Date A Live

Boobs, explosions and cute girls are a time-tested formula. Apparently.

If there is one that has remained true about the anime industry, it is that cheap entertainment and low-risk adaptations prevail. AIC's "Date A Live" is yet another addition to this tired trend- doing nothing interesting or even particularly well. It expects the audience to willfully ignore its poor writing, because hey-- there are cute girls to gawk at!

Drawing inspiration from the 2008 manga "Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai", Date A Live presents itself as a pseudo-parody of otaku culture. After our protagonist Shidou conveniently encounters two busty ladies fighting one another, he finds ... himself waking in the headquarters of an anti-Spirit organization, which (surprise!) is led by his bipolar younger sister. Kirino-- sorry, Kotori, proposes her master plan to Shidou: prevent the Spirits' destruction by making them fall in love with him. How is he meant to achieve this? By studying dating sims, of course.

Funnily enough, this ridiculous premise is actually one of Date A Live's few redeeming points. It is self-aware and (usually) does not attempt to be anything more than silly fun. Some of the best moments are when Shidou attempts to swoon the girls with cliched eroge lines, only to be met by awkward silence and/or violent threats. It is a show that prides itself in absurdity. Mostly. At other times it is just woefully stupid.

And that is the problem. Date A Live, in all of its wisdom, also tries to push a semi-serious 'plot' amidst its comedy. A plot so riddled with lazy writing and insufferable cliches that the anime becomes the very thing that is parodying. Transfer students, toast-in-mouth, and the beloved walk-in-on-clearly-occupied-bathroom cliche? Check. Girls falling in love with Shidou for no conceivable reason except to increase the size of his harem? You bet. Deus ex machina? The third episode contains two within minutes of each other. There is even a scene in the anime where the Anti-Spirit Team-- which for some inexplicable reason is comprised entirely of busty, half-naked high school girls-- gets tentacle raped by ramen. Yes, ramen. Full stop. I will leave that to your consideration.

Shidou himself does not do the writing any favors. If there is a problem, he will preach it away- almost always with a few jejune words about self-sacrifice or how his victim simply isn't happy enough. If he is hurt, he will be magically healed through some convenient plot device. He doesn't need to fight or do anything remotely intelligent, because why the hell would he? He has plot armor to save the day. Date A Live is not concerned about petty notions such as 'sense'.

Writing aside, you will indubitably gain some enjoyment from the 'cute girls' appeal. And cute they are. Tsunako's character designs (most easily recognized through her work on the Hyperdimension Neptunia franchise) adds a level of appeal uncommon to most harem anime. Kurumi's design, for example, is one of the most attractive in anime or manga- no hyperbole intended. Their personalities are also equally adorable (though often limited to archetypes) with characters like Tohka frequently finding ways to get your heart racing. If Date A Live were to be judged solely by the cuteness of its female cast, it would be a work of art. But it is not.

It shouldn't come as much of a surprise given the designs, but Date A Live's artwork is for the most part high-quality. Characters are rendered in a consistent manner and the colorful art design tends to make up for any imperfections that the animation occasionally has. It is certainly a step down from the original light novel illustrations, though.

The sound also does not disappoint. It's almost a little saddening, even, knowing that such quality was expended on a show of this caliber. The background tracks are excellent, as is the cast of seiyuu (who do a skillful job of delivering personality to each girl) while even the catchy opening and ending sequences manage to stand out. It should be noted though that the ending sequences are supremely lazy from an animation standpoint, usually containing a single image that is panned over continuously until the song ends. Surely more effort could have been put there.

All in all, Date A Live is an absolute mess of a story-- but a disturbingly entertaining one. It is something to be watched-- maybe enjoyed-- and then immediately forgotten (assuming the writing does not give you an aneurysm). It represents precisely why an anime cannot survive on cuteness alone. Tohka does come close to saving the show, though. Almost.

If you are the kind of viewer that cares not for critical quality, then perhaps the girls will be enough to keep you entertained. For everybody else, and especially those already revolted by the harem genre, make sure to keep a few bandages handy. You might need them after hitting your head against the wall.

Date a Live: a series where a protagonist works to defeat invading entities... by dating them. From this description alone, you the viewer should hopefully have realized that this is a parody series - specifically parodying mecha series such as Evangelion, Gundam and Muv Luv, and replacing the invading force with cute girls.

This may sound absurd, perhaps even trite - but here's the catch - it's actually incredibly fun. If you've watched (or read) some of the aforementioned mecha series, you should at least find amusement in how the mecha genre is respectfully made fun of; couple to that a great ensemble of characters who ... deliver various amusing lines throughout episodes, the result is a show which should keep you laughing throughout its duration.

At the centre of the series is the protagonist Itsuka Shidou who is tasked with the aforementioned role of dating invading entities. This of course leads to him quickly developing a harem of various diverse personalities, for which Shidou has his own personal radio-based command centre assisting him from afar - there is no such thing as going too far in Date a Live. As mentioned above, the characters in this are variously fantastic in different ways: thus there is much to like in the various harem members; Shidou himself is a decent harem lead, tackling things head on and taking care of his harem (which is more than can be said for most harem protagonists).

Behind the parody, comedy and harem aspects there is also a serious story about the invading entities causing mass devastation and killing millions of people. To counteract this there is (within the confined area depicted) an Anti-Spirit Team consisting of mecha-suited girls who are armed to the teeth with various weapons. This aspect gives Date a Live some nicely choreographed battle sequences, and helps to further along its lively pacing. Whilst this side of the story provides serious undertones, they seldom undermine the generally lighthearted disposition of the episodes.

The artwork for the series is particularly nice, with cute character designs that move fluidly when required; characters are also amusingly expressive in accordance with their personalities. I can't think of any instances where the animation fell off-model, which is impressive considering just how much detail is drawn on to each character - sure, this may not be KyoAni levels of detail, but it's nice to see nonetheless.

Overall, this is an entertaining show that applies a different twist to the harem genre and doesn't take itself at all seriously. It's well worth a watch if you can enjoy that sort of thing.

Note: Everything in this review is my personal opinion. I will try to see both sides of the fence because when i talk to people about Date A Live, they either think the show is a work of art, or they this its a complete mess. I am on the side where I think it's a work of art but I will try to not be bias.

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Date A Live, or DAL for short, is a show about spirits invading our world and creating spacequakes upon entering our world that kills thousands of people. These spirits are dangerous entities and we do not know much about ... them. It's up to our main man Shidou to stop these invasions by dating them. Yes, dating them. Now, when I first learned of what the show is about, I thought it was kind of interesting... and stupid. It's a unique idea for a show, albeit stupid, it is unique.

Story - The story is about our harem lead, Shidou, dating the many spirits that invade the earth. To save the people of the earth, it is up to him to date these spirit girls and get them to fall in love with him. While this is going on, there is an anti-spirit team (all girls, of course) and there job is to search and destroy the spirits. As absurd and unique this show sounds, some might think this is a recipe for a disaster, but it’s actually incredibly entertaining. The whole plot is mainly for the entertaining fight scenes, between the spirits and the anti-spirit team, and the several comedic scenes between Shidou and the several spirits that accompany him. They tried to establish a plot half way through the show but it's almost like the creators of DAL just threw their papers in the air and was like "fuck this shit; we'll leave it for season 2". No, I'm serious... That’s pretty much what they did.
Summary: If you think too hard on the plot aspect of DAL your brain will melt. But, if you are watching it purely for the entertainment factor, you can look past the enormous amounts of plot holes and look at DAL for what it is... and entertaining show.

