Genei wo Kakeru Taiyou

Alright, let's face it. After the ever famous and successful "Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica," a want and increase in demand for dark magical girl shows have been prevalent in the anime community. Now, I'm not going to be comparing this show to Madoka 24/7, because trust me, this show is bad on it's own, but I will be using Madoka as a basis for what a dark magical girl show should try to succeed, and what it shouldn't.

Day Break Illusion is, absolutely, what it shouldn't.

If the promotional art and the opening wasn't a dead giveaway, it should be well-known that this show is going to ... be pretty dark. And well, it definitely is. The story pretty much revolves on young tarot card users who fight against "Daemonia" - demons created when humans contract with them and eventually succumb into despair after the daemonia pretty much takes over their mind. The Daemonia causes what appears to be natural disasters around it, and its up to the tarot card girls to fight against it.

You know, I wouldn't mind the story. I wouldn't mind it even if it was almost an exact replica of what Madoka did. Here's the thing though -- the story is insanely try-hard. By try-hard, I mean it does so, SO much to try to remind you of how dark it is, of how grim and bloody things get. Let's take how we're flashed back with Akari's dead cousins' bloody corpse at least 5 times throughout the show. Or how when a painter girl becomes jealous that another painter criticized her, she made sure that both her and the boy that the critic liked were KILLED. Or turning the twelve (yes, twelve) year old girl into a wolf demon. Yes, a wolf demon.

I wouldn't mind these story elements either that much if they were, gee, I dunno, foreshadowed? The sudden and grimdark death of Akari's cousin happens within 10 minutes of the first episode. 10 minutes. You hardly know anything about the cousin or why she dies. A revelation that occurs later on that almost guarantees death of major characters just.. happens. Why? To make the plot get gritter and darker. Nothing is ever at least foreshadowed a little bit, not even once. There were no hints whatsoever that a tarot card user could combine with a Daemonia and create some weird demon, nothing.

Basically, the show does whatever it can and goes out of its way to remind you of how dark and edgy and grim it is. You know, I have people that complain about Madoka being dark and edgy, but at least Madoka foreshadowed it. Maybe it had issues with shock value, but just so you know, shock value isn't just tricking the audience. Shock value can be randomly killing off a character in a gorey way in the first episode. Shock value can be deciding at the end of an episode to change one of the characters into a demon wolf. It doesn't matter if the show is already proclaimed as dark, if it happens without foreshadowing, it's shock value.

Now you're probably wondering, well, do the characters at least save the show? Oh, I wish. I really, really wish. Hopeful protagonist, cold girl with dark past, sisterly lesbian, and energetic one. That's really what they all are, and honestly.. they're not that good. Namely our protagonist, Akari. I get it -- I get that she's only twelve years old and couldn't kill things that easily. But you know what? When I see another character go up and kill someone she knew personally and loved to free him out of his misery, I'm going to be annoyed at her actions.

The characters range from cliche to boring to downright DISGUSTING. The main villain, who we know almost nothing about, decides late in the series that he wants to mate (he literally says mate) with Akari. Akari is twelve. Twelve years old. He basically does this sick shit in order to completely destroy her mind and heart so she doesnt care about silly things like consent anymore and, I quote, "becomes a mother."

Playing the rape/sexual card in a story is NEVER a good sign, unless it's absolutely relevant to the plot or was foreshadowed/absolutely needed. But you know what? These girls are twelve/thirteen. We have one girl walk around evil and demonic with her tits literally bouncing out of her chest. We have another one being nearly forced to give into consent with pretty much a demon. Do you see the issue here? I hope so, because none of this is mature, or deep, or good. It's honestly really sick and unnecessary.

In terms of the art.. it's... ehh... I mean, the animation honestly is pretty good. The fight scenes, attacks, all of that look pretty nice. But the show is very obviously lolicon-ish. The girl, all of them, look so stick thin and skinny and tiny that when these terrible things happen to them, it feels so out of place and awkward. It feels honestly awkward seeing a scrawny 12 year old girls' eyes turn into tiny dots and scream at the top of her lungs. It looks awkward, and the artstyle makes it feel awkward too. It really feels like it's trying hard to appeal to the lolicons with its artstyle.

