Back to captainkunnka's Profile captainkunnka's Profile

The reviews are surprisingly negative, and yet no-one says anything. So I'll take it upon myself to explain why this anime is actually quite enjoyable.

Main - 5.0/10
For one, this anime has zero nostalgic value for me. I don't watch old anime, and it came out from before I was born. As such, I can say with a clear mind that it's far from an extraordinary mecha series. The fights are alright, mostly because of the music. Nothing interesting is done with the mechas themselves: their designs are basic, and all of it is quite unimaginative. The sci-fi elements are lackluster, though I guess that is ... to be expected for an anime from 1997.

Story / Plot - 7.0/10
The plot is straightforward but manages to hold your attention. Earth has successfully colonized space, but its colonies, known as Next, have gained independence and are now embroiled in a war with their home planet. On Earth, a faction called Terra is unhappy with the status quo, but frustratingly, the show doesn't care to explain any of this political tension. We’re never told why Terra is so disappointed with the Earth's government (we're given a single conversation about this which felt more like a collection of throwaway lines than a major aspect of the world), or the deeper reasons behind the conflict between Next and Earth. Instead, the narrative focuses on this rogue mecha, SAC (or S for short), causing chaos as everyone scrambles to capture it. What saves this rather thin plot are the characters—their interactions and development breathe life into the story. From Terra's leader changing through the course of the story, to the gang's involvements in the plot, to the endless frustrations of Next's commander, it’s the characters that make the journey worthwhile.

Non-Plot - 7.0/10
The non-plot elements aren’t particularly groundbreaking, but they serve their purpose in fleshing out the characters. These moments made me connect with the gang, and there's a lot of pay-off once it sort of connects to the main-plot (like, for example, how we know some information about a character that others don't, which makes a subsequent development even sadder).

Humour - 7.0/10
Humor is sparse, and what little there is tends to be more endearing than laugh-out-loud funny. The charm of the characters shines through in these moments, adding a light touch to an otherwise serious tone.

Fan-Service Toleration - 9.0/10
Fan-service is nearly non-existent, which is refreshing, though there’s one particularly awkward scene involving a child that felt unnecessary and unsettling. It’s a blemish on an otherwise clean record in this department.

Dialogue - 9.0/10
The dialogue is a standout feature, with several sharp, memorable lines that elevate the overall experience. It’s a testament to the writing that the conversations often outshine the action scenes.

World-Building - 5.0/10
World-building is one of the anime’s weakest points. The setting feels underdeveloped, with little exploration of the characters’ histories or the world they inhabit. This lack of depth makes it hard to fully immerse yourself in the story.

Characters - 9.0/10
The characters are the heart and soul of this anime. Jay, the main character, struggles with consistency as the lead, but when he does step into the spotlight, he shines. Balzak, the war-weary veteran, is a fascinating character, though his PTSD, hinted at but never fully explored, leaves you craving more backstory. Jay’s own experiences as a pilot during the war are glossed over, which feels like a missed opportunity. Camel, who initially seems like your typical womanizer whose job is to drink alcohol, smoke cigars and look cool, surprises you with his depth, becoming one of the show’s standout characters. Rodney is mostly left out and completely forgettable, save for his fucking GROTESQUE design. Terra’s leader and his advisor undergo significant character development, making their arcs particularly compelling. Captain Aoi adds a fun dynamic to the mix. Overall, despite some missed opportunities, the characters are a major highlight.

Visuals - 7.25/10
The animation is, at times, noticeably conservative—recycling shots and playing it safe (for example, there's a scene where 3 mechas descend into a shaft, so they have the animation of one mecha jumping down play three times). However, the direction is surprisingly beautiful and imaginitive, avoiding the pitfalls of dull angles and lifeless compositions often seen in forgotten anime. The visuals, while not groundbreaking, manage to be engaging enough to keep you watching.

Sound - 9.5/10
The soundtrack is nothing short of phenomenal. I'd give both my kidneys to be able to find it somewhere and just listen to it every day. It's honestly what makes the show work for me. The voice acting, while not extraordinary, gets the job done.

