Date A Live

Thirty years ago, the Eurasian continent was devastated by a supermassive "spatial quake"—a phenomenon involving space vibrations of unknown origin—resulting in the deaths of over 150 million people. Since then, these quakes have been plaguing the world intermittently, albeit on a lighter scale.

Shidou Itsuka is a seemingly average high school student who lives with his younger sister, Kotori. When an imminent spatial quake threatens the safety of Tengu City, he rushes to save her, only to be caught in the resulting eruption. He discovers a mysterious girl at its source, who is revealed to be a "Spirit," an otherworldly entity whose appearance triggers a spatial quake. Soon after, he becomes embroiled in a skirmish between the girl and the Anti-Spirit Team, a ruthless strike force with the goal of annihilating Spirits.

However, there is a third party that believes in saving the spirits: "Ratatoskr," which surprisingly is commanded by Shidou's little sister! Kotori forcibly recruits Shidou after the clash, presenting to him an alternative method of dealing with the danger posed by the Spirits—make them fall in love with him. Now, the fate of the world rests on his dating prowess, as he seeks out Spirits in order to charm them.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Yatogami, Tooka Main

Inoue, Marina Japanese

Tobiichi, Origami Main

Togashi, Misuzu Japanese

Itsuka, Kotori Main

Taketatsu, Ayana Japanese

Himekawa, Yoshino Main

Nomizu, Iori Japanese

Itsuka, Shidou Main

Shimazaki, Nobunaga Japanese

Tokisaki, Kurumi Supporting

Sanada, Asami Japanese

Murasame, Reine Supporting

Endou, Aya Japanese

Takamiya, Mana Supporting

Misato Japanese

Kannazuki, Kyouhei Supporting

Koyasu, Takehito Japanese

Fujibakama, Mii Supporting

Tsukimiya, Midori Japanese

Cook, Justin Producer

Motonaga, Satoshi Producer

Kurakane, Chiaki Producer

Ougi, Jiyuu Producer

Reviews

Jul 22, 2025

Pedro12371717

Recommended

Date a Live is a Light Novel, written by Koushi Tachibana and illustrated by Tsunako, released in 2011 and finished in 2020 with 22 volumes.

Its anime adaptation was released in 2013 by studio AIC PLUS, having 12 episodes and an OVA, After the success of its first season Date a Live was renewed for its second season, but with its first studio change, from AIC PLUS it went to the studio IMS PRODUCTION (Masou Gakuen HXH, The Testament of the Sister New Devil) having 10 episodes and an OVA, His film was released in 2015, by the same studio as the second season, titled Date ... a Live: Mayuri Judgement, having a completely original story having one of the most exciting deaths of Date a Live, its third season came years later in 2019, made by the studio JC STAFF (Zero no Tsukaima, It's Wrong to pick up girls in a dungeon, Isekai Wa smartphone to tomo ni. 2), having 12 episodes and being very, very criticized for its adaptation and animation that were very poorly done, in 2020 the spin-off Date a Bullet was released, focusing on Kurumi Tokisaki, with two OVAS, made by Geek Toys (Death Mount Dead Play), which returned to make the fourth season that was supposed to be released in 2021, but it was moved to 2022 and its fifth season released in 2024, both having 12 episodes.

What do I think of Date a Live?

Let's take it one step at a time, the first season adapted volumes 1 to 4 of the Light Novel, which are the arcs focused on the first 4 spirits that appear in the series, Tohka, Kotori, Yoshino and Kurumi, The beginning introduces very well in my view what spirits are, the danger they represent and how Shidou Itsuka, the protagonist of the series, has to seal the powers of the spirits so that he can save the world from destruction. And the characters in these first episodes are very well introduced, and very well built, besides that the first arc also has a wonderful scene which is the scene of Shidou kissing Tohka after he ends up healing after Origami Tobiichi's attack. Next we have Yoshino (the cutest spirit in the series). This storyline is really interesting to watch. From my point of view, it's not very deep or well done, but I really like how the storyline focuses on the friendship and interaction between Shidou and Yoshino. Also, the end of this storyline is beautiful, after Shido finds Yoshinon, Yoshino kisses Shidou so beautifully, I cried at this scene. And the character of Yoshino, even though she is not a very well-developed character in the anime and the novel, I really like this character, she is truly incredible. Apart from the character's powers, I really like them. About the Kurumi arc, this is simply a very cool arc, as it has a very dark tone, besides delving deeper into the best character in the entire series, which is Kurumi, giving a much more serious plot to the series, not to mention the battles in this arc and the character of Kurumi, who I love so much, she's cute, awesome and her powers, apart from the battle she had with Kotori, are really awesome, in addition to the Kotori arc that delves into Shidou and Kotori's past and how she became a spirit that I think is really cool for the construction of both the protagonist and Kotori. Apart the animation which was really good, I really love every plot of this first season, not to mention the OVA Date to Date which is an OVA that really deepens the relationship between Shidou and Tohka, and also really deepens Origami, who is a fantastic character, all the battles that involve the character and her charisma I also love her a lot.