Not only that, but the artstyle and character designs in general aren't all that good. The eyes are all really huge, they're usually misplaced too or sliding off the characters face. The bodies in general look really unproportional and just weird, and the hair seems really choppy and cheaply made. Not really an appealing design, at least for me.

If one thing can be said good about Day Break Illusion, it's the soundtrack. I have to admit, aside from Akari's seiyuu, the voices are pretty good and solid. Not to mention the OP and ED themes are pretty great and catchy too. The OST isn't honestly all that stand out, but I can definitely say that the sound is a really concrete part about the show.

And here's where I talk about dark magical girl shows in general. You can skip the next three paragraphs if you don't wanna hear it, I just feel it's kind of needed.

Look, what I believe made Madoka successful in it's darkness wasn't that a girl got her head chopped off or another had to watch her friends die again and again. That's not where I saw success. I saw success in how the show dealt with the psychological breakdown of the things that happened to these characters, and even how their issues could be applied to real life. I feel, personally, that it did an excellent job with showing many different character archetypes in these situations and pretty much breaking them down, showing the affects that it has on them. But that's for another day.

I feel like studios seem to think that if they just add in some death and gore, that it'll be a success. But that's not how it works. It really isn't. I hate to break it to you, but just showing characters die doesn't guarantee success! It really, really doesn't. A solid story, solid characters, good foreshadowing and writing, and a good breakdown of these things are what make it so great. I don't think the show being open about its dark nature is what makes it unpopular either. There are plenty of shows that were shown to be dark from the very beginning that were successful. (Psycho-Pass, Attack on Titan) I'm not calling these objectively good, but they were overall well-received. Essentially, the fault for Day Break Illusion of not being a big hit despite having cute girls in grim situations isn't really because it was already dark from the beginning, but it just does a very bad job at doing what it tries to do, which is, again, be dark.

I guess I enjoy this anime, I mean, it doesn't bore me or put me to sleep like other shows, but the enjoyment is really just mediocre for me. It's enjoyable to watch weekly I guess, but not something that I can say I actually "like" watching, you know? I guess it can be fun for people who like watching anorexic lolis kill things and get killed though.

Overall, Day Break Illusion is a prime example, in my opinion, of how people SHOULDN'T be trying to make dark magical girl shows. Go ahead, make more! It's what people want! But making them so grimdark, adding in things like wanting a 12 year old to give birth to pretty much a demon child, killing off side characters like there's no tomorrow -- that's not what we want. A good story, a solid one with good character that happens to have a darker or more serious twist on the genre, is what would be good, really. But this? Not this, please no this.

Magical girls are about cute girls doing cute magical things, not awkward lolis being slaughtered in blood.

FEW SPOILERS AHEAD.
PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK.


Many people consider this to be an almost blatant rip off of Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica.

Which, lets be honest here, it's easy to see; there's malevolent animal beings that seem to not give a rats ass about the people who they work with, physically or emotionally. Lapalace and Kyubey seem really similar in that sense.

There's 4 girls who turn into stronger versions of themselves and fight in an interdimensional space against evil beings, one nice one, one bad ass one, one that's more set in their own goals, etc.

... However a few things set them apart.

1: The main character Akari Taiyou willingly accepts her powers, although she seems to be upset by what her actions entail (killing people who've turned into Daemonia - the enemy who takes over people's hearts). Madoka was horribly indecisive about becoming a magical girl until the very end. Not saying either route is a bad one, but it's a good difference.

2: The so far "end goal" of Genei wo Kakeru Taiyou is also unique. Instead of saving the entire world and everyone, which is (honestly) played out a bit. Sure, the end goal of Genei/Taiyou is awful, but it's unique and the way the artists play out facial features among other emotional cues is incredible and adds depth to it.


