Man, that blushing nearly makes me puke.
The lull from my wave of 2007 (and one 2008) anime reviews is over, partly because I’m back from outstation, and today’s review is a TV-Nihon special Onmyou Taisenki which I admit is better than I thought. Read on for more.
One of those crazy attack names you will see a lot in this anime.
Story:-
A random and insignificant kid finds out that he has the ability to control ‘shikigami’ as he is running away from another person who can also do the same. Luckily, he managed to defeat his pursuer, and he have to save the world from destruction (hmmm where did I heard this before) while taking his school’s boat club to the national championship.
The story is typical of the genre, just like Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is, but without the latter’s extra polish. Anyway, it is pretty decent and actually the anime’ story started very well for the first two-third of the 52-episode run. Unfortunately, and typical of the titles of this genre, this anime started its slow descent towards mediocrity as the series marched on (but hey, the story lasted longer than usual). As you can guess, the ending is filled with clichés in the form of speeches that makes me cringe. Sometimes I just hoped that the antagonists will just take some lessons from the Peter’s Evil Overlord List, defeat the heroes and destroy the world. More often than not, in this kind of anime, more usually than not it will be the antagonist’s fault that their destructive plans failed and not because of the competence of the protagonists.
More positives for this anime are the steady flow of the (not exactly spectacular) storyline, aided by great pacing employed by the director. He/she surely know how to make me opens the next episodes as quickly as I can so that I can find out what will happen after the cliffhanger in the last episode. Another feature that I liked about this anime is the battle system that involves plenty of elaborate attacking techniques (and the sometime crazy names that comes with them) invoked by hand gestures, which I think is much superior to the ones you see in YuGi Oh or Pocket Monsters. Plus, fan-service in the form of the shikigami summoning procedures has been shortened dramatically as the show goes on.
Character development is also done well, at least for the main characters, but with no one standing out from the rest. There are some that is left behind though, like the main protagonist club mates. As a result, some potential story arcs like the potential romance story between the main protagonist and his childhood friend are left unexplored. Which is a shame in this 52-episode series.
Numbed by the constant monster attacks, our side characters only watched nonchalantly at the latest monster invasion.
Character Design:-
Character design in this anime is pretty good considering the genre and the potential target audience. Brown is the new black in this series, and I should overlook this too for the same reason.
Voice acting:-
A positive point of this anime, voice acting in this series is excellent. The voice actress for the main protagonist’s shikigami can replace Naruto’s voice actress if she got sick or something; that how similar they can be. That Naruto-esque shikigami is our outstanding character in this aspect.
And one of them even takes her own sweet time calling all of them to her.
Music:-
Good OST, but for the themes, only the 2nd OP and the last ED themes are of any good.
Animation/Direction:-
Another positive point of this anime, the animation in this anime is excellent, and more importantly, it did not suffer in the huge amount of fast-paced scenes this anime has. Many of the techniques/hand gestures here also have good arts and special effects applied in their animations. Choreography is also top-notch, and one of the reasons why I like this anime so much. The directing is excellent, for the many reasons mentioned in the story section.
Conclusion:-
9 out of 10. Very well done, but no Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.
Medieval Japan already has LED screen and electronic devices back then 1200 years ago.