Now let's move on to the second season, titled Date a Live II, which adapts volumes 5, 6 and 7 of the original light novel. This season has a beginning that focuses much more on comedy, but already introduces the Yamai Twins, who are Yuzuru and Kaguya who are very interesting characters, both are very charismatic (not as much as Tohka, Yoshino, Kotori, Kurumi and Origami who are the main heroines of the previous season) but they are girls who are fun and this arc of theirs as a whole is good because it deepens the friendship they have with Shidou in a way, in addition to deepening how much Shidou cares about Tohka too, so much so that at the end of this arc the protagonist seals the Twins' powers and then they join his group, both as friends and as an important part to seal other spirits later in the story. Now we have the final arc of the second season, which features Miku Izayoi as the protagonist (fun, but boring as hell, especially at the beginning)In my opinion, her hating men is kind of ridiculous, but I understand, so much so that she prefers women because "they understand each other's feelings", but she is a character who is very deep, has a story and a reason for doing everything she did, like hypnotizing all the people and making them kill Shidou. But you can understand her reasons. We still have Tohka being kidnapped and then Shidou and Miku join forces, even though Miku doesn't accept it at first, she ends up giving in, and then the two join forces to rescue Tohka. And then when he finds Tohka, Shidou ends up being stabbed by Ellen, and then Tohka ends up inverting for the first time, and it's a really cool scene, really cool, besides that, when Tohka inverts she becomes another person, something really cool that brings some nuances to the character, then we have a really cool fight at the end, for Shidou to save Tohka and among this event, Shidou ends up saving Miku by also protecting her, and then she discovers that she can trust Shidou that he is not like the others, having a very epic ending to this arc with a kiss sealing Tohka's powers once again like the first episode of this second season, and also after what happened to Tohka, Miku also had her powers sealed, and this is really cool because it ended up being a scene that closes her character development.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Aug 26, 2025

RemanTheArchean

Mixed Feelings

This is a review of the 5 seasons that had been released as of the time of writing. There will be no major spoilers in this review.

This series is a "parody" in the typical anime way of being a mostly faithful recreation with a bit more goofiness and winking at the camera every so often. In the first few seasons the narrator will implicitly joke about the premise with statements like "these girls can only be stopped through extreme military force, or by falling in love and KISSING a man" (I'm paraphrasing here). After that though it's pretty much just a flat recreation of any ... other harem show.

I'm extremely ambivalent about this show since its quality varies very widely. At some points it's great, even bordering on fantastic, while during other points it falls below tedious and becomes outright awful. About 55% of the show is slice-of-life, either being dating scenes or comedic gag bits. Then about 40% of the show is shonen battles or times when it's trying to do emotional character moments with the girls. Finally, about 5% is big plot movements or reveals. I'll talk about each of these 3 portions in turn.