Art - The art style and animations are beautiful to look at. If there is one thing DAL does great its the animations. There were no derp faces, the fight scenes looked crisp, the backgrounds were well done, everything about was done to a tee. The character designs were also very well done. You could tell the creators of DAL put a lot of effort into the art and they didn’t skip a beat. Hats off to them they made the show LOOK good.

Sound - Soundtrack is another category DAL excels at. The BGM fit almost every scene and really brought the most out of each scene. The OP is one of my favorite songs to date and the ED isn't half bad itself. The voice actors fit each character really well. Especially Kurumi... her voice was great and fit the character perfectly. All in all, the soundtrack as a whole was really well done and does not disappoint.

Characters - You can look at the characters for DAL one of two ways. One way is that pretty much every character has almost no backstory and isn’t well devolved. They aren’t very unique as each of them are either the token Tsundere character, or the crazy girl etc.. Or, you can look at it as they are cute anime girls that are funny and entertaining in their each own way. Each girl is cute in their own way, each girl has a great voice actor that fits the character well, and each girl is different enough so that everyone has a different favorite. They are fun; enjoyable characters and each have a different view point on each situation. Albeit while they might not be very flushed out, they do the job. Last but not least, we have Shidou, the main lead and (really the only male character that matters) the one who has the duty of saving these spirits. All I can say about him is that he’s not shit. That is apparently a lot to ask for in these harem type animes. Thankfully, he’s not as bad as most harem leads and in fact he’s pretty good himself. Shidou was probably the biggest surprise out of every character in the show as he didn’t suck.

Overall - If you critically look at DAL and try to pick it apart asking yourself "well, does this show have a good plot? Were the characters good and have deep, meaningful backstories? Does the show have a great soundtrack? Are the animations up to snuff?” you're in for a bad time. The plot on a whole is a mess, and the characters really aren’t that great if you look at the big picture. But if you are like me and just watch DAL for what it is, a fun and enjoyable anime, then the show is great.
If you are a critic of every anime you watch, DAL might not be the anime for you. But, if you watch an anime for cute girls, cool fights, entertaining comedy, and just plain don't care about plot holes and such, DAL is a must watch.

Ok I am kind of scared to write a positive review for this anime due to the fact that all the positive reviews are getting hated on but I just have too. I know people are saying, yea yeah its a fan service, and the popularity of fan service animes are comparable to hipster music, but i gotta say.. this is quite simply one of the best fan services that i have ever scene. Really, the plot is actually intriguing.

It may just be because this year of anime has been incredibly awful and has led me to believe that every single action anime producer ... is scared to go up against attack on titan, but why lie... when you get passed attack on titan, this anime ranks among the top. On top of that there is a catchy opening and the music featured in the anime is actually pretty good.


Rating for Characters: 8

Look i wont lie, many of the characters are actually intriguing. We have the average protagonist, but the supporting cast is very entertaining. Tohka contantly made me crack up and Origami is a perfectly written annoying girl. She does her job perfectly.

Rating For Art: 7
Ok the art is nothing special, but atleast it doesnt hurt the anime.

Rating for Sound: 9
The voice actors/actresses did their jobs well in this one. Wow did they do great.

Rating for Story and Enjoyment: 10
This is not your stereotypical fanservice. There is a plot with back story and there is action. The action is perfectly written. Yeah i do wish a character would actually die for once but other than that i have no complaints. It is a very entertaining 24 minutes watching this.

Overall: 9
Say what you want to say, but I enjoyed this. It had comedy and action, and after watching the train wreck of an anime "Karneval," i really came to love this little fanservice. I do hope that season 2 does not try too hard, because the balance of action and cute comedy is perfect.

Life isn't always fun.

It's especially bothering when you have a little imouto who drives you nuts everyday when you wake up. But more so, sometimes people wish they get more enjoyment out of their lives. But that might just be a bit too much for a sudden young boy by the name of Shido Itsuka. He gets more than what he ever hoped because on a faithful day, he meets a strange girl who completely turns his life into one hell of a ride.

Yup, the ride begins here and Date a Live takes the concept of 'dating' to a strange level. It's no ... surprise though as the anime industry seems to be often seeking new ways to present the harem/romantic comedy genre. Date a Live is a Japanese light novel series written by Tachibana Koushi with illustrations by Tsunako. There's also a manga version of the series but let's cut to the chase of the anime adaptation rather, shall we?

Date a Live is a series and some may imply is about 'dating'. That part of the concept is correct because it's up to the main male protagonist of the series, Shido Itsuka, to save the world by making certain characters fall in love with him! The series literally takes the concept of a dating sim and transforms it (at it least tries to) into an animated medium. That's a lot easier said than done though to be honest especially since the majority of the characters in the series are not so normal. Take for example, Tohka Yatogami (code name: Princess) who came to Earth unexpectedly. She tries to follow the way of the world but lacks common sense. Even with her huge appetite and elite fighting skills, she often behaves like a child and acts immaturely during many situations. However, Tohka does have a cute and adorable side to her and wishes to protect what she treasures. These include the feelings of others as well as the people she has met.

Among other characters, the series clearly follows the path of a bit of harem theme. This is shown in the form of another girl (Origami Tobiichi) that Shido attends high school with. To make things more bizarre is that she also seems to have not only have a secret but literally stalks Shido at every corner. For unknown reasons, she seems to have a connection with Shido and declares him as her “lover”. At the same time, her actions often speaks louder than words as she is very direct with her affections which often puts Tohka at frustration when it comes to Shido. In general, Origami is a girl of peculiarity and mystery that surrounds her character throughout each episode.

Speaking of mysteries, there's definitely some in this series here and there. For one thing, Shido has a mysterious power and that itself is a mystery. Furthermore, the method to seal the deal with the spirits throughout the series is through a contact with the lips. However, at the same time, there's questions regarding how this is power is manifested.

As mentioned before, the series is titled “Date a Live”. The 'date' is the keyword here because to seal a spirit, one must make them fall in love with the protagonist. The dating sim part comes into play here as Shido is “trained” by his superiors in order to achieve their goals. The organization known as Ratatoskr practices dating simulations and gives advise to Shido in order to make the spirits fall in love with him. These often ends up with mixed results.

It also seems that at many instances, Shido doesn't want to get involved with the whole dating process and is forced directly into it by his superiors. In fact, there's no true evidence showing Shido showing any real romantic affections towards any of the spirits he has encountered. Needless to say, he is in a world where he just wants to get the job done and move on with his once peaceful life.

The series itself is consisted of only 12 episodes. Going by the phase of the light novel, that leaves only about 3 episodes per 'arc' for each Spirit. This can spell out a pacing problem with the usual 'things that should have been there but are not'. However, the series makes some big mistakes in this case as there are instances of fillers as well as cases where an episode has almost absolutely no value to progressing the main storyline. To make things as typical as they seem to be from this romantic comedy/harem, the common usage of fan service is employed in the form of bare skin and gratuitous outfits. These outfits are reflected in the battle gear that the military uses to combat the spirits throughout the series.

