While it is an interesting plot, I tend to become distracted when I watch it. Maybe the plot was too shonen for a girl like me who would usually prefer girly anime, but then again the fight scenes were a bit exciting. Truth be told, I enjoyed the fillers more, because they always had me laughing. Other than that, some of the arcs were too long, specially the IL arc. 15 episodes are just too much, and at that point watching the anime felt like a chore. I was so happy when I finally finished that arc because the filler episode after the arc was one of the funniest episodes.
It’s another anime with a huge cast of characters, and most of them I like. I think the character I hate the most would be Himiko. She’s a very irritating girl who acts as if she’s good at her job, but she’s not that great. Plus using perfumes as weapons? What a lame power. Kazuki is OK, but he’s a trap. It really surprised me when I found out he was a guy. Maybe he’s gay – 2 guys are fighting over him and I don’t care if boys from their family wear girly kimonos when they haven’t reached their age of maturity yet. It’s just an excuse to justify his cross dressing.
My favorite character is actually Natsumi. I like that filler episode about her when she dressed up as Ban and Ginji. Speaking of Ban and Ginji, I like both of them too. Ginji is just so adorable when he goes into chibi mode, and Ban is one cool guy, even if he’s a bit mean and distant sometimes. Akabane is pretty cool too – even if he is a bit blood thirsty and sick minded.
The animation and art is reminiscent of early 2000s anime. While it is ahead of anime that was from way back then, it still needed work. It tends to be inconsistent sometimes. You could tell if the designs would waver because they were really notable differences – it’s as if the characters have been deformed. Usually, this would occur in filler episodes, and even more so during the second half. I’m a bit disappointed, because if they wanted to make this anime a hit, everything should be almost perfect. The colors tend to clash sometimes too – greens and purples don’t really go well together.
And what about the voice acting? It was actually pretty good. I’m quite surprised that Ginji’s seiyu was actually Shotaro Morikubo, who was also Musica’s (From Rave Master) voice actor. They were two different characters with two different personalities that it’s hard for me to picture one guy who worked with both of them. I guess that’s really impressive. Plus, Ban Midou’s seiyu (Nobutoshi Canna) was also the seiyu for another character I hold dear to my heart, and that is Tasuki from Fushigi Yuugi. Even without that, I still think the dub was quite impressive.
I like the wide variety of music. Every opening and ending theme was different and I liked every single track. It was all contemporary and modern. There was pop, to hip hop, to j-rock. Everything really went well with the series’ feel. I think that’s because the music direction was made by a very capable person. That person would be Taku Iwasaki, whose works are actually quite familiar to me. He also worked on GONZO’s Black Cat, Rumbling Hearts and Yakitate!! Japan, series with equally good music.
Because of boy-boy love premises, I was almost convinced that I was watching shojo. Clearly, Kazuki and Juubei’s relationship are yaoi fan girl bait. Plus the guys are all very good looking, which convinced me even more. I guess that’s one thing I get out of watching the series.
And what’s with the clothes? I noticed a lot of the characters wore clothes that won’t fit them. Hevn would always wear tops that are too small for her, and the guys wore tight pants. Poor Kazuki; His shirts are always so oversized that they would fall to his shoulders.
Even if there was a bevy of good looking guys in this anime, the eye candy wasn’t enough to make me disregard the story. I’m not saying the story was bad, like I said before, the plot was interesting. There were just errors during the execution. It could have been better.