The slice-of-life dating and comedy bits form the backbone of the show. I'd rate these typically at a 5, 6, or 7 out of 10, i.e. somewhere between "good" and "mediocre", although unfortunately they tend to fall toward the lower end of that scale. Slice-of-life lives and dies by how much you like the characters, and the biggest problem with Date-A-Live is that many of its characters are forgettable. To their credit, they're all cute which counts for something at least, and "forgettable" is much better than "actively irritating" like Emilia from Re:Zero. There are also some noticeable exceptions, with Kurumi in particular being a highly charismatic scene-stealer whenever she's around (which doesn't happen nearly enough). Origami's yandere gags were frequently chuckle-worthy too, and Kurumi playing the "brat sister" archetype was fairly enjoyable. However, the rest of the female cast was quite bland -- this includes Tuka, Yoshino, Miku, Natsumi, Yuzuru, Kaguya, Mukuro, Mio, Nia, and maybe a few others I'm forgetting. That equates to a *lot* of time spent on characters that are just "meh". They mostly have one personality quirk to set them apart, but are otherwise just remixes of the same standard blushy crushy harem character. They're worlds apart from the quality of characters like Roxie, Sylphie, or Eris from Mushoku Tensei. It doesn't help that Shido is a boring Joe Average protagonist as well. He's not as bad as the protagonists in Re:Zero or Vinland Saga, but he's a far cry from the more interesting protagonists in Overlord, One Punch Man, Mushoku Tensei, and others. With all this mediocrity going around, that's usually where the quality of the slice-of-life scenes land. They're mostly just "ok". Sometimes they'd be "mediocre" on the low end or "good" on the high end, but they mostly stayed at the approximate level of "fine, I guess".

Something that was less than "fine" would be the shonen battles and the emotional character moments with the girls. These might seem like wildly different bits, but they typically happen close together, and they're both bad. If you've read my other reviews then you know I don't like how anime typically handles action scenes, and this show is no different. It has lengthy monologues shattering any sort of pacing in the battles. It has tedious taunt sequences that serve no point. It has endless arbitrary ability one-ups that decide the battle in a single strike. It has clearly fake moments of "tension" involving characters (like the protagonist) that obviously aren't going to die stretched out way longer than they should. Then the emotional moments trying to flesh out the girls' characters are bad as well. They usually involve some silly self-confidence issues like "no one would ever love a girl as weird as me" that the protagonist eventually "solves" through platitudes and pep talks. Sometimes events fall in such a way to illustrate is point, but it all feels contrived and fake. These moments were bad enough that my eyes would glaze over and I'd alt-tab back to Rimworld to do something more interesting.

Finally, the last 5% of the show are the big reveals and plot developments, often involving Kurumi. Many of these were genuinely interesting and for brief flashes I would hope that the show would double-down on this aspect and permanently improve, but it never did. Still, the show deserves credit where credit is due.

To summarize, this show vacillates wildly between an 8 or 9 out of 10 during its best moments, to a 3 or 4 out of 10 during the frequent shonen battles and fake emotional moments. For most of its runtime it chills at around a 6. After each season I asked myself if I should just watch something else, but continuing on just barely won out. In the end, I'd say its too close to call on whether I made the right decision or not on that front.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Apr 16, 2023

LuciaWalrus

Not Recommended

Funny

Pedo bait would be appalling but it could be worse. If someone tells you they enjoy the how get escape while you can. i regret watching this show admittedly i was 13 but this is some disgusting sh*t. there is no plot like most ecchi and its core focuses on the mc saving the girls and lewd situations idk been a long time since watching just here to give others a warning. story 1/10 not unique character. bad. There was no goal just terrible romance and with the utmost sincereness stay away from this show. how much do i need to type with the ... not enough info i will just answer the questions ts gives.
1.The story is not unique and very predictable i remember the show still (unfortunately) you will know all the plot to come from ep 1.
2. The art is fine and fitting its 7/10 but that is not the issue
3.The characters are not well rounded they are basic and predictable "blush" (sorry but i need to get the point across) no one has ever been this kind to me or "i've been alone my whole life i can't believe you saved me. just trash.
4. No use previous example above.

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

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	Poll: Date A Live Episode 2 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ... Last Page ) Stark700 - Apr 6, 2013	294 replies	by JUNGLE_FEVER »» Nov 12, 1:53 PM
	Poll: Date A Live Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ... Last Page ) Stark700 - Mar 30, 2013	347 replies	by JUNGLE_FEVER »» Nov 12, 6:42 AM
	Am I the only person that doesn't like Kurumi Tokisaki? ( 1 2 ) KanekiKen523 - Jun 8, 2022	80 replies	by Jaywatts03 »» Sep 26, 8:18 AM
	the strongest spirit in your opinion? kramXD - Nov 28, 2013	16 replies	by gdhfyixitsgkxhkc »» Aug 20, 12:33 AM
	Poll: Date A Live Episode 12 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ... Last Page ) Stark700 - Jun 15, 2013	331 replies	by not_a_tensai »» Jul 20, 9:41 AM

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