The fan service doesn't seem to stop there though. Even from the first few minutes of the anime, the series takes off with the panty shots and an annoying voice coming from a certain 'little sister'. Then, there's the characters' designs. Tohka's school uniform is generic but Origami's military battle suits takes it to another level with its designs showing the suggestive parts. The other spirits are also dressed strangely although it does bring out a colorful background to their characters. Still, it is generic with their different colored hair. Despite them all being spirits, I can hardly take the series serious sometimes with the whole dating concept. The development between Shido and most of the spirits are also cliched and hardly any meaningful if at all. I don't sense a real sense of connection or build up but rather as a dating sim game. The dating concept itself is also weak with the lame pickup lines that lakes any flavor. It's hardly any humorous at times and often misused according to the whole concept itself.

Luckily, there's still the action presented by the members of the military. The gadgets they use are as deadly as it looks and packs some devastating firepower. It shows that the military are serious about their tasks of dealing with the Spirits. It is because they hope to contain them should Shido fail in his quest. The spirits themselves are also damn powerful. Some of them proves to be more than a match and it seems that Shido is the only backbone to save humanity. It's the whole 'save the world' concept again but with the twist of dating.

Oh and speaking of dating, there's definitely some of that where it comes from. It's quite awkward though because by the way of things, Shido doesn't seem to have an ounce of dating experience prior to meeting the spirits. He often takes actions from “advise” from the military and Kotori, Shido's superior. These create awkward situations. Along with the misunderstandings, Date a Live continuously falls under the common cliched anime of the romantic harem genre. It's complete with the transfer student, the cute little sister, the nice guy, and of course dating.

In terms of soundtrack, I have to admit that Date a Live did pull off a magic out of its hat. "Date A Live “ by sweet ARMS has an electronic rhythm and gets the point across quickly. One can even see some action in the scenes along with the spirits who are soon to debut. It's colorful in the sense that the OST also depicts comedy, drama, romance, action, and emotional moments. Furthermore, there are many different ED songs to the series giving the viewers a variety to enjoy.

The artwork of the series is mediocre though. The outfits that the characters dress whether in combat or at school is generic and suggestive. It doesn't help by the fact that some of those outfits are little more than a reflection of the characters. Although colorful and distinguishing, it still remains barely tolerable with the way spirits should be. It's almost difficult to take it serious at times especially when there are 'gory' scenes out in the open but the artwork makes it seem like romantic comedy.

In general, Date a Live is just another series that takes the theme of science fiction and then mixes it it with some new twists like the dating sim concept. It's a fun theme to embrace but can hardly to be taken serious to heart at all. The whole concept itself is weak with the development and rushed sequences. Having read the LN, the pace of the series also seems to fall apart. The catch here is more than just a simple kiss. Rather, Date a Live just tries too hard and make it almost too unbelievable for its presentation. In the end, there are several choices that viewers can choose if they decide to watch this:

1) For fun and pass time
2) The concept/premise
3) Storyline
4) None of the above but rather just go with the flow

If option #4 was your choice, then just do what it says. Go with the flow and turn your brains off while hoping to enjoy the series.

Date a Live(Dead or Alive) is a parody series of mecha series. It is focused on a protagonist, Itsuka Shidou, as he race against time to save cute spirits invading the Earth by dating them. A really unique comdy, harem, love comedy in my opinion.

The story is a 10. Again, there aren't anything else out there like Date a Live. There were things in the anime I didn't expect to happen and I don't mean it in a bad way.

The art is a 10. It really depends what you're used to watching in order to calculate the art score right. To me, this anime ... has some fantastic arts due to Mrs Tsunako. The same artist who designed the game and another series. Chou Jigen.

The sound is a 10 also. The fact that I never got tired of the opening proved to me that sweetARMS earned themselves a 10. The background music fitted the situations really well during the actual anime as well.

Character was a 10. Koushi Tachibana did a great job developing the different varieties of characters in this series as well as their own behaviour and color themes. I'd love to talk more about each characters and my wife. But spoilers lol.

Enjoyment................Hmmmmmmmmmmmm 10. I watched all 10 episodes non-stop. Though it sounds bad, I didn't leave my room at all during these 5 hours. It was very enjoyable for me. An instant "Add to Favorites" for me.

Overall, it was great that they adapted this to anime and a game. I'm personally getting them game but anyways, very good anime. A 10 and Favorite is the best I can do on this site but if you come into my room. Yeah you'll feel me then. Bye guys, Tohka is hungry again.

If you were looking for an harem, love comedy anime, voila Date A Live is the anime to watch.
But hold on, this anime is not only a typical cliché love comedy, but quite full of action and for some people, can be thought of as a bit bloody(?).

Itsuka Shido, the male protagonist, basically tries to save several extraterrestrial beings called "Spirits" by getting the spirits to accept (love) him and to do so, he goes on a "Date" with each and one of them; a typical galge story line. Up to now, it sound a love comedy, but here is what makes this anime called ... Date "A Live". Spirits, when they appear in Earth causes a mass-area destruction, called spacequake, which can be big or small, but either way cause many casualties and more importantly, deaths. Even with spacequakes they are dangerous, but these Spirits have their personal weapon(s) and armor, called Angel and Astral Dress, which differs from Spirits to Spirits, but the fact is, it is "quite" dangerous. Itsuka Shido has to deal with not only one, but several of them, so good luck to our dear protagonist.

There is broadly three different divisions in this story. Ratatoskr, an organization founded in order to solve issues with Spirits and spacequakes through peaceful means (Dating). The organization is place in a floating arial ship called Fraxinus and from this ship, Shido gets assistance of how to increase the spirits' love parameter towards him (galge). AST(Anti-Spirits Team) is a special unit within Japan Self-Defense Force (Japan's Army) that uses military power to eliminate Spirits. Even with advanced technological weapons and equipments, however, the damage that they give to spirits is little. Finally, there is DEM (Deus Ex Machina) Industries, which is the one of the largest corporations in the world, which creates and develops weapons to go against the Spirits. They are rivals with Ratatoskr. AST utilizes the weapons created by DEM.

Character explanations

Itsuka Shido - male protagonist of the story. When young, he lost his memories, and the Itsuka family brought him in. Shido, because of being the only outsider of the family, lived a hikikomori life, full of despair, which made him able to observe other people's despair and sadness when looking at them. When he saw the first spirit, Tohka, he saw the despair within her, which made his determination of saving Spirits.

Yatogami Tohka - First Spirit that appears in the story. She was referred to as a "Princess" until Shido names her Tohka, just because the day that first encountered was April 10th (10th when read in Japanese is pronounced as "tohka"). In the beginning, she appears in her Astral Dress, firm and dignified, like a noble person. At first, she is skeptical and hostile towards Shido because when Tohka first appeared in Earth, she as attacked by AST. However, after Shido makes her fall in love with him, Tohka's personality somewhat changes into that of a loyal puppy. Her Angel(weapon) is called Sandalphon which is in a form of boardsword, but usually even without it, she can inflict quite a damage.

Tobiichi Origami - A member of AST, who has a inhuman hostility towards Spirits due to lost of her parents from a spacequake when young. She is not a very talkative person with cold personality but not with Shido. She is self-proclaimed lover (stalker) of Shido. Origami says that she as known Shido for a long time, but Shido doesn't remembers.