Enjoyment - 7.8/10
Despite its flaws, there’s something undeniably enjoyable about this anime. It may not be a masterpiece, but it has its moments, and the characters, dialogue, and soundtrack make it worth the watch.

"If I didn't like X, should I drop it?" Here's my guide on this.

If you disliked the goofy, campy tone of the ending to episode 1, you won't like the ending, but you'll probably like the middle portion. If you just cannot feel yourself connecting to the gang by episode 9, then you should drop. Episode 3 is really good (save for the awkward portions with the kid) and if you didn't enjoy the soundtrack in this episode or didn't care for the characters, you should maybe consider dropping. Either way, I'd say Episode 6 is when the show becomes truly good, so at least try to watch until then.

Disclaimer: I do not recommend this show to people who consume vast amounts of meida. The plot is convoluted, and you need to be in the right headspace to follow it.

The complex political plot was by far my favorite part of the show. In an era of blunt and crude anime, this subtle storytelling felt truly refreshing. The multiple factions are characterized reasonably well, though, I admit, some aspects could have been explained better. As someone who hates unnecessary flashbacks and showrunners treating viewers as idiots, this was right up my alley. The characters are somewhat caricatures, but still fun, and I appreciate that the ... show didn’t shy away from killing them off, even if their deaths sometimes felt unnecessary or failed to make me care.

While I enjoyed everything connected to the Civil War itself, the MC's storyline failed to grip me. His relationship with his fiance, a crucial plot point, is simply not shown. The show’s focus on the plot over character relationships, while probably necessary (and resulting in a truly engaging plot) led to their romance feeling hollow. Other characters suffer for it, as well. For example, characters will abruptly change their stance in case it's to move the plot forward. The show has a "it's not important how something happened, but that it happened" philosophy, and it shows. Characters are caught and need to escape? Introducing, forced deus ex machina! The large wooden doors of the mansion are closed, and our main cast is trapped? NO WORRIES! ENTER THE IRON HORSES! THESE ARE COMPLETELY NORMAL HORSES, EXCEPT, FOR PLOT REASONS, THEY CAN BREAK THROUGH LARGE WOODEN DOORS LIKE IT'S NOTHING! WHY USE CANNONS WHEN YOU HAVE THIS LIVING, BREATHING BATTLE RAM?

As for the characters, I simply did not like most of them, and couldn't connect with their arcs. The MC is your generic blend of compassionate and cool. He is not openly OP, but he has an abundance of MC energy. He has smug one-liners for every occasion, he's wise when he needs to be, stupid as a joke if he needs to be, trauma to make him cool, and so on. He can throw a sumo wrestler twice his size, if he loses a battle it's because he lost on purpose, blah blah blah. I simply don't like characters like this. Then, we have his fiance. As I said, we don't know much about her, not much is done with her character in general, and her bond with Origasa is zero. Edgy boy and his squad was meh. Look, I'm human, and I know how to have fun. I see a white-haired samurai with an eyepatch doing cool stuff with a sword, I'll watch it. But it's not peak writing or anything. His squad's motivations are a bit odd, they're mostly together because they're indebted to edgy boy rather than believing in his cause, which kinda weirded me out. Main villain was cool, his henchmen weren't. I don't think the anime gets what makes someone resonate with a character.

Side plots, like a random tournament arc and everything connected to edgy boy's squad, felt out of place and added little value to the overall story. MC has some police missions early on, which follow your basic tropes. Unreasonably evil soldiers abusing their power, MC is pure-hearted. That sort of thing. The detective subplot pays off in the very end, but it can be frustrating to watch at times. The humor was scarce, yet hit-or-miss, with some jokes feeling forced. Thankfully, the fan service was minimal, save for one awkward moment that felt out of place.

The dialogue can be quite blunt at times, and then surprisingly subtle at others. Whenever I enjoyed the show, it was usually during these conversations. The world-building was decent, explaining the political landscape within Japan and its alliances effectively. The show could have used a rundown or two, but, as I said, this is right up my alley.

