in others, as it is all he talks about. He has such a tragic past with the death of his father that is mentioned a lot but barely touched upon aside from maybe an episode and a half. The show tries to get you to care about Cosette, but aside from the exposition dump in the beginning, she is no more than a memory. Destiny has a very flat personality and only speaks about fighting D2s and eating sweets. Anna could have been a decent character, but she is relatively useless in a combat-focused show, and her grieving of her dead sister is often pushed aside and rarely explored. There is not one single well-utilized and developed character in this show. There were plenty that had potential (Lenny, Anna, even Takt) but they all end up either one-dimensional or criminally underutilized. Some "mentor" Lenny is for Takt when they only spend time together in like three episodes.

I don't want to write too much about the ending, because I don't want to make this review more spoiler heavy than it already is, but I will say that the ending is the pinnacle of everything wrong with the show. The big bad is defeated in a moment where the show tries to make you feel sympathy for him, despite never even trying to develop his character and that character's feelings, all the D2s seemingly vanish along with the mysterious crystals which are never explained, and Takt and Destiny...end up on a beach? It is here that Takt and destiny have an extremely bland conversation, in which Takt (in typical fashion) insults Destiny multiple times before "taking a nap." Destiny proceeds to KISS HIM, and declare her love for him before vanishing (for no good or explained reason I may add!!). Sure they had some nice moments together, but romantic feelings were not really explored that much between the two besides maybe a forced episode when they first get to New York. The love confession feels so arbitrary, put there to tug at your heart strings but it falls completely flat when you feel no real connection between Takt and Destiny romantically. Jesus, the random ass kiss that Anna gives Takt the episode before IN FRONT OF Destiny makes more sense than this to me. At least Anna seems to give a shit about him outside of combat. It just doesn't make any sense to me, which maybe it would have if the anime told a story in which their relationship developed, but this felt so forced for me.

There is not much for me to say about the art and animation that I didn't already expect. Fight scenes were animated briskly and fluidly, and the visuals were very appealing to me. The OP and ED were enjoyable, particularly the OP. The OSTs, for an anime based around music, kind of fell flat and got stale for me, but overall the sound was decent. Character designs were also quite good, although I wish they utilized the cool designs of the unnamed Musicarts we see in the final episodes a lot more. But none of these things save Takt Op Destiny.

I wanted to love this anime. I wanted it to be good, and I wanted to really enjoy it. When I first started watching, I looked forward to it every Tuesday. By the end, it felt like more of a chore to watch each new episode. A 6 for entertainment is actually quite generous, with the battle scenes and animation really saving the overall score from dipping insanely low. The story, Musicarts, D2s, the Symphonica, the unique conductors... this anime had so much freaking potential, and had two great studios at its disposal to be one of the best anime of the season. It may, instead, be one of the most disappointing. Do yourself a favor, and watch the battle scenes on Youtube or something. Trust me, you aren't missing anything important in the story department. Overall: 5.4/10

{WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS MINOR SPOILERS FROM MEDAKA BOX/MADAKA BOX ABNORMAL}.

Where do I even begin with Medaka Box? This being my first review, I decided to combine Medaka Box and Medaka Box Abnormal into one comprehensive review, rather than write two separate reviews (even though such a thing seems entirely relevant, given the fact that season 1 and 2 felt like completely different shows). With this small disclaimer out of the way, I would love to get right into my thoughts on the tragedy that is Medaka Box.

I want to start with my first issue with the anime, as I mentioned it in the ... paragraph from above. My issue is the nearly unexplained and very poorly transitioned shift from a bizarre slice of life-esque high school comedy/drama, to a stale battle shounen completely devoid of sensical motivations and weak plot holes and plot armor galore. What the hell was the thought process behind this confusing shift? The first 10 episodes or so of the first season involve the daily lives of the students at Sandbox Academy, where student council president and first year Medaka Kurokami enlists the help of Zenkichi, Akune, and Kikaijima (in that order) to assist all students at the school through the use of a suggestion box aptly named the "Medaka Box." The strange and loosely explained shift to a full-on battle shounen begins with the introduction of the chairman of the glorified army/school security force Myouri Unzen. His introduction leads directly into him...slaughtering a classroom full of students for being loud? It is then explained that the safety force is authorized by the academy to use force/violence to keep the peace at the school..what the hell kind of half-assed explanation is that?