Itsuka Kotori - Foster sister of Shido, who is a human that earn the power of a Spirit. Kotori is the leader of Ratatoskr, supporting Shido with his date with Spirits. When she is wearing a Black Ribbon, her personality is a "tsun"; when wearing a "White" Ribbon, her personality is a "dere." All together, Itsuka Kotori is a Tsundere. There you go, end of explanation of her. Her Angel is called Camael, a battle-axe that is capable of changing shape to a cannon.

Yoshino/Yoshinon - Don't get confused, they are two different characters. Yoshino is the second Spirit that Shido meets and saves. She is referred as "Hermit" by the AST. Yoshino is the most nonaggressive Spirit that even when she is attacked by AST, she won't fight back. She is shy and VERY shy. Yoshinon is a rabbit hand puppet that Yoshino has on her left hand. Yoshino says that Yoshinon is her "ideal"; Yoshinon is complete opposite of Yoshino as in personality, which is why Yoshino admires this little puppet. Yoshino, however, when told that Yoshinon is a puppet and, especially loses Yoshinon, becomes ferocious and completely changes. Her Angel is Zadkiel, a giant rabbit that Yoshino summons and controls with her right hand. It breathes out freezing air that is capable of freezing the AST members. She is THE cuteness, period.

Tokisaki Kurumi - Third spirit that appears in the story, and the most brutal Spirit. Kurumi, without the spacequake, solely killed over 10,000 humans, and with her gothic lolita appearance, is called the "Nightmare." As can be inferred from her name, Tokisaki (time, bloom), she is able to control time. Her left eye has a clock face, with the clock hands moving in the opposite direction, representing her life. She suddenly appears in front of Shido by transferring into his school, and showing her interest to him. She is quite bold with her action, which causes Shido to be bewildered during his "mission." Mana repeatedly kills Kurumi, but fails due to Kurumi's Angel, Zafkiel's ability to control time.

Takamiya Mana - A temporary second lieutenant of AST, she works for DEM Industries. She is revealed to be the real sister of Shido, except the only proof she has is that she doesn't have any memories of past, just like Shido, and possesses a pendant with a picture showing a young boy and her standing close together. Her appearance is somewhat like the female version of Shido. She is renown for "killing" the Spirit.

There are many other characters that I haven't talked but these are the major characters that came up so far (ep 8). If I get into seiyuus, this is going to be too long, so for the seiyuu, let me say only one thing, Thank you for having Taketatsu Ayana voice act for Itsuka Kotori. Sweet Arms sung the opening theme "Date A Live" which when listening to the lyrics, you might be able to catch the basic flow of the story. The ending theme changes from episodes to episodes so that could be a point of enjoyment to watch to, but the best moment of the show is where the narrator in the beginning giving a brief preview of each episodes.

Overall, if you want to see a school battle love comedy show, Date A Live is what you would consider watching.

ps. Yoshino, the Best.

Date a live is a great anime which I think deserves a nice overall rating.

The story is great, the complications, the climax, it is all interesting and can be enjoyed well. However, in the resolution, or the ending, there are still some questions left unanswered which dissatisfies some of the watchers. It is possible that they will answer it in the second season if there is any.

The art is great, the character illustration is realistic and well drawn. The characters in the story is also interesting as some of them are not just ordinary humans and are spirits, and it adds some interests to the ... anime.

I enjoyed the whole story except for the ending part, because it's very teasing for me and I don't feel satisfied by the ending.

For the overall rating, I think it's a great anime. But there are some problems on recommending this kind of anime, because of the fan service, I can't possibly recommend this anime to everyone. Even so, I think this is a great anime which you should watch :) This is my first review so far, forgive me if I made any mistakes. Good day~!

MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS
Date a Live, definitely an interesting series, and does take a unique spin on the harem/dating theme.
Please keep in mind that this is my own personal opinion and whether you choose to think I'm an idiot or not is up to you.
Now returning to the anime, I haven't read the light novel to Date a Live, but I usually just watch the anime or read the manga series if I found the anime interesting. The one thing that did keep me hooked onto this series had to be the way they spun a new way to the aliens to earth/ in this ... case magical spirits each containing their own specific type of power.

The Story: I'll have to say one thing, they better air a second series or I'm going to be one pissed new fan, this is caused by the amount of story lines they left hanging and the still missing background info on the fire spirit that turns Kotori (Shido the main character's non blood related little sister, into one of the spirits that seem to torture Japan, but in reality are just lost entities with no memory or purpose). Other than the missing plot continuations of several possible character developments, the story was one of the main reasons I kept into the series, although it seems as if they tried to end this series on its 12th episode and rushed the ending SIGNIFICANTLY, the plot twists they provided were sufficient to the unique hold it had on the whole harem/dating to save Japan kind of thing.

The Art and Sound: I haven't found an anime series yet that I have to complain about the art and the sound. Being a new 2013 released anime the picture and animation looked great along with a soundtrack to compliment the scenes sufficiently.

The Characters: The main character Itsuka Shido is a combination of an innocent, kind, caring, and savior type of character during the series which contributes to him winning over a few spirits and humans to add to the harem theme. Other supporting characters which play standard roles in the harem theme include Yoshino, the shy, quiet, kind of lolicon aspect who has powers relating to h2o. Yatogami Tohka who contributes as the main girl as which the main character will likely end up with but a easily embarrassed,jealous, supporting, lacks common sense, is very pretty and can eat like Goku. (find this helpful if you got that reference). Now Tobiichi Origami is an interesting type of character, working for the enemy of the spirits, known as the AST, she doesn't fail to be attracted to Shido in the pushy,get her way type, but when it comes down to her purpose of life, nothing else could matter. Origami may be the most peculiar character in the series, beside Kurumi who can control time. Since Kurumi is a big part of the arc and its ending I will leave out her description, however she is one of the major factors along with Shido, Kotori, and Takamiya Mana's lack of memory of the past. Takamiya Mana is supposedly Shido's biological sister but her only proof is an old pendant of the past, some possible character development and foreshadowing of major conflict and sadness is revealed but never resolved. (Another reason to hope for a season 2).

Overall I enjoyed this series it provided a few chuckles, and some tasteful ecchi moments but not to the point where the female characters' boobs have a rave party at every moment,(Highschool of the Dead), and the unique dating harem aspect. I highly recommend watching this series if, you read the LN (which I still need to), and or you liked similar anime such as Angel Beats!, or Sekirei, the To Love Ru series and Sora No Otoshimono (Forte). They fill the time well and the episodes aren't full of too much filler, with some comedy on the side you'll blitz through all 12 episodes in a few hours without knowing it. It's a definite good series and worth watching, the only fault I find it with is the change of pace in the plot development, and the possibility of not having a second season xD.

Thanks for reading!