Visually, the show ranges from average, to occasionally good, to almost distractingly bad. The music was great, sound design was solid, with voice acting generally strong, though I wasn’t fond of Origasa.

Overall Enjoyment: 7.0/10.
I watched this show at the perfect time - when I hadn’t watched anything in a while, and my mind was clear. If you consume a lot of media, you might find the plot too convoluted to enjoy. The political plot was brilliantly crafted, and it's a shame most will fail to appreciate it. Don't expect much from the characters, though something brilliant might just sneak up on you.

This show simply wasn't made for me. I dislike the jokes (it's the screaming and funny faces thing anime does), I dislike the characters, I hate the music and the voice acting, the MC gets way too much hype, and the anime as a whole is extremely on-the-nose.

I'll start with the things I liked. For one, the Main Character (Lloyd) can be quite fun to watch at times. He's unapologetically OP and completely insane. He has such an obsession with magic that he pays no mind to the women after him, to his own safety, to anything. He can still have some pretty cool relationships ... with other characters (like with his older brother, his maid, or Grim), which is great. But, overall, yeah, if you're expecting some sort of nuanced, complex character, then I don't know what to tell you. These sort of stories always have an OP character, it's part of the genre. If you don't like it, watch something else. At least this guy's less bland than your average protagonist.

I'm fine with Lloyd, but God do I HATE the relationship he has with other characters. I get that this is pretty much a staple of these sort of stories, but absolutely everyone this guy meets is completely blown away by him. His (middle-aged, by the way) maid is obsessed with this 10 year old boy, and deeply in love with him. We have a scene of her undressing in his tent and burying his face in her chest, which is just weird. The enemies always underestimate Lloyd, and we have to have a 'pay-off' of them screaming for like 1 minute while being embarrassed by him. No, it's not fun to watch. No, it doesn't make Lloyd look cool. The more you try to make him cool, the less cool he becomes.

This is a common problem with the show: an overwhelming lack of subtlety. Yes, I can tell Lloyd is OP, I have eyes. I don't need someone to explain that to me. Grimoire, for example, is capable of being surprised by Lloyd's mana levels at least 10 times in an episode, and it gets old super fast. Lloyd is never allowed to even SEEM as though he lost a confrontation. Example: he encounters this difficult boss while trying to learn a new move. He erects an invulnerable barrier, but, once he realises that it hinders his new move, he literally says "Barrier, shatter!", and the barrier gets destroyed. The boss is like "ha-ha, stupid human, your barrier is weak after all". Okay, cool, the boss thinks that HE destroyed the barrier, when we, the viewers, know it was actually just Lloyd being an insane bastard. But no, the show is convinced we're all both blind and deaf, and feels the need to have the kung-fu girl say out loud that Lloyd actually shattered it. The same happens with Grim and the maid ALL THE TIME. It's as though they landed on a "show don't tell approach", just to tell after showing. What's the point?

The rest of the show has a similar problem. Trying wayyy too hard to make someone look badass or in control. Episode 4 is the perfect example. We need to have this sick guitar solo, numerous scenes of the maid having this super scary face on her, a lot of screaming on the boss's part, and more, just to establish the maid as cool. None of that was necessary. The kung-fu girl badass scene had the same problem: lots of screaming, some smart one-liners thrown in, lots of scary faces, dramatic music. Simply too much.

The dialogue is the same. Oh, kung-fu girl used a powerful move and literally cannot stand? Well, we have to be told that she ran out of qi! Thanks, I would have never guessed!

I heavily disliked the music. I will give the anime points for trying something different, and choosing more modern, ~rock / chill pop (? no idea about music genres) music instead of the classic medieval one, but it simply doesn't work. Fight-scenes feel underwhelming, slice-of-life scenes end up being annoying, everything is ruined. The voice acting wasn't really all that good, either. The jokes were terrible in my opinion, just screaming screaming and more screaming with occasional funny/cute faces thrown in for the hell of it. However, the VA didn't make up for that whatsoever. I don't think there was a single moment that got a chuckle out of me, because not only the material of the jokes was lame and lazy, but the joke's delivery left a lot to be desired, too. The bonus sections are completely dependent on you finding chibi characters funny. I don't, so I disliked them.

