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It was difficult for me to sit down and write this review. Not because of a lack of motivation or outright dislike for the show, but due to my inability to pinpoint exactly what it tries to do. To make it simple, Saint October is made up of two distinct parts. One side is that of the comedy, where Kotono and Natsuki are being cute and eating cake together, Misaki riding around on the sentient bear she befriended, Koushirou playing the lazy tsukkomi while receiving the butt end of jokes, and Kurtz doing something absolutely outrageous in his office. Confronting that is the drama and ... the serious topics at hand. These two sides clash against each other in every episode, and this indecisiveness in direction is what I find to be the main issue of the show.

In certain anime, such as Gintama, this actually works in the series’ favour. The different tones are intertwined intrinsically and the humour moves seamlessly into the deeper themes. This doesn’t happen in Saint October. There’s a constant feeling that it’s trying to do the individual moments right, without consideration for what these moments end up forming once they align. This leads to some fundamental issues emerging even when the anime is presenting its more important topics. The humorous undertones creeps into the parts where it shouldn’t be present, and it’s impossible to fully shake it off. As an example, Misaki’s backstory is driven by avenging her lover’s death. It’s a reasonable motivation, albeit slightly underdeveloped, that offers some insight into her personality. However, the episode that is dedicated to this reveals that the person she seeks to kill is reduced to little more than a jolly robot that runs a cake shop. Unfortunately these jarring tonal shifts continue to happen throughout the series, even up to the final few episodes. You end up not being able to take what happens particularly seriously, which is a huge detriment considering there isn’t a lot of characterisation and depth to begin with.

The first half of Saint October is laid out in a fairly repetitive format. Reverse is sending out different agents so as to capture Kotono & Ewan. Think Team Rocket going for Pikachu and you already have the gist of it. Of course, this brings with it the issue of predictability since it’s evident Kotono won’t ever be defeated. The second half is where it picks up the pace a bit and steers into what ends up being a fairly entertaining show. A highlight for me is Joshua’s flashback episode that manages to develop three (!) characters at once. But in line with what ends up becoming a recurring issue with Saint October, there is one wrong to go with every right. Episode 12 is arguably one of the best episodes in the series. Kotono receives a reality check regarding what she’s been doing all along, and breaks down as a result. It was delivered nicely, without any misplaced comedy there to dampen the fall. Then the following episode comes along and gives possibly the weakest excuse you will ever hear to get her back in action again.

Honestly, I can take less than stellar writing. My biggest issue is that the amount of motivation put on the table is far from sufficient. Typically it is brought up once, dealt with, and then ignored for the rest of the series. One of the only times a theme is brought up again is in regards to the previously mentioned one. The penultimate episode touches upon this topic once more and somehow deals with it even worse. “You didn’t know, so it’s fine”. All this ends up doing is raising the question of how much the creators wanted to get the drama out of the way so they could dive straight back into the jokes again. The amount of logical liberties taken in the comedic scenes leak into other parts of the show, and it really makes you question the intellect of characters when they by all means should know better. One example of which is Kotono trying to storm the enemy headquarters alone and without any powers at her disposal. So when there’s too little, and that small amount is of low quality, disappointment is inevitable. Then again, maybe I’m the fool for expecting a show about magical girl lolis working at a detective agency to do something serious in the first place.

It’s a shame, because I really wanted to like this anime more than I did. The potential is there, the setting is too, but almost everything is underdeveloped to the point where it feels like what little there is only serves as the basis for the comedy. At its core it’s nothing more than a slice of life show that tries to bite off a bit more than it can chew. Its saving grace is the fact that the humour can actually be pretty funny, and the characters in the world are as well. Kurtz in particular ended up as one of my favourite characters ever due to his antics, and his unpredictability as a villain really put a spin on what came to be expected at times. That in itself elevated the worth of the series for me. Still, it’s absolutely true that Saint October would lose its identity if it were to pull back on or even scrap the comedy entirely. I’m certain this anime will be right up the alley of people who want some lighthearted entertainment, and while I didn’t expect something fully as genre-breaking as Madoka Magica, I for sure had the hopes that it could steer its own plot points forward in a convincing manner.

Instead, I’m still sitting here wondering how the hell Ewan could feel that Kotono was in danger when she was no longer bound by the card he gave her.

This show was fairly interesting in my opinion. It started off in a very promising manner where we're first introduced to the protagonists' powers, before the overarching plot is gradually brought into focus. All the minor subplots make sense, fit into the world, and help explain how Ark functions while also questioning its ambivalent nature and actions.

I think the major gripe people might have with the anime is that it's not exactly what you'd call straightforward. A lot of things about the world are kept intentionally hidden from the viewer, and there's always this feeling that you're one step behind with knowing what's going ... on. This holds true for the majority of episodes, and the issue stems from binging the series like I and probably everyone else did. As there was originally one week's wait between each episode, I couldn't shake the feeling that the creators intentionally left certain things shrouded in ambiguity in order for the viewers themselves to reflect over the new information acquired between episodes. That's also strengthened by the fact that there's a recap at the beginning of each one. It's not until the final few episodes are over with that things fall into place, but even then it's still not the instant gratification that modern anime would emphasise. This style in itself is not bad, but is definitely something for a viewer to be wary of.

Characters were decent with some outliers. In regards to the protagonists, the brothers hone their contrasting powers and learn more about their place in this world, though that's about it for their character development. But frankly speaking, that's already more than enough. Seeing Naoya being able to use his powers towards the end of the series without the same fear compared to earlier episodes was nice, as he was previously more or less unable to even touch anyone but Naoto. In particular I enjoyed the character of Shouko. It's rather hard to go over why without treading into spoiler territory, but her role in the story turned out to be completely different from what I originally expected when she was introduced. Possessing the tremendous power she did led me to believe that she'd use it for a certain cause, but what actually took place was very well done as it both demonstrates a particular plot point and heightens the stakes for what might become a reality. Some may say that potential is lost, but this anime is not about each individual character as it is about the world itself.

I haven't seen the original TV drama so I cannot give any comparisons in that regard. Overall however, I liked this anime, in particular its tempo, music, and artstyle. It had some flaws, but this is still a solid 7/10 for me.