With that out of the way, I'll go on to say why I like this anime.
1: The story is neat. Tarot cards being the basis of their powers is a neat new theme i've personally not run into so far. I also like how violent some of the fights are, even though its between monsters and 12 year olds. The only thing I don't like too much is simply how easily Akari accepts her new role, which may seem hypocritical after I've stated the similarities between this and Madoka Magica, but nevertheless. This show is -almost- as good of an emotional rollercoaster as MM, but it falls just short of greatness as there's no -extremely- sad moments. (yet)

2: The art style. I didn't care for it at first and lets be honest, Seira looks like she was beaten with the ugly stick by a mean daemonia, but it grew on me. I think Akari is adorable, which adds even more emotion to the current horrible setting. Luna and Ginka are relatively unique, I've never seen a power like Ginka's in an anime. And again, the battles are very well animated.

3: The characters are a tad basic but they do their job well. There's the determined bad ass one who simply wants to exterminate, the caring supporter, the defensive character who's always around to help cheer up the group, and the protagonist who seems to be flawless in her love for her friends and family. The enemies/daemonia are very uniquely drawn out, and some of them are the epitome of evil. I've never hated an antagonist as much as Genei wo Kakeru Taiyou's.

4: I can't say too much about the sound. The background music helps to pump up the action during the fight scenes, the characters voices are done well, I find it funny that some of the voice actors also worked on Kodomo no Jikan together. Overall I feel the characters were voiced perfectly.

Overall. I really like this anime and can't wait for the next episode. It truly has me on the edge of my seat.

I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoys magical girl genre, action genre, or just looking for a good anime with cute girls fighting evil.

At first, I was skeptical about this anime. It received mixed ratings. Some were 9, while others were 4. The ones who rated this anime to be low were mostly those that kept comparing it to Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica. Critique the show, not compare! It's not a perfect anime, but it doesn't mean it cannot be enjoyable.

Story: The first episode took me by surprise,with me thinking that it escalated pretty quickly with very little background to the story. It made me prepare myself for the upcoming episodes, as there were more grim. The tarot cards were a cool component of this anime; I ... just wished that they described them in more detail, especially with the cards that the 4 girls have. They don't really explain the organization that they work for either.. The battle scenes were nice, they show struggle through pain and blood. Towards the end, I felt like the story sidetracked from there.

Art: The physical appearance of the girls bothered me at first. They're skinny as twigs and some have pretty big breasts for their age. They magically grow long, bushy hair and go from kawaii-eyes to serious, bad-ass eyes. All of the older people look scary to me. The battle scene backgrounds are plain, but at least the battle moves were pretty cool and somewhat unique. The daemonias look creepy and gross, and some of them, I was not sure why they look like that, based on why they suffered.

Sound: The opening and ending are nice. You hear a lot of screaming in this anime, mostly screams of fear or battle cries. They set the mood pretty well as a potential daemonia appears with ominous music.

Character: I feel the category for this anime was the reason why the viewers rated it low. The fortune tellers that Akari knew seemed somewhat irrelevant; the transvestite and big-breasted lady didn't have to exist. I thought the main antagonist was the sidekick, because he was following orders from someone else. What was the point of this!? When he reveals his intentions at the every end, I thought it was a bit silly. The cat and raven are useless talking messengers. Luna annoyed me the most, being overly attached to Akari. The past between her and her sister was cloudy. Basically, most of the characters had cloudy backgrounds; besides Ginka and Seira. I feel like some didn't fulfill their roles either.

Enjoyment: Although it may seem like I'm contradicting myself while negatively criticizing this anime and giving it a high score, I still like it. It could have been something better, but it just lacked things like depth. Despite missing some important components, I still enjoyed it to the point where I wanted to keep watching the next episode. I came to like most characters, enjoyed the battle scenes, and feel for the girls, as they experienced hardships together.

Give the first few episodes a try and see what you think.

