Day Break Illusion is, absolutely, what it shouldn't.
If the promotional art and the opening wasn't a dead giveaway, it should be well-known that this show is going to be pretty dark. And well, it definitely is. The story pretty much revolves on young tarot card users who fight against "Daemonia" - demons created when humans contract with them and eventually succumb into despair after the daemonia pretty much takes over their mind. The Daemonia causes what appears to be natural disasters around it, and its up to the tarot card girls to fight against it.
You know, I wouldn't mind the story. I wouldn't mind it even if it was almost an exact replica of what Madoka did. Here's the thing though -- the story is insanely try-hard. By try-hard, I mean it does so, SO much to try to remind you of how dark it is, of how grim and bloody things get. Let's take how we're flashed back with Akari's dead cousins' bloody corpse at least 5 times throughout the show. Or how when a painter girl becomes jealous that another painter criticized her, she made sure that both her and the boy that the critic liked were KILLED. Or turning the twelve (yes, twelve) year old girl into a wolf demon. Yes, a wolf demon.
I wouldn't mind these story elements either that much if they were, gee, I dunno, foreshadowed? The sudden and grimdark death of Akari's cousin happens within 10 minutes of the first episode. 10 minutes. You hardly know anything about the cousin or why she dies. A revelation that occurs later on that almost guarantees death of major characters just.. happens. Why? To make the plot get gritter and darker. Nothing is ever at least foreshadowed a little bit, not even once. There were no hints whatsoever that a tarot card user could combine with a Daemonia and create some weird demon, nothing.
Basically, the show does whatever it can and goes out of its way to remind you of how dark and edgy and grim it is. You know, I have people that complain about Madoka being dark and edgy, but at least Madoka foreshadowed it. Maybe it had issues with shock value, but just so you know, shock value isn't just tricking the audience. Shock value can be randomly killing off a character in a gorey way in the first episode. Shock value can be deciding at the end of an episode to change one of the characters into a demon wolf. It doesn't matter if the show is already proclaimed as dark, if it happens without foreshadowing, it's shock value.
Now you're probably wondering, well, do the characters at least save the show? Oh, I wish. I really, really wish. Hopeful protagonist, cold girl with dark past, sisterly lesbian, and energetic one. That's really what they all are, and honestly.. they're not that good. Namely our protagonist, Akari. I get it -- I get that she's only twelve years old and couldn't kill things that easily. But you know what? When I see another character go up and kill someone she knew personally and loved to free him out of his misery, I'm going to be annoyed at her actions.
The characters range from cliche to boring to downright DISGUSTING. The main villain, who we know almost nothing about, decides late in the series that he wants to mate (he literally says mate) with Akari. Akari is twelve. Twelve years old. He basically does this sick shit in order to completely destroy her mind and heart so she doesnt care about silly things like consent anymore and, I quote, "becomes a mother."
Playing the rape/sexual card in a story is NEVER a good sign, unless it's absolutely relevant to the plot or was foreshadowed/absolutely needed. But you know what? These girls are twelve/thirteen. We have one girl walk around evil and demonic with her tits literally bouncing out of her chest. We have another one being nearly forced to give into consent with pretty much a demon. Do you see the issue here? I hope so, because none of this is mature, or deep, or good. It's honestly really sick and unnecessary.
In terms of the art.. it's... ehh... I mean, the animation honestly is pretty good. The fight scenes, attacks, all of that look pretty nice. But the show is very obviously lolicon-ish. The girl, all of them, look so stick thin and skinny and tiny that when these terrible things happen to them, it feels so out of place and awkward. It feels honestly awkward seeing a scrawny 12 year old girls' eyes turn into tiny dots and scream at the top of her lungs. It looks awkward, and the artstyle makes it feel awkward too. It really feels like it's trying hard to appeal to the lolicons with its artstyle.
Not only that, but the artstyle and character designs in general aren't all that good. The eyes are all really huge, they're usually misplaced too or sliding off the characters face. The bodies in general look really unproportional and just weird, and the hair seems really choppy and cheaply made. Not really an appealing design, at least for me.
If one thing can be said good about Day Break Illusion, it's the soundtrack. I have to admit, aside from Akari's seiyuu, the voices are pretty good and solid. Not to mention the OP and ED themes are pretty great and catchy too. The OST isn't honestly all that stand out, but I can definitely say that the sound is a really concrete part about the show.
And here's where I talk about dark magical girl shows in general. You can skip the next three paragraphs if you don't wanna hear it, I just feel it's kind of needed.
Look, what I believe made Madoka successful in it's darkness wasn't that a girl got her head chopped off or another had to watch her friends die again and again. That's not where I saw success. I saw success in how the show dealt with the psychological breakdown of the things that happened to these characters, and even how their issues could be applied to real life. I feel, personally, that it did an excellent job with showing many different character archetypes in these situations and pretty much breaking them down, showing the affects that it has on them. But that's for another day.
I feel like studios seem to think that if they just add in some death and gore, that it'll be a success. But that's not how it works. It really isn't. I hate to break it to you, but just showing characters die doesn't guarantee success! It really, really doesn't. A solid story, solid characters, good foreshadowing and writing, and a good breakdown of these things are what make it so great. I don't think the show being open about its dark nature is what makes it unpopular either. There are plenty of shows that were shown to be dark from the very beginning that were successful. (Psycho-Pass, Attack on Titan) I'm not calling these objectively good, but they were overall well-received. Essentially, the fault for Day Break Illusion of not being a big hit despite having cute girls in grim situations isn't really because it was already dark from the beginning, but it just does a very bad job at doing what it tries to do, which is, again, be dark.
I guess I enjoy this anime, I mean, it doesn't bore me or put me to sleep like other shows, but the enjoyment is really just mediocre for me. It's enjoyable to watch weekly I guess, but not something that I can say I actually "like" watching, you know? I guess it can be fun for people who like watching anorexic lolis kill things and get killed though.
Overall, Day Break Illusion is a prime example, in my opinion, of how people SHOULDN'T be trying to make dark magical girl shows. Go ahead, make more! It's what people want! But making them so grimdark, adding in things like wanting a 12 year old to give birth to pretty much a demon child, killing off side characters like there's no tomorrow -- that's not what we want. A good story, a solid one with good character that happens to have a darker or more serious twist on the genre, is what would be good, really. But this? Not this, please no this.
Magical girls are about cute girls doing cute magical things, not awkward lolis being slaughtered in blood.