The entirety of the charming first season goes completely downhill from there on. Upon Medaka's ass whooping of Unzen, using WAR GOD MODE, WHICH IS NEVER EXPLAINED BY ANYTHING OR ANYONE, viewers are thrust into Medaka Box Abnormal, where they face the "13 Party," a group of "abnormals" like Medaka who possess strange powers which are seemingly unexplained. The unexplained part is pretty funny to me, as I have reached the conclusion of the series and still have no idea how any of these powers have come to be. Is it some kind of science that created these abilities? Is it straight up magic? The mechanism of these powers not being explained really hinders my ability to appreciate the strengths and weakness of the character's abnormalities, as I have no idea what is causing these abilities in the first place. Maybe abnormalities are explained thoroughly later on in the manga (I hope to god they are) but I am currently an anime-only with this series, and truthfully, going an entire 24 episodes without once explaining abnormalities or how they came to be (aside from some half-assed explanations by characters that are pushed to the side) is pretty frustrating and severely limits how interested you could really be in the power system. Then again, the fact that there even is a power system after the initial episodes is so confusing in the first place.

The characters were pretty hit or miss for me in this series. I really liked Zenkichi's character, as he was a really well-balanced and levelheaded support character for not just Medaka, but all characters throughout the show. I really liked that the anime kept him a Normal throughout (even though there was a hint that he may actually be abnormal) and focused on showcasing his strength as a normal human being who is fighting for his friends, mainly Medaka. It may be a little bit cheesy of a motivation, but not as bad as other characters, and at least he has some kind of motivation. The main character, Medaka, was not necessarily a bad character, but that does not make her a good character either. She got super stale and annoying after a while with her "save everyone, help everyone, love everyone" shtick, but hey, she had the power and influence to do so, so good for her. The reveal of her abnormality and what it did was pretty cool, although one particular aspect of her power was left totally obscure at the end. She was clearly the worst offender of fan service in the show, and while that does not particularly take anything away from a show for me, it got a little annoying at times when it was so in your face. Aside from one other character who I will speak about later, the rest of the cast was meh. Akune and Kikaijima were pretty one dimensional, although they at least got some backstory as to why they acted the way they did. Their main motivation ended up following Zenkichi's which was a little boring, but overall they fought well and contributed enough to the group as to not be completely forgettable. Some characters such as Nabeshima were cool, but no one became all that memorable. Medaka's brother Maguro, for example, was really only there to give exposition dumps and weirdly obsess over his two sisters. Naze was nearly interesting, but her "I hate happiness" routine got boring after a while. Again, no characters were noticeably bad, they were just fairly forgettable.

The biggest travesty of the entire series, for me, was the twelfth episode, titled "Good Loser Kumagawa." The episode focuses on Kumugawa Misogi, an extremely twisted and yet simultaneously compelling villain who shows up very briefly within the main story. Kumugawa has a sick view of the world, and is surrounded by a great deal of intrigue and mystery regarding his motivations and his purpose. I now that the manga continues his story, but the teasing of this character throughout the entire show, talking about some insane showdown with Medaka, name dropping him from time to time, and the very eerie episode 12 disclaimer that tells the viewer to "keep your future bright, and remove yourself from reality" when watching him creates an absurd amount of hype for a character that is never touched again. This is less of a gripe with the show itself, as I am sure the creators planned on adapting his arc and thus giving him more screen time, but it is HEAVILY disappointing to bring this horrifying enigma of a character into the story to never see him fleshed out in the end. I just feel as though a season with Kumugawa at the helm would have greatly raised my enjoyment of the series as a whole, and it almost makes me wish I never watched the series at all now that I know I will never see his anime arc reach the light of day.

The art style of the show is meh, the animation is decent enough during the non-stop fight scenes of season two but it also leaves a little to be desired. The style is decent, and the character designs are pretty good across the board (even though I do not like the one piece of hair that everyone in the series has sticking up for some unknown reason). The soundtrack is nothing to write home about, the first opening theme is better than the second imo, and the second ending trumps the first. They are all decent tracks, but again, nothing that really jumps out at me.

Finally, down to my enjoyment level. I give this anime a pretty generous 7 for enjoyment, because I gotta say I really enjoyed some of the character interactions and a few of the hype moments that occurred in season two. That enjoyment is severely limited, however, by the existence of several plot holes (which also include the chairman's true objective, which I did not mention earlier, as well as who the hell Shiranui is). I know that these questions may be answered in the manga, but that is not why I watch an anime. The story of the anime itself should still be able to hold up strong, regardless of how much it is adapted from the source material. For me, Medaka and company did not do enough to fulfill my request: mission failed. Thus, I leave another suggestion within the suggestion box for the lovely creators of this half-baked series: Give me more anime Kumugawa, and we may be able to talk about a higher rating :) Overall: 6.2/10.