Two years ago studio SHAFT gave to the anime watching world Puella Magi Madoka Magica, a show which cleverly blended the conventions of magical girl anime with dark horror themes, subversive storytelling and striking visual style to create one of the most perfect and memorable anime that I've certainly ever seen. Madoka Magica was a game changer and achieved acclaim and popularity that has proven persistent. Given all that, it's really no surprise at all that other anime studios would want to try and repeat that success. So it is anime studio AIC has decided to present us with an original dark magical girl series ... that copies quite liberally from the Madoka book. However, while the inspiration is quite evident, having followed this anime, Genei wo Kakeru Taiyou, I can safely say that it transcends simple imitation and stands as something good on its own.

A huge part of Madoka's strength was in its art and animation. The characters were incredibly well designed and the imagery for their enemies was perhaps even more striking. The animation meanwhile was top rate, with over the top exhilarating action that never failed to satisfy. It would be hard for Genei wo Kakeru Taiyou to reach the bar Madoka did on that end, and yeah, it doesn't quite. The character designs are a little weak; not terrible, mind you. The characters are plenty cute as they should be, but the art style has a somewhat more super deformed look than I personally care for and the characters designs aren't immediately distinctive. The designs for their enemies, the Daemonia, fare better, most of them looking really cool and disturbing; still maybe not as memorable as Madoka's witches, but quite good and effective. The animation is great too; fight scenes are visceral and appealingly flashy. It's all pretty solid.

There isn't really as much to say about sound. The voice actors are convincing and do a pretty good job of defining their roles. The music is appropriate and good at setting the tone. Opening and ending themes are fine though nothing overwhelming. Madoka's themes weren't the most memorable part of it either though.

The story is the important thing, and Genei wo Kakeru Taiyou does a pretty good job with it. It follows Akari, a girl who is pulled into an enigmatic organization of magical girls fighting against Daemonia terrible monsters born from humans afflicted with negative emotions. She is put on a team with three other girls who she comes to know and bond with as they struggle against the Daemonia and the conflicted emotions that the battle against them provokes. It's a solid setup and I'd wager it still has plenty of twists and turns to lay on us still at this point. The story is delivered well, doing a good job of setting its atmosphere. It really helps highlight why Madoka worked so well. With its cuteness and sincerity, the magical girl genre really does mesh beautifully with dark elements and horror; the contrast just works really well, and Genei wo Kakeru Taiyou does nothing if not capitalize on it just as Madoka did.

Characters are key to the formula working though. Genei wo Kakeru Taiyou does pretty good on that front. Again, their not as immediate as Madoka's cast, but the magical girl team here are a likable bunch who are developed quite well. Akari herself is about what you'd expect from a main character in a magical girl anime; she's sweet, friendly, earnest and a little naive, but with a lot of resolve. Nothing too groundbreaking, but she works. Seira is strict, distant one that could maybe be described as the Homura analogue; her and Akari come from very different mindsets when it comes to the Daemonia problem which puts them at odds. Luna is a shy magical girl who is quickest to befriend Akari; she's likable and nice, but seems conflicted and self-conscious. Ginka rounds out the team with a lot of exuberance and is probably my favorite character. She's smartly developed and just a lot of fun. So far each of the main characters had at least one really good character building episode. There are other magical girls too in the organization, some of which get some screen time. Most of these supporting characters have interesting designs and seem fun.

All the elements work pretty well here. Nothing is quite as perfect as it was in Madoka Magica, but I'd say the sum is greater than the parts here. I'm sure some might sneer and say it's derivative or Madoka lite, but I don't think that's giving the show quite the credit it deserves. Genei wo Kakeru Taiyou is a smart show that knows what it's doing and has a lot of heart. Definitely recommended.