Another anime with fanservice as it's theme, of course when there's fanservice there'a always the word "Harem".Don't get me wrong I have nothing against harem anime or it's counterpart, reverse harem. Anyway, as I was saying there's really not much great or new to see in this anime. A tsundere ' Princess ', a kuudere 'doll-like' human, a dandere ' Hermit' with another personality , a sister or rather foster sister who also has a split personality, a yangire, the most brutal spirit ' Nightmare' ( I just love using their codenames ) and finally the dense protagonist who helps anyone in trouble thereby making ... all the girls fall for him.... now that's what you call NEW..or not

Recently anime these days focuses on this type of storyline because they think that they would acquire a lot of viewers, especially guys, by watching this type of anime.... There are no character development except for the fact that all the female protagonist falls in love with their savior. The story is.... I mean, Shido, the protagonist must make the spirits fall in love with him and kiss them to seal their powers and he's the only one who could do that.. Oh great.. I'm surprise that I'm not surprised, a typical protagonist who was once a regular boy met a strange girl then learns that he has a power no one ever has then characters, particularly female, started to increase then BAM! the same story again and again... The fighting scenes.. ( are there any? ) because all I can see at the time that I watched it was crap.

Why I decided to watch it
- the animation is good
- music theme is fine

Why i dropped this
- the story is at the same time typical and weird
- too much fan service not enough fighting scene
- too much girls..seriously.. you have to kiss all that girls?
and the main reason is I'm tired of this kind of anime

But the animation is good, really. and tohka's spirit form got into me coz I really like violet as a color, I know I'm bias.

Quality entertainment is one thing in any anime show that has ever existed, whether it’s supposed to be the intention or if it was unintentional. With that in mind, many people conclude that shows like Date A Live are why anime has gone downhill in recent years because it has officially run out of ideas on what to do with any story. It doesn’t matter how well they tell it, just how it entertains the masses. I find this thinking overly cynical and silly because this isn’t exactly a new way of thinking. For years, anime studios have put filler shows in season slots since ... the beginning of anime; whether they were all bad or good is debatable by today’s standards. Nowadays, these harem shows are the best way to churn out these kinds of filler slots to appeal to the casual fan base who like to watch girls flaunt over one guy in comedic ways.

The premise of Date a Live is a common trope of parody anime like The World God Only Knows, where one male character is sent on a mission to capture the hearts of girls around him. The only problem is that Date a Live doesn’t rely on parody or satire. It’s a straight-up action show with romance thrown in for good measure. I can describe this show by taking The World God Only Knows and ripping out most of the charm and wit that show had, and then you have Date a Live. It may seem unfair to say that these two shows are similar when they follow different genres. Still, they are identical in one particular area, which makes them indistinguishable from what I described earlier.

With that said, is the show entertaining to watch regardless of this? Yes, it is. The one thing that I will commend Date a Live is the production value, and the artwork is gorgeous to see. It makes you marvel at the talent the animators have in giving us excellent eye candy even outside of action sequences. Even at a draw distance, the characters still look magnificent even by today’s standards.

With the special praise gone out of the way, how does this show fair with its characters? The characters from their archetypes and personalities are mixed with elaborating this further. On the one hand, you have someone like Tohka, who is an absolute joy to watch because of her very energetic personality. On the other, Origami is very nicely detailed from her battle armor and humorous deadpan emotions. Many characters don’t give anything on the plate of depth or entertainment. You could call them cliches, but sometimes you can develop imaginative ways of providing cliched characters with good depth to them. Still, you hardly get any of that with Yoshino, Kurumi, or Kotori. They're in the show just because they’re there to get the plot going and nothing else. It doesn’t help the fact to make the story going when you put too many filler arcs that aren’t very entertaining in the first place.

While I’m discussing the characters in Date A Live, Shido himself is a weak protagonist in the sense that there's absolutely nothing about him that makes him a well-rounded individual. He is nothing more than your average teenage boy who is friendly but doesn’t have the guts to ask any girl of the girls anything with a straight face. Yes, I know some real-life guys are like him. But in no single second did they give any strong trait that makes him indistinguishable from other protagonists in most harem shows. I know it’s not often you get protagonists such as Yokodera in Hentai Ouji or Tomoki from Sora no Otoshimono who are very strong in expressing their feelings, but is that asking too much?

One major problem that needs to be said is the show's overall pacing, not only with the plot but also with the character progression. It seemed as though the writers wanted to rush out the essential steps that made great characters and didn’t bother to slow things down. These steps would make the girls understand Shido more instead of him just kissing the girls to make them head over heels for him. It is not uncommon to see anime adaptations of manga or Light Novels skip many things that the source material initially laid out. Still, it’s essential to realize that the best way is to cut the unimportant arcs in the original Light Novel. From what I can tell, being a person who never read the novel, they seemed to have rushed some plot arcs that seemed crucial in the Light Novel. Then there’s the ending that looked like a cop-out telling us, “Hey, there’s going to be a sequel! So you’re just going to have to deal with it!” At least that’s what I wished they should have said. At best, that could have been a little more amusing.

In the sound department, the voice actors do an excellent job with their material. Marina Inoue as Tohka is a definite highlight out of everyone from the cast. From the sound of her voice, you can tell right away that she was having tons of fun voicing herself.

In the current Spring season of 2013, I would say this is not a terrible show to sit through. I did have some decent fun with the great action scenes and charming comedy, for what little material they could come up with. With the 2nd season announced, I wouldn’t mind sitting through another season of this. Let us hope that they will learn from their mistakes and make it better than the first one.

Grade: C+

The review will further be edited as more and more episodes are released.~


Of course the plot of Date A Live does seem promising and intriguing to a degree, but it was executed poorly. I was so intrigued with the first few minutes that I grew so disappointed when this anime shown me its true colors that I said and I quote, “Really? I feel so disappointed…” As a result, my sister who overheard me asked if I had a bad day at school and thought I was a freak for explaining why I said what I said. But Date A Live does have its merits ... and it is actually very enjoyable in a way. The first few episodes may not have been as interesting but it gets better further into the story.


The problem I had with Date A Live was the whole making the spirit fall in love with you. I mean really this is technically the whole plot in a nutshell; some random highschool dude has to use the power of love to save humanity from getting destroyed by spacequakes! As if the whole power of love nonsense hasn’t been used in anime enough times already; ludicrous I tell you ludicrous. If I wanted to hear about the importance of love I’ll watch some romance anime or even a Korean drama and if I wanted to learn about the importance of friendship than I’ll watch My Little Pony. But to tell you the truth, I just wanted to see the action, is that too much to ask for? Can’t I watch one action scene where the lesson of love does not knock on my door? Guess not. My last and only complaint for this anime so far, can’t the pickup lines be less cheesy? In order for Shido to make the spirits fall in love with him a team of love experts was formed to help with decision making or as The World God Only Knows may call it, which route to take. But these so called love experts are what I would describe to be merely as people who FAIL at love, I mean seriously one of these so called love experts was a guy who married and divorced five times! If I wanted a team of experts, I would have hired Katsuragi Keima the god of harems to teach these so called love experts a thing or two about how to get some love points from a decent girl.

However, the one thing that I enjoyed the most about Date A Live was that it is still a better love story than Twilight (sorry couldn’t resist). What I liked the most was that the relationship development between the first spirit (named Tohka) and Shido didn’t feel so much as forced but had actually enough development between them to know that these two really do have feelings for each other. Their romance is not the best, but it’s acceptable and cute in a way. Another thing I enjoyed about the anime that it was pretty funny and to tell you the truth it made me laugh more than in actual comedy anime.

