Ixion Saga can me summarized as an attempt to replicate the relaxed/wtf/lol?/laid-back style Gintama made popular in Anime .
In this style a lack of a greater overarching plot , comedy and dirty jokes , excellent sound-soundtrack choices and strange character are the standard .The style is great , Gintama that introduced it in the Anime industry a masterpiece .Let's see how Ixion Saga DT fared though :
Story-3
As i said before the specific sub-genre/style Ixion belongs to lacks plot lines as it's main points .Even though i take that as a given , still Ixion Saga could have fared much better: it tries to use the story both as a background and as a hook/point of interest , with the result being a failure in both attempts .The story is not absent - it is there , but it is ignored , resulting in some disbelief and boredom that could have been (easily ?Dont know .) avoided .The lack of progress endangers the whole series as the viewer can become tired of what seems as meaningless events , spawning at each episode like NPCs in a RPG game that is just too full of grind .And i know that the fans might defend the series reminding me that Ixion , like Gintama dont require a master story - yet still having seen and loved Gintama and even Sket , i have to commend that Ixion Saga's story can be compared with boring Pokemon episodes but not with the tense and emotional charged story arcs the two aforementioned shows field .
(Let it be known that the last episode has a much better written story than the rest of the show- a wonderful surprise rewarding us for making it to the end !)
Art-6
Nothing great , nothing good , nothing bad .
Lately Art seems to have been standardized .I kind of miss the variety the 90s and the 2000s had : each show had it's own style for good or for bad .And there were always glitches to be found .The much cheaper/improved technology of today has eliminated visual errors and unusual/unique art styles from most series today.
Sound-8
Ixion Saga has great sounds and soundtracks :the level was on par with Gintama !
Different music genres , familiar chords and styles , variation - the soundtracks were great and played a nice part in drawing you into the series . There was Rhythm and good taste in orchestration and song choices .And the most surprising fact is that i am not talking about the OP/ED - no , i actually didnt liked those two - i am talking about background themes .Very good on sound .
Characters-6
Ixion Saga's Chars are interesting and funny : each has his own fetish plus some perks - and each gets a decent amount of attention in the show .And here is where trouble ensues :
the characters while are interesting seem to have been made with some kind of character generator you can find for RPGs .They are too much replicas from the Gintama series- something that becomes even more obvious when you actually hear half the cast of Gintama playing as the main chars in Ixion Saga .There was a lack of originality - i find myself imagining the people that designed the character watching Gintama and saying to each other "Ok that was good , what can we use instead of that ?" .In short if you ve seen Gintama you ll see no new character concepts in Ixion Saga .They have somewhat recycled the chars from it .
Enjoyment 6 - Overall 5
Ixion Saga is a fun Anime and it sure is enjoying watching one .With all the the lack of originality it still has some entertaining value .However -and with that i sum it up - this show has copied Gintama at so many major points , so obviously that one can clearly feel the lack of dedication and investment from the creators .And since those two things are what make an Anime interesting and enjoying to watch i can say that this show is worth watching without lying .
Ixion Saga is for Gintama what the many industrial Harem anime are for their originals .