Update: as a short addendum having now completed the anime, ultimately Genei wo Kakeru Taiyou is a somewhat more uneven anime than I would have hoped. There are a lot of very obvious threads left hanging at the close--a number of elements introduced are not fully explored and there are characters who feel kind of extraneous. That said, in its best episodes in the second half (particularly the stuff with Luna), the character development on the core cast becomes incredibly effective and got me pretty invested in all of them. What we end up with is a plot that's more emotionally coherent and compelling than it is actually complete. Also, while I had some hang ups about the art style at the time of my review, it grew on me over the second half and the animation remained slick and impressive throughout. Ultimately it left me kind of scratching my head still wanting it to come together somehow, and I hope there's a second season or something to give the answers, but it also left me smiling and satisfied. I probably just have a weakness for this kind of show; I don't know. Whatever it is, despite the apparent faults, my score stays what it is.

It’s been a while since I last reviewed something, and that’s mostly because there wasn’t anything I finished that I felt like reviewing.
Genei wo Kakeru Taiyou though is one show I wanted to review since episode one.

So I sat down, watched the remaining 5 episodes that I haven’t watched yet and marathoned them.

And what should I say? Meh.
It saddens me that this show clearly had potential but had two main issues that ruined all potential it had.

First - The pacing.
This show was just waaaaaaaaay too rushed. Sometimes they squeezed in so much stuff into one episode it couldn’t build up any impact for the things ... that happened prior than that,

Second - The Visuals
If you know a bit about studios, you know that AIC is not the greatest anime studio around, but they usually try different things, and focus more on the content than on the presentation. But Genei could really have needed some better visuals. But more to this in the respective categories.

There are actually 2 reviews I want to write for this. One focusing on the show, and the other comparing it to Madoka, because there are a lot of people who think this show mostly exists because of Madoka, and I am one of them.

Lets get started shall we? (spoilers ahead!)

Story
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Genei is a magical girl anime, so it’s obviously about magical girls fighting evil using their power.
In Genei our main characters use the power of tarot to fight evil, and each character resembles a certain tarot card.
I am a fan of the tarot system ever since I play Persona 3 so this is a big plus for the show to base its magic system around tarot.

What’s not a big plus was how the first episode was handled.
We are introduced to our main character Akari the “sun” who apparently lost her mother and lives with her aunt and her niece.
While the introduction was done okay, towards the end the pacing problem as described early kicks in. Suddenly she transforms into a magical girl kills a tentacle raping plant and next thing you see; her niece is dead.
And not only that but also no one seems to care.
It doesn’t stop there, fast forwarding you see her adult tarot-girl friends being attacked by yet another demon and e get introduced to the other 3 magical girls during that fight.

All that happened in less than 5 min and left me extremely confused.
What did just happen? Why is her niece dead? Why does no one seem to care? How did she get her powers? Why the fuck is it all so rushed?

Without going into greater detail about what happens later, this is not the only time when they try to fit in a lot of content into one episode.
My conclusion is: This should should have gotten 24+ episodes instead so you can properly build up these things.

More episodes would have been also helpful for explaining all the concepts in the show.
There seems to be some secret organisation, but we never really find out what it is all about, not even by the end.
Also some events that would have made a huge emotional impact on both the characters and the viewers didn’t get enough time, making it sometimes really sketchy or shoehorned in.

Good thing though they filled most plotholes so by the end nothing was really like “how could this happen? why didn’t they do that?”.
So the overall story didn’t suffer too much.

The ending was also pretty solid. No lame cop out but an actual ending with most of what happened being actually important.

This is also a good transition to talk about Madoka.

So what did Madoka do better/worse/different here?

First of all. Both shows were rushed, but in Madoka it didn’t feel as rushed because thanks to Urobuchi we never get details into anything anyways.
Not in Genei. the writers tried to explain everything and make solid explanations to both the magic system and the evil that is threatening the world.
While some powerlevels seemed to be random in Genei, you at least saw why their abilities are what they are.

![spoiler]!
Also no important character gets killed too early as in Madoka without enough background to make it important.
And of course the ending is no magical reset bullshit.
![/spoiler]!

I personally think that Genei, even though the presentation of the story was lackluster, had an overall better idea than Madoka.
You know, the evil in Genei actually was explained AND HAD A FACE and was not just there so our magical girls can fight something and suffer.
Their magic system was based on something understandable and not LOL RANDOM stuff as in Madoka.