Finally, the animation. Yes, it's... pretty and colourful when it wants to be. But it has its ups and downs. An entire scene will be a single panel being zoomed in on different parts of it. In action scenes, they'll replay a single frame three times to buy some time and extend the moment. It looks so very cheap. No idea why, with qi breathing, they had the air look like smoke. It was so very distracting. But, I'll admit, some fight scenes were really cool.

Overall, it's an extremely safe, by-the-by anime. Cool fight-scenes with cool music which should by all rights make the average viewer think what's happening on screen is cool. Very basic, inoffensive humour. If you find funny faces and screaming funny, go for it.

I'm not trying to be condescending, just saying, not my cup of tea. The anime is actually really good if you enjoy this sort of thing.

If you disliked S4, you'll dislike S5, and vice versa.

Date A Live has long since stopped being aware of how silly their show is. The things people are talking about haven't been the case since 2014. I'm surprised it's been getting this much praise.

1 - Melodramatic as HELL. Nothing about this season is self-aware or not taking itself seriously. Feels like I'm watching a spanish soap opera with the amount of cheap twists or drama. For example, the main villain is completely capable of acting as though he's defeated 5 times in a single episode, just to whip something out of his sleeve (or something ... happens that feels like pure luck), and he'll be like "I'm playing 5D chess maaaan". Mindless character-killing on par with Akame ga Kill, to the point where I was completely devoid of emotion to watching these characters die. Two fake-out deaths that I can think of.

2 - Focus on fight scenes with 'big' stakes (when we know nothing will happen). Fights being a scream-fest (the last episode, every girl just screams the name of their angel and there's that).

3 - Lazy comedy scenes with jokes being oversimplified and with zero charm.

4 - Shido being such a weird character you can't even tell if he's supposed to be a playboy or a virgin. The confident Shido scenes gave me a headache, I audibly groaned.

5 - Laziness. Intriguing elements like the AST's involvement in the war oversimplified to safe on effort. Huge world-building details that change the way I view this world omitted until the last second. Shido whipping out powers we've never seen before to end a threat, because we've made the villain too smart.

6 - Ugly animation. Distractingly bad in fight scenes, and the studio completely gave up on animating facial expressions. Heavy hitting emotional scenes come off as odd because Shido will have the most mind-bending revelation thrown at him and not change his expression. It feels like I'm watching a child role-play with plastic, stiff figurines.

7 - Shido! Shido! Master! Shido! Darling! Shido! Shido! Boy! Shido-sama! Shin! Onii-chan! This is the extent of the dialogue whenever the group of spirits shows up. It literally gives me a headache, and I cannot understand why they felt the need to include the SAME scene so many times. That's pretty much all the girls do, too. In the one scene where they're not fighting, they're reminiscing on the things Shido did for them (and swooning over those memories).

In its defense though, I loved the flashback episodes. But the rest is simply bad. The show is DESPERATE to get you to feel something, and I simply felt nothing. I never sympathized with Mio, or Shido, or Ike, or Karen, or anyone. S1 was never desperate to grab you in, it did so effortlessly. S5 feels like they're simply trying too hard.

This anime is absolutely phenomenal, and the hate is unfounded. It's so very rare for an anime to both ask extremely intriguing questions, AND deliver with equally interesting answers. The OST is actually Godly (what did this anime do to deserve this? This is some of the best stuff that has ever graced my ears), the Voice Acting is mostly great (some of the children, understandably, are a bit hard to listen to in the midst of so many stellar performances), the ending is great and fits the show well, and it's simply a blast to watch. Not much else to say.

Yes, maybe I have ... a higher tolerance for bad production. However, the high-points of S2 animation are so good in fact, that you'll probably forget this criticism existed. The thing I disliked most was that, while S1 animation maybe wasn't pretty, it was just messy. It showcased a lack of knowledge in animating movement, which I found quite charming and not at all a bother to watch. While S2 (at its worst) will be extremely distracting still-frames. For an anime that hinges on conversation, the facial expressions being completely off in some scenes is detrimental. And so on. However, as I said, when it wants to be, it gets pretty darn beautiful. And the REALLY bad animation episodes are maybe 2 or 3.