Date A Live works like a dating sim, it focuses on different heroines every few episodes, but there will always be only one true heroine that will end up with our hero. Date A Live, however, is not far enough in the story currently to make conclusions on who ends up with who. But in a way, Date A Live is unique in a way compared to other anime built up like a dating sim because of the special extras included in it. These extras include the action, the mechas, and maybe some added science fiction. Because of these special added extras Date A Live definitely has a nice appeal going for it proving that this kind of anime does not have to be set in a cliché setting in order to get some proper romance and development in it.

I will now commence in describing a few important characters in the story while adding a bit of my own personal opinion on each of them…
Shido Itsuka, the main protagonist of Date A Live, he is a Keima Katsuragi in training.
Tohka, the main heroine of the story, she was the first spirit saved by Shido, during the course of her arc she develops strong feelings for Shido. If anything were to happen to him, she will do anything to avenge him.
Origami Tobiichi, intelligent classmate of Shido who is athletic, "beautiful", and the most famous person in his school, she is part of the AST (organization that is sent to destroy spirits) due to the death of her parents caused by spirits.
Kotori Itsuka, Shido’s little sister, she is the commander of the organization Shido works for and harbors a split personality that changes depending on the situation. She goes from a sweet loving stereotypical little sister to a sadistic leader when her personality switches.
Yoshino, the second spirit saved by Shido, she is extremely shy and uses a rabbit puppet named Yoshinon in order to communicate with others and to let out her true feelings.

The opening song of Date A Live has to be one of my favorites its one of the only few anime openings that I won’t ever skip, the song was sung by sweet ARMS. There are two endings for the anime currently known as “SAVE THE WORLD” and “SAVE MY HEART” they are both relatively above average endings but not the best. The art for Date A Live is nothing special, it’s not the best and not the worse. The art does not have any special graphics or artistic effects like Bakemonogatari or ef- a tale of memories. But the art has fluid animation and great backgrounds and coloring so I’ll give it that.


The first two episodes of Date A Live, I have to admit, made me almost want to drop the anime all together, but I’m glad I was able to give it one last chance. As the anime’s storyline got better I got used to the misconceptions it gave me at first, that the anime would primarily focus on romance and use its plot as backup, but overtime I learned that the plot was actually getting somewhere and all, I think. I would recommend this anime for people who greatly enjoy visual novel adaptations with a mix of action, fantasy, and much more. So far this anime isn’t what you’d rate a very good just yet in my opinion, but I feel that it will only get better in the future.

[This is a spoiler free review in case anyone is wondering.]

It appears as if Date a Live seems to have been an anime I was recommended to by so many friends, yet when I looked at reviews, many of them were... negative. If figured I should go watch the anime myself and see how I feel. So without further wait, let's go.

Story: (6/10)

Admittedly, the story is where Date a Live fails the most at. It's not really anything original (then again it IS a parody anime) It takes on the life of this protagonist who has to date a bunch of magical girls ... known as "Spirits" and make them fall in love with him in order to prevent them from getting killed by another organisation. Perhaps the only thing interesting about this plot is that the main character uses visual novels to train for this and during his dates he is faced with many options he can choose(again a reference to visual novels).
With this you can see that it has its fair share of harem and of course, fan service. Now, I'm generally not a big fan of harems (as I personally prefer the main character to focus on one person and I hate cheating *cough*School Days *cough*), but they can be quite good when they are done correctly or if they're not taken seriously. Sadly, DaL doesn't do that. It tackles the harem genre, yet attempts to keep a flow of seriousness between the relationships going which kinda ruins everything. For a bunch of episodes, you've got the main character developing his relationship with the current girl, only for her to be thrown aside as a side character, replaced by a new girl. That seriousness isn't only in the romance however. No. For most part of the show, it keeps a light hearted mood and that's what it's good had. Keeping it cool and funny. But then you have moments were the show tries to be serious and you just want it to be over cause it's bad.

Another major down point in the story is that events seem to happen just for the hell of it. Things just happen and characters do things without really having any reason behind it. Characters often don't have a proper backstory and if they do, the characters themselves don't remember it so you're left with nobody really knowing anything and just doing stuff solely to get the story moving. Of course some stuff does get explained at the very end, but I personally thought it took too long to explain them and still didn't block a lot of the plot holes you'll find by the end of the story. Ah well. Season 2 is coming up so we'll see.

Art: (9/10)

The Art of DaL is actually pretty good. Animation is smooth for most parts and the opening is a joy to watch. But perhaps what I really like about the art is the character designs. Each character (especially the girls in their spirit clothing) look stunning and original. They are filled with detail and fit their personalities so darn well. Very colourful. Then again the guy who designed them WAS apparently the same guy who designed the girls in Hyperdimension Neptunia and those girls looked beautiful too. Main character DOES look a bit plain but apart from that, everything looks nice.
Fan Service is alright. I somewhat enjoy good delivered fan service so it was quite ok at some points.

Sound: (7/10):

Sound is alright I suppose. Though quite frankly, the only song that stood out and was a pleasure to hear was the Opening song which made me listen to it every time I watched an episode. Apart from that, nothing really stands out so if you want an anime with a lot of fitting tunes and perfectly orchestrated music, go watch Attack on Titan.

Characters: (8/10)

I kinda have mixed feelings for the characters. Almost all of them have their own unique personality that makes watching them interact with each other a hilarious experience, though again, that's when they're NOT trying to be serious. Of course some might argue that the main character is a bit too plain, which I wouldn't disagree with. Along with his dull look, he will come off as very normal and generic to some people. Personally, I found him alright.

So yeah, when it comes to personality and design, characters look great. But oh boy, again, with their backstory. Like I said, half of them don't remember anything about their past, and those who do, won't say anything till the end. Some of them don't even bring up the topic of their past as if it doesn't even matter.

Enjoyment: (9/10)

Now here's where my personal opinion comes in. Despite the show's horrendous story flaws and other problems, I actually really enjoyed this show. This is mainly because it was just so funny and hilarious watching it. Like I said, when the story isn't taking itself seriously, it's so hilarious watching the main guy try to interact and deal with all the different girls, including your regular tsundere, emotionless but intelligent girl and loli.

I wanted something funny and that's what I got... well for the most part anyway...

Overall: ( 8/10)

To make this short, Date a Live isn't the type of anyway you should watch if you're expecting something serious with deep plot elements cause it disappoints in that area. However, it's the type of show you can sit back to and laugh along with. It does a great job when trying to be funny and makes interactions a joy to watch.
Think of DaL as a half-arsed knitted scarf your grandmother made for you. It's a bit uncomfortable but once you get used to it, it's actually pretty good. It's also silky smooth but don't look at it too closely cause you'll start seeing the holes. Peace out.

- This is a Edited version after the show finished
- This contains a small amount of SPOILERS.

As this is not a very complicate show, I would go straight into business. By no means was this bad show, but this is not something stunning/moving either; despite a rather attractive background and seemingly innovative setting, This is a mediocre show: It is not really that innovative, Not really that corny, not really touching/entertaining and not really humorous, but Instead it stucks right in the middle of everything.

Despite a clear vision as they attempt to innovate by adding Galgame Elements into the plot, adapting some sort ... of “Love-Meter” into the show and makes a parody show about Galgame, It goes nowhere beyond that. The setting was nowhere near complete, for example you never know what the Ratatoskr does besides helping Shido to date and helping him to make his choices, which seems to be everything that this seemingly huge organization does.

