Well the season is officially over, with two shows continuing into the next season, Log Horizon and Cross Ange. Reviewing today is Yuki Yuna wa Yusha de Aru, Trinity Seven, Madan no Ou to Vandis, and Ai Tenchi-Muyo. I was about three episodes into Sora no Method, but after reading Jinx’s take on it, I am fairly confident I’d be wasting my time. I’m also still catching up on a couple other shows, because Christmas, and Steam sales, are a bitch.
“Your arrow will pierce the heavens, you know it, don’t you?”
Honestly, I liked this show, and not because it really excelled at anything in particular, but it stayed consistent throughout. What amused me is that they did not spend a lot of screentime on all of the war maidens, concentrating mostly on Elen and Mila. It was a very “War of the Roses” story, and considering there have been so many depictions of that directly or indirectly (FF:Tactics, Game of Thrones) that it doesn’t do a whole lot to make it stand out. It played around with fanservice elements and light humor, but it didn’t go out of it’s way to portray the war maidens as anything less than strong warriors in a show where thousands of redshirts fall a minute. Given its light novel roots, I wouldn’t expect to see a second season of this show, but if we did, more other war maidens, please.
Title: Madan no Ou to Vandis
Sub Group I Watched: Horrible
Episodes: 12
Rating (1-10): 7
“A Gentleman’s Codex”
All season, I’ve been comparing this to DxD, mainly because like Issei, we got a show where the main lead isn’t afraid of letting his strong senpais show him the ropes while he shows them the business. You might think this is sexist in some way, but on the contrary. Unlike DxD, which took the direct fanservice route for the male gaze, Trinity Seven stuck with a more action-oriented pace where the girls got to show off just why they were the best-of-the-best, and even though Arata tried to disrupt this a few times, especially where clothes were concerned, it didn’t cross into blatant porn routes DxD did. So rather than comparing it to DxD, it’d be better to compare it to Mahou Sensou from earlier in the year. Both male leads brought into a world of magic, but Trinity doesn’t pussy-foot around their bad guys and has characters with more depth than just WAH MY BRO IS PSYCHO or someshit.
Plus, Tsundere Mira. Yessss.
Title: Trinity Seven
Sub Group I Watched: Horrible, Crunchyroll
Episodes: 12
Rating (1-10): 8
“A four hour tour. A four hour tour.”
Honestly, mixed reactions about this. On one hand, new Tenchi Muyo since OVA Ryo-Ohki 3 and GXP, or unofficially Isekai no Seikishi Monogatari, but on the other, being ten-plus years since the last Tenchi series, the animation change means Tenchi characters done anew. Honestly, not as bad as I expected, and certainly the new look does work with Washu, Sasami, and Ayeka. Ryoko, not so much, and Mihoshi is in the middle. But what really got me, no Ryo-Ohki, save for a small shot in the final episode. Come on man, what the fuck?
But the only criticism to be leveled here, is that if this is how Tenchi Muyo could be depicted now, Moe Moe Tenchi rather, I’m rather disappointed. I know this was a short-shot for their 20th anniversary and I shouldn’t expect much, but if the goal is to maybe make more Tenchi, AIC, please don’t fuck that up.
Title: Ai Tenchi Muyo
Sub Group I Watched: Horrible
Episodes: 50 + 10 recaps
Rating (1-10): 8
“Bean counters said I couldn’t fire a man just for being in a wheelchair. Did it anyway. Ramps are expensive”
I have to start off this review with this gem from Twitter:
httpss://twitter.com/Kuro_Seiba/status/548530824207810560
“A poor man’s Madoka Magica”, this is not. At best, it probably has more on-par with Evangelion in story and Rinne no Lagrange for visual effects. But the real crime is the final episode. All throughout this show, we were building to a point where the show might go for the bad end, someone dies, everyone dies, they all end up confined to hospital beds for the rest of their lives, anything that doesn’t tie this all up into a neat little bow for a happy ending. Even when everyone but Yuna recovered, someone HAD to give up the ghost for this show to at least mean something. Nope. Everyone wins, after Tits McHTML’s brazen attempt to fuck the entire world up, and Flash Gordon’s brilliant photo-finish and Nanoha-esque F-F-F-FRIEND POWER!
One thing is for certain though, it did pull an Eva TV ending. It might as well been just a series of drawings moving on the screen and a bunch of people shouting CONGRATULATIONS. You win, Yuna. You’ve saved everyone from Fourth Impact. Have a cookie.
Title: Yuki Yuna wa Yusha de Aru
Sub Group I Watched: Horrible, Crunchyroll
Episodes: 12
Rating (1-10): 6