Characters
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The cast in Genei wasn’t huge but there were quite a lot of characters and all of them seemed somewhat relevant.
Of course the most important were the 4 main girls: Akari, Luna, Seira and Ginka.
And then some major side characters: Meltina & Priscilla, Ariel Valtiel & Etia and the loli trio.

Akari: Is as mentioned our main character and she resembles the sun. She is kind, warm hearted and also tries to do her best to reduce harm.
At first she doesn’t want to fight the Demons but later, out of pressure, does so even by herself.
She is not the greatest main character of all time, but she had a solid personality which also resembled her tarot very well. I really liked how important that was for their personality and how they later build it in into the story even more, with her personal drama.

Luna: Is out shy, calm girl who has a lady-crush on Akari which later turns out to be Yuri. Later on her character gets developed quite a bit and I ended up liking her more than I usually do for those shy, clam girls. While not my favorite character she is definitely up there. Oh yeah she is the Moon, this works well with her relationship to Akari, as she is kinda the opposite to her. Again I really like how they’ve handled the tarot system in this anime.

Seira: Is our cold hearted, kuudere character. She is the star and I had the most trouble identifying her with the star tarot. Maybe I don’t know enough about tarot to understand what it means to be the star, but I just couldn’t really pinpoint what her relation was supposed to be.
her development was also done well as for all the characters so far, and for everyone who is into kuuderes she is also a good character. I personally couldn’t connect to her that much.

Ginka. My personal favorite. She was temperance, being the balanced one. And so was her roll in the show. I think that was the reason I liked her the best, not only did she have the best character design, but also the least polarized personality. She was not super nice all the time, but also not cold or shy. She was, like Akari and Luna - a good representation of her tarot.
They did something dumb though towards the end which is a spoiler that I will not include here but I personally thought it was an asspull. If you finished the show you will know what I mean.

The rest of the characters all were not super developed but a good addition.

And this again leads me to the transition to Madoka.
Characters in Madoka were just plain lazy. Most of them got a sloppy background and had almost no development.

That’s especially true for Madoka and Homura. And of course Mami…
If I would compare the characters I’d say:
Madoka = Akari (obviously)
Mami = Luna
Homura = Seira
Kyouko = Ginka (to some extend)
Sayaka = No one really, maybe Luna but only to some extend

Madoka in Madoka was utterly useless and not much of a protagonist. She rarely solved any problems, and in the end just did the gigantic asspull of an ending.
Akari, while also in a same fragile, nice position as Madoka at least developed later and DID THINGS. She actually fought and solved issues without relying on everyone else all the time.
Akari > Madoka

Mami was just cannon fodder had almost no character and overall is my least favorite character (if I can even call her that) in Madoka. Luna on the other hand moved on later, had a development and a background.
She supported Akari and had an overall bigger emotional relation to her than Mami had to any of the characters.
Luna > Mami

Homura was a bit a mix of Luna and Seira if you’d compare them and I think that if you take Luna out of the equation, she was a more interesting character than Seira but had again no development. Her background was also really sloppy.
I mean we see why Luna loves Akari, but why is Homura so fucking gay for Madoka? Why would she do all that just for Madoka, their connection was super sloppy and just forced drama.
Overall I say Homura > Seira
but Homura < Luna

Kyouko was a terrible character and her development was rushed and made no sense. Inconsistent character and overall one of the worst in Madoka.
Ginka > Kyouko

The only good character in Madoka was Sayaka, because she actually had a personal drama, a development and her ending was tragic because time was invested in her story.

The other thing that I thought was way better in Genei was how outside characters were handled.
Geneis sidecharacters always did something to progress the plot, to calm the characters down, to help them change. While in Madoka most characters didn’t even have parents. You never say the parents of anyone but Madoka.
I mean what was Homura? Was she a hobo orphan? Didn’t she have family? What’s up with that?
You saw Sayaka at home but I can’t remember her talking to her family just once.
Only Madoka had a mother. And of course the entire world was completely empty in Madoka.

