Ixion Saga DT

This has been on my list of show to watch for a while now. Having completed it, I would say it was a lot of fun. It's nothing deep nor is it anything overwhelming original. It's just fun. Fun can go a long way though.

The art and animation are unremarkable, though far from bad. The story is quite thin and simplistic. It rids on humor, some of which can be hit and miss. There's a lot here that isn't at all great. Regardless, I'd still give it an 8 just because the characters and the humor when it does work make it a silly, fun ... ride.

The characters here are quite likable. The main character is rather annoying at first, but he does seem to grow through it all and become increasingly likable. His traveling companions are more immediate. Princess Escarlate is wonderfully deadpan and amusing. Her knight Sanglain is serious and likable, while still crazy enough to provide good laughs. Mariandale is probably the best character the series has, having a great design, fun personality and being at times a surprisingly grounded and positive example of a transgendered character in a purposefully dumb shounen comedy anime. Rival Erecpyle and his subordinate team Incognito meanwhile offer big on comic mischief and are always fun to watch. All the while the party comes across minor characters who are sometimes equally crazy and fun. It's an appealing cast.

The humor is focus here, and as humor is a subjective thing, it's what could potentially curtail enjoyment of the show. Ixion Saga's humor is very stupid, irreverent and often immature. As audacious as it sometimes gets, it can be worth quite a few good laughs if you're willing to laugh at that kind of humor. Don't go in expecting particularly smart comedy though. If you have no use for silliness and willful stupidity, you will not find anything of value here. For those of us who do enjoy watching something just kind of silly and dumb at times though, Ixion Saga is a solid and rewarding pick.

Just finished watching Ixion Saga .Mixed Feelings about that one :

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 .

Japan seems to be pumping out some trashy anime lately (e.g. Blood-c & Blood-c the Last Dark) and Ixion Saga DT just happens to be one of them. So if you're done with intelligent anime productions and would like to feed your eyes and mind with complete garbage, then look no further cause surely you've come to the right anime.

ISDT follows Kon Hokaze's arrival in this new world he's arrived in. Through many odd circumstances he ends up being paired with a lolicon princess, a male turned female transvestite and a generic looking strong soldier. He also gets tagged by his new foes with ... the nickname "DT" which is the shortened form for "male virgin" in Japan. I mean who laughs at virgin jokes anymore? Well even I would if it was sold properly but the joke fails every time its used here, why? Many reasons. For one the writers arent all that proficient in comedy writing and another reason could be the voice actor for Kon but I'd still blame the character he's written as and the lines he's given. The horror of this becomes apparent when you realize this is going to be a recurring joke throughout the anime. ISDT does succeed in some funny jokes though, but they aren't nearly enough to have you put up with 25 episodes worth of garbage and its other bad/fail/force-fed jokes.

The viewer is taken to generic locations prominent in anime like the beach/a hot springs bath (onsen) and shown all the stereotypical things you'd expect if you've seen enough anime. Whats worse is whole episodes are wasted in such places doing nothing, the story dosent progress and if you didnt know any better you'd think they were filler episodes put right at the beginning of an anime. It wouldnt be so bad if these "fillers" were any good but sadly they arent.

The art scores highest amongst everything else this anime offers but its not perfect either. You still got a couple of scenes switched with crappy animation. The sound is just sad. The show starts off with this intro where it feels like the words "DT" are being shoved down your throat. Then you get this voice acting that seems at odds with the characters they are cast as. Its almost like you can tell they are trying hard to make you laugh. Its not so bad when you actually laugh but you'll probably feel sorry for them when you dont since they seem to be trying so hard or you might just drop the show for realizing the crap that it is.

Characters are rubbish. Kon the main character is filth of a character. If ever he had a strategy for his enemy and it failed, he'd resort to any underhanded cheap shot available to him even if its something like kicking another dude in the nuts. The lolicon princess is smart and haughty while retaining some child like qualities. The strong/brute swordsman likes cute things but I guess that was tacked on to make him less one dimensional? He still is one dimensional imo. Then theres the beautiful trans girl who cooks, gives advice and sometimes talks with a deep manly voice while also supposedly perfect/role model like? Psh, rubbish. All the characters generally remain the same only tweaked sometimes to make another good/bad joke. The only character I liked was Erecpyle, a major foe who is honorable and fights clean but this is probably due his stark contrast with Kon who fights dirty if need be. I did sometimes find Kon interesting and entertaining but other than that he was just as annoying as every other character in the series.

As you might be able to tell I didnt enjoy this show but I sat through it just so I could review it in its entirety. Cant really say it was worth it but at least I can let others know there's no light at the end of the tunnel here. To those thinking it might get better in later episodes or have some secret plot twist like Blood-c, well heres me telling you no, it doesnt. You do get some explanation of things somewhere around episode 21 but its not anything serious.

In my opinion I think some people who are proficient in anime production sat down after seeing Gintama and thought they could do something along the same lines and make some bucks. This anime is the result of their failure. Despite how Gintama comes off as unserious an half-assed, alot of intelligence and work is put into it as well as comedic talent. There are comedic geniuses at work in Gintama so its sad that this sub-par anime even gets to be compared to it.