The world-building is wonderful: they more than make up for the bad animation with masterful talking scenes. It's been a while since simple dialogue kept me at the edge of my seat (probably hasn't happened since AoT): they build up mystery superbly well. The music definitively helps: they time it crazy well. I don't really agree that the anime is overly convoluted, either. Things are pretty much spelled out sooner or later, and, while you can probably connect something a bit earlier if you're super smart, you will still be able to understand the story in full as long as you watch the show. If anything, I wish they didn't repeat the information we've already learned as much as they have.

And yet, I think some story elements are wasted. Won't go into spoilers, but I was expecting a little bit more from Touko and Hinako, and there were some characters I found kind of useless and just didn't understand why they were in the story in the first place. My only real complaint is that I found all the big reveals being prior to the Finale a bit weird. It kind of left the Finale in a weird spot where everything has already been explained, so they're not sure what to do.

With all that, this season improved so much on the last. If you found the last one a bit slow and gave up on it, trust me, things pick up. A bonus is that it's highly rewatchable, as well!

Overall, I can't recommend this anime enough. It's well thought-out, has awesome dialogue scenes which give you just enough information to keep you invested, the voice acting is marvelous, the fight-scenes might not have the best animation but the hype is still there, and the music is going into my playlist. Absurdly good anime, and hated for so little reason.

TL;DR: With all that being said, for the love of God watch the first ~7 episodes. It's literally a masterpiece.

In my mind, this show will forever be pure wasted potential. Excellent sense of humor, immaculate joke timing, great sound design, perfect voice acting, oddly engaging plot, fascinatingly good characters, nice art-style, and surprisingly good animation when it wants to be. Half-way through though they decide "Haha we're just an isekai ecchi, don't take us seriously haha" DAMN YOU.

1. The MC is a mess. Completely torn between being the cool badass sociopathic apathetic maniac, open friendly normal dude, and the distant dependable guy. If he just ... picked a side the show would be so much better for it. He talks about regretting manipulating his friends (whatever his motivations were) just to manipulate his 'best friend' into giving him power he needed to win at that point in time. And like, yeah, the moment is funny. They have the theme music playing and it just stops abruptly with him staring at her, it definitely was funny. And yet, it feels like missed potential, because what even is this MC? Yeah, I'm not watching this to see good character building, but the show has so many great backstories and does some great character work when it wants to that it feels like a waste to have the MC be this way.

2. The anime has a fascination with BDSM and shoves it down your throat literally every episode. It didn't bother me in the first episodes cause... Well shit, man, it was fun, plain and simple. The scenes were funny, short, didn't overstay their welcome and were surreal as hell. But as the show goes on, they turn more insufferable.

3. The first 5 episodes are literal perfection. They encapsulate everything I want in a comedy. I literally have 3 scenes per episode that I deemed some of the funniest shit I've ever watched. I also have scenes like Loki explaining her motivations, MC talking about religion as some of my favorite scenes because they're unironically just good. Then, you see cracks starting to form with episodes 6-7, and the show just falling off a cliff in episodes 8-12. CGI monsters the show knows look ridiculous are given really long scenes that try to build tension. Running away in a truck from that snake thing was I guess supposed to be a parody? Either way, it was boring as hell. Music is all over the place: they have the cheerful OP "Onegai" blasting during the scene of Gaia literally MURDERING her parents. Boring 'family' and 'friends we made along the way' unironic, non-parody scenes. Simply a shame!

[RATINGS]: [7.56, [10.0, 9.0, 10.0, 9.5, 10.0, 7.75, 8.25, 6.5, 4.5, 7.0, 4.5, 3.75]]
[9+ EPISODES]: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. They make up for 5/12 (5/12) of all episodes (or 42%)
[10/10 EPISODES]: [1, 3, 5]. They make up for 3/12 (3/12) of all episodes (or 25%)