There were rarely any side character just that one girl in school who stole Sayakas crush and some nobodies who were possessed by the witches.

Lastly is Kyuubey. While I liked Kyuubey, his or her master plan was just fucking retarded. At least the villains in Genei made sense. I mean the evil plan of Cerebrum was not amazing. But it was waaay better than whatever bullshit Urobuchi came up with for Kyuubey.


Art and Animation
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Lets face it. Genei looked bad.
The overall art wasn’t bad but the animation was sometimes really sloppy. Especially when the animal companions were talking. They just opened their mouth and sound came out. It just looked really awkward.
They also used a lot of animation multiple times.
And sometimes movements or facial expressions looked awkward.

It was only brief moments when the show looked pretty decent, but was overshadowed by a lack of good artistic work.

I mean what’s with those character designs? It’s okay to have lolis look like that, but the adults as well? They looked like midgets! Gigantic heads, short bodies and those weird faces with way too big eyes? Holy Moly!

Backgrounds sometimes looked not even bad especially in that Parallel Realm thingy, and some demon designs were cool as well. Special effects were not bad either but also not great.

I make the comparison to Madoka brief.
Akiyuki Shinbo.
Akiyuki fucking Shinbo.
Without him, Madoka wouldn’t be that popular. Well okay the soundtrack but that later.
Madoka had just way better art and animation. While I didn’t like the character designs in Madoka either they were still better. And the backgrounds were really cool as well.
But without him I doubt that Madoka would have been that well received.
And with him for Genei, the show would have been received much better as well.


Sound
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I skip voice acting as it was good as for most shows and go straight to the opening and ending song.

Man did I love the opening song. That song is so catchy and my favorite of the Summer season.
The ending song was pretty good as well but not so much to my taste.

The rest of the soundtrack was pretty good as well. Even if the art and animation wasn’t great the soundtrack was pretty good.

But all rather pale compared to Yuki Kajiuras epic soundtrack for Madoka.
The other part why Madoka was so popular has to do with how amazing Yuki Kajiura is.

But I don’t wanna talk to much about it, because I think the soundtrack for Genei was pretty good as well, and fit the show pretty good.


Enjoyment
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Oh well.

I was kinda excited for the show to be honest. And I hoped it to be better.
Some episodes were pretty lame I think, while others were good or even great.
My personal favorite was Lunas story in episode 9. It showed how well the villain can manipulate and had overall good pacing and writing.
While I always cringed a bit at the artwork and animation, the soundtrack (especially the opening) kept me well entertained. And by the end I was pretty happy with how the show went.
Still sad because I know it could have been better with more time and better art, but still got some enjoyment out of it.

That said, I did enjoy Madoka in my first watch more. But the second time I realized some issues, and later I understood the major flaws of it.


Scores
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Art and Animation 3/10 (bad)

Artstyle +0 (While not everything was bad, it was far from great)
Quality -1 (reused animation and awkward faces sometimes)
Background +0 (meh backgrounds)
Character Designs -1 (just no. Don’t do that)
Visual Effects 0 (okay but nothing special.)

Sound 7/10

Voice Acting +0 (good but not outstanding)
Opening and Ending +1 (opening YAY, ending was good as well)
Soundtrack +1 (pretty good soundtrack overall)
Sound Effects 0 (effective but not outstanding)

Story or Content 6/10

Premise and Setting +1 (good premise, especially like the tarot card idea)
Pacing -1 (downfall of the show, too rushed)
Complexity 0 (not everything was explained but I blame the episode count)
Plausibility 0 (plotholes were mostly filled)
Conclusion +1 (satisfying ending)

Characters 6/10

Personality +0 (all made sense to their tarot, but still too simple)
Behavior and Chemistry +0 (pretty good but not enough for a point)
Development and Progression +1 (everyone got developed!)
Motivation and Backdrop 0 (while all got a background, the rushed nature didn’t leave enough space for it)
Likability 0 (good characters but not very memorable)

Enjoyment 5/10

Art and Animation -1 (talked about it. Bleh)
Sound +1 (likeable)
Story and Content 0 (if not rushed it would have been good)
Characters 0 (same here)
Value +0 (will not remember this too much though)


Conclusion
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Genei the “Madoka” clone proved itself to be much more than just a copy. While it has major flaws in both presentation and execution. I think it had much more potential than Madoka.
And in the end Madoka is only better in my eyes because of the production value and good execution.