Despite a rather innovative approach of adapting Galgame Cultures into anime backgrounds, the core elements (Like the screenwriting) that hide inside the Galgame setting are the wrongdoings. The pick-up lines are incredibility cheesy and old fashioned. Rather than dating, most of the time it almost seems to be some sort of social worker trying to help the wellbeing of the applicant, along with some quite heroic actions that you could certainly live without because you’ve probably seen it too many times – to be exact, four – as every single segment ends with shido trying to man up and save the girl.

And, surprisingly, the best part of the show comes not from the main plot, but from the side elements of the show – which is the jokes and some of the characters. Tohka Yatogami’s four episodes are not very interesting. However, those tiny bits between Tohka and Shido after her episodes were more then enough to show the relationship between Tohka and Shido. Tohka is the only one that had showed growth and had thought for the others at the final episodes. Besides Tohka, the rest only serves as jokes and side dishes that were not very important. Origami took a major role in the show, but whenever she comes up, she would be only doing three things: trying to kill somebody, ask for Shido’s care, or act as some sort of joke. The rest was either not potray entirely and had to wait till second season (like Kurumi), some was just not very interesting and act as a joke/insignificant plot device throughout the whole series, like DEM, AST, Mana, Yoshino and so on.

To conclude my short review, I would say that Date Alive attempts to be joking but act serious (by using a joke to cover up the serious bits), but it becomes the other way round and turned into something that is seriously joking. It might be interesting if they actually manage to pull it off (what they are trying to be), but a show like this is probably just outrageously ridiculous and had turned into some sort of funny show that somehow sounds stupid. I would say that this is an entertaining show, since some of the episodes actually made me laugh hard, but probably that would be my biggest (and my only) compliment for them.

PS: It is said that the second season would be much better. Many of the fans from the original novel series actually recommend me to read the novels. I would consider that as an option as the original series is something quite big. If you manage to find a copy, I would suggest you to do so.

This does not deserve it's hype. Actually, how did it even get hyped in the first place?

This show? Basically fanservice, fanservice, fanservice, more fanservice, boobs, explosions, boobs, explosions.

The main character's reactions to everything made absolutely no sense and had no rationality whatsoever. My adoptive sister is suddenly the commander of a floating invisible airship? Okay, cool. She wants me to date potentially life-threatening girls who can flatten a suburb in a matter of seconds and kiss them? SURE! No problem!

I don't even care if this spoils the beginning, hopefully you won't make the same mistake as me and watch this garbage.

I have ... the lowest standards for anime out of anyone I know. I enjoy anime people find horrible, but this was just unbearable. I think the only noteworthy character was Kurumi, because she was the only character that didn't drop to their knees within two episodes.

Avoid it, however you can. It's bad.

Toilet paper and pretty pictures review - Date a live

I'm going to strangle the person who recommended Date a Live to me when I asked for an anime similar to TWGOK.

From the setting of Date a Live, you would think this is like a mix of TWGOK and EVA, with date the girl to save the world.

YOU ARE WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cause obviously you never seen what made TWGOK and EVA good, what we have here is not a show like them, cause they were GOOD and Date a Live is SHIT.

... story - 1

Jerk off parade, cause there is no plot. As I said many times, all magic school genre is trying to be Toaru whether they admit it or not, but none of them ever understood why Toaru was good. (ie ridiculous high octane action) So Date a Live's idea of innovation is to rip-off TWGOK, except TWGOK had humour, interest, atmosphere, character and wit! Keima had much more personality than a cardboard box and a great development over the arcs. While Date a Live has...nothing.

As for the dating girls, they try to satire dating sims, and that is a big fucking joke. I'm not sure whether you played a dating sim before, but Shidou's actual personality is even less than the faceless Dating Sim protagonists, and the way he actually get the girls to fall for him is the classic "LN good guy", ie having no personality.

Characters - 2

The girls are LN cardboard cut-outs, and TWGOK had better girls.

So onto the MC, Let's see, Shidou have a bland face, a bland voice, and no personality beyond "LN nice guy". Again I'm going to drawn comparison to the works that did it better, Toaru "insane sarcastic moralfag (recently became self-righteous as of NT14)", TWGOK "anti-social genius who slowly walk out of his shell", EVA "depressed kid who finally breaks".

Again DAL tries to present itself as a satire, but it have no self-awareness of any degree, and comes off moronic. How do you make fun of dating sim archetypes, when your characters are even worse than those archetypes.

Music and sound - 4, 4

It is AIC, ie the studio that never makes anything worthwhile, so it is quite bad.

Overall - 2

You want magic school combat? Watch Toaru.

You want dating sim satire? Watch TWGOK.

You want to have a wank? Watch Hentai.

So it comes down to the question of why DAL exist, cause it shouldn't. Just watch TWGOK again if you are in pain of TWGOK ending like I am.

-Project Zakuro Reviews: Date A Live-

Date A Live is an anime that was released early in the spring of 2013 and has received mix criticism from viewers. Some loved it, some hated it. Many anime released prior to Date A Live have been well below decent so how does Date A Live stack up with the new releases? Well then, let's find out.

From my experience, I felt the story had a lot of potential but unfortunately some of that potential was bogged down by rather ridiculous concepts. I'll explain as I go along. A strange phenomenon called "spacequakes" has been causing destruction all over the ... globe and they are caused by female entities called "Spirits". Our protagonist Shido has been tasked with having to seal their powers before they can cause anymore spacequakes. With what you may ask? By having to go on dates with the Spirits and make them fall in love. That explains what I meant earlier about the story's potential being lack-luster. The concept of spacequakes and Spirits where in my eyes well conceived and I think they could've add more potential to the anime then they let on. But unfortunately the ridiculous concept of a dating sim has killed off the seriousness of these ideas and made it feel more like a harem comedy (which is the anime's true genre). And this was only the first episode. After finishing it, I thought the concepts will make the rest of the anime crash and burn. It turns out that I was wrong. Despite the ridiculous concepts of the plot, this anime was still able to maintain its entertainment factor and improve as the episodes progress. This was a big surprise for me. The rest of the story is basically Shido dating Spirits to seal their powers before the Spirits are killed off by an organization called the AST (Anti-Spirit Team). The story is flawed but it makes up for it with a well-executed entertainment factor.

I'm not too familiar with Tsunako's art work but I can tell that the art style of the characters is pleasant to look at. Each character has their own unique style that makes them quite memorable. Whether it be Kotori's twin pink ponytails or Kurumi's goth-like outfit. The character designs were well done. The setting and background art though are average. Although not bad or terrible, the city designs didn't catch my drift as much as the characters did (mainly because the city the anime takes place in doesn't have some very memorable spots like other cities from other anime). The overall animation is also good and everything runs smoothly to the frame rate. The only issue I have with the animation though is that some scenes will show background characters completely motionless or show only a still image that is being panned. This takes away the livelihood of the scenes that should have been. Otherwise, the art is good nonetheless.

The music that plays in Date A Live has been well composed and each tune fits their scenario very well with their unique melody. So far I haven't heard one mediocre tune in the anime that disappoints. The opening theme is also good but because of the story's quirky concept, the theme feels out-of-place. The ending themes are basic and average and they fit more to the genre than the opening theme. The voice acting is also superb with each character sporting a unique and pleasant voice to listen. But because this anime hasn't been dubbed yet, there's not much I can say about the voice acting at this point.

As far as characters go, each of them have very likable personality traits and their personality developments runs very smoothly throughout the course of the anime. Such as Tohka starting out cold and distant and eventually becoming cheerful and protective later on. So far I haven't seen one excruciatingly hate-able character in the anime. One exception though would be Kotori and her "annoying Imouto" trait but I never found her a really huge problem. She's still likable. But if there is possibly one character that is the best of the bunch, it has to be Kurumi for her Yandere personality. Just her alone makes her very entertaining (I don't know why, she just does). However because this is a harem anime, there will be a lot of "WTF" moments with these characters. Such as Shido making the most ridiculous choices possible that makes him seem like a pervert in front of the Spirits. Despite this though, all the characters are likable and they will keep you entertained for a while.

Despite its lack-luster story and quirky concepts, Date A Live still manages to keep the entertainment factor going with its likable characters and memorable soundtrack and art. This anime is definitely worth a try. The first episode is the anime's weakest point so if you can bare with its flaws, you'll have yourself a good time with this anime. However keep in mind that this anime has a lot of fan service so if you're not into these types of genres, I recommend you stay away from Date A Live until you're sure that you can handle them all the way through.

Overall, it is worth the watch.

This is easily one of the worst anime I have watched so far in 2019. You see, it's garbage like this that gives us real anime fans a bad rep. I'm surprised that this horrible anime even has sequels to it. It's literally just the typical cliche harem you get all the fucking time. When this anime tries to be original it just fails miserably and ends up going back to the stupid ass harem tropes you see in every damn harem anime. This review will only be about the first season btw.

The first mistake I noticed in this anime is that it actually ... tries to have a serious story. When I first started watching this trash I only i did it to watch a guilty pleasure ecchi anime to beat off to. This anime is a fucking joke. On one hand it tries to take itself seriously, on the other hand it's just your typical harem bullshit trying to be funny (even though it's not). It keeps flip flopping 24/7.

The premise of this anime is extremely stupid beyond belief. There are spirits that invade earth and cause spatial quakes, and it was never explained why they do this. All of the spirits are coincidentally female, just to add to the main characters stupid ass harem. The main character has to make the spirits fall for him, turn them into good guys, and kiss them to seal their spiritual powers away. That is the most stupid bullshit I have ever seen.

All of the damn spirits fall for him so easily as well, and it's because they're all poorly written one dimensional characters. I'll talk about how bad the characters are later on in this review.

There are many nonsensical things about this anime, here are a few for examples. Firstly, even after he seals their spiritual powers away they still fucking get it back over and over again. What's the point in kissing them to seal it away if they constantly get it back everytime?

The action in this anime is pure garbage as I expected it to be. Every single fight they're always using force fields and there isn't actually any injuries or anything. That isn't even entertaining to watch in the slightest. They always have their god damn force fields up, so there is no fucking sense of danger at all!

Now onto the characters. The characters are straight up garbage as I expected them to be. I was extremely disappointed to see how cliche of a character Tohka ended up being. In the first episode she was hinted at having a depressing backstory, or having motivations. In the end she falls for the main character easily. She goes from being edgy to a straight up bitch. The way her personality completely changed was just awful writing at it's finest. I thought she would be an interesting character at first, but literally two episodes in and I took that thought back.

The other characters are horrible as well. Kotori is just the typical sexualized loli bullshit. Nothing about her character was interesting as far as I've watched. Origami is a shitty character because of her generic backstory and motivations. Wow you want to take revenge? How many times have I seen that in an anime, like 1000 times now? Not even going to be talking about the other loli ventriloquist because she was absolutely irrelevant.

Just like every other stupid ass harem, the main character in this anime is completely fucking clueless. He doesn't even realize that multiple girls are trying to get into his pants. He's such a shitty character it's actually ridiculous. Again, he has no depth to his character whatsoever. All he did in this show was whine and bitch whenever the other girls got into a conflict. Nothing he did made me think he was interesting character. Again, he's just your typical harem protagonist with absolutely no depth whatsoever.

People seem to like Kurumi, but I don't see it. She's just a generic yandere bitch and that's it. Nothing else about her character was interesting. Well that's it. Those are the only characters worth mentioning, because the rest shouldn't even be considered characters. The only other character I know is the blonde haired man that constantly talks about Kotori's body and shit. So there are multiple instances of this character being a pedophile, which is absolutely disgusting.

Didn't have fun watching this piece of trash at all. Again, this is easily one of the worst anime I have watched so far this year. The only anime I've watched this year that's worse is Mirai Nikki. I didn't enjoy this piece of trash whatsoever. Bad characters, stupid story, pedophilia, incest, asspulls, plot holes, horrible fights, horrible plot, etc.

Now as a reviewer, I should always try to point out the good things about an anime in my reviews. The problem with this anime is that I couldn't find anything good about it. I guess the girls are hot, but then again I can easily go watch another anime with even hotter girls in it, so that wouldn't even count. So yeah this anime doesn't do it for me. Pure garbage

Shows like this don't have to be plot heavy to get by. A gimmicky premise plus some cute girls and action is enough to justify watching for many people (and that includes myself). Whether it's the cuteness of the girls or the hokey Hogan's Heroes/military-ish sounding music used for the preview (and as background music during various light moments throughout the series), Date A Live has a certain charm to it that doesn't need to provide a deep experience to be enjoyable.

That said, I found that I was more interested in the plot than I thought I would be. While I wasn't immediately impressed from ... the first episode, things did become more interesting about halfway into the series. That isn't to say that the previous episode weren't entertaining in their own right, but the dark side of the story really shines (insofar as darkness shines) in contrast to the light side. In fact, the episode just prior to the (well-placed) injection of drama was fluffy enough to be called filler; the contrast between the two sides makes the drama feel (subjectively) deeper.

In any case, you shouldn't expect a masterpiece out of Date A Live. However, if you keep an open mind to light fun and humor mixed with surprisingly interesting story developments (and with bits of action interspersed), then this could be the right anime for you.

Date A Live, a series that I never really took seriously to begin with. When it comes to harem based animes, they're either suppose to be funny, serious or romantic and Date A Live was none of that. There were no jokes to laugh at, the serious moments about Kotori and Origami's past were presented horribly and the romance was as good as a third grade stage play about Romeo and Juliet. I'll be honest, the only reason I actually decided to watch this series was because of Kurumi and Yoshino who have been added to my list of Favorite Psychopaths and Favorite Kawaii Characters.

Date ... A Live attempts to be serious with the whole Spirits can destroy the world and everything but having to make them fall in love with them turns the situation into a horribly done comedy. After reading the synopsis, you may think this show has to either be funny or serious with comic relief but you're incredibly wrong. The only thing that actually stuck out in this series are the character designs and the weaponry used by the spirits. Date A Live has perfect cosplay material (for females anyway). The weaponry and powers of the spirits are each incredible but sadly their handlers are not.

The characters are each pretty damn annoying except for Yushino who makes a great dandere and Kurumi who plays a great villain. Maybe that's just my bias but none of the characters are very memorable. The only time I found any enjoyment while watching this series was during the fight scenes. Everything else was pretty much needless and a boring wannabe romance.