5,4 ~5/10 (average)

UPDATE: Completed it now. And everything in this review still stands.

The review contains some spoilers, past the first two paragraphs.

Let me start of by saying that this series is quite bad. Let me explain why.

In short, it's a series that tries really, really hard to be Madoka, but doesn't really understand what made Madoka really good, and thus only imitates it on a surface level - namely, the artstyle and overall dark tone. However, it's story and characters are painfully shallow and succumb to all the Mahou Shoujo clichés that Madoka managed to avert.

The characters are all Mahou Shoujo stereotypes, through and through. All of ... them. Most of all, Seira and Akari - everything about them is predictable and cliché. Luna is also rather cliche, and what happenes to her in episiode 9 was obvious since around episode 6. Ginka is the least cliche of the 4 main characters, but that's not saying much - she also gets the least screentime.
The villain himself is uninteresting and bland, something we've all seen a hundred times before. By the end, he resorts to basically quoting the Anti-spirals in every second sentence.

The story is also really cliche, and essentially a standard Mahou Shoujo story, despite the attempted dark tone. The quasi-lesbian relationships between characters, the slightly-effeminate shape-shifting villain, the Daemonias that feed on people's dark emotions, the evil counterparts of the main girls...it's all been done before, and done better. Most of it was even done better in older shows like Sailor Moon, which is saying a lot.

This anime also has some of the worst pacing and directing I have seen recently.
First of all, the cuts between scenes are sometimes incredibly bad. It usually resorts to cutting from a calm, talking scene, straight to an emotionally charged fight scene, with no buildup or interim, and it does so multiple times per episode. That just becomes tiring, and it really shows the lack of direction in the story.
Big events and "twists" that happen also have no buildup whatsoever, or they just get a tad of obvious foreshadowing. The death of a character in the first episode barely has any buildup, and is not shocking at all, because we barely knew the character, and it was obvious that she was going to get possesed and die. Again, kind of an attempt to ape Madoka - but Madoka had proper buildup to a death that happened in episode 3.
Moreover, this anime attempts to fix this in flashbacks that happen later on, and try to give the dead character more depth, but the deed has already been done, and there is no fixing it.
The events in later episodes also have little to no buildup. Counterpart Cards just come out of nowhere, as they were not foreshadowed at all, and the events that happen to Ginka seem incredibly rushed.
The events of episode 9 also lack any subtlety, because Luna was really underdeveloped as a character. The episode itself tries to cram in as much backstory for her in an attempt to fix that, but fails to do so. All of the twists there were also incredibly obvious, and clichéd - moreover, there was no buildup to them, they just happened. They have the subtlety of, let's say, a knife to the stomach.
Everything that happenes later is just the same - no buildup, no explanations, no subtlety. Moreover, the anime makes almost everything that happened almost insignificant by the end.

All in all...this is just a terrible attempt to copy Madoka, without actually realizing what it was that made Madoka good, past the cutesy-weird artstyle, dark tone, and deaths. Watching this anime almost feels like reading a bad fanfic. Like something an inept child would make after watching Madoka and saying "I can make a thing like that too!".

The artstyle is nice though, I'll give it that.

I'm going to be sincere, i heard of this anime because everyone on the internet kept saying that it was a "Madoka Rip-off". But as i believe you can't judge before watching it yourself, i went on and watch it.
My conclusion: people really exaggerate, it definitely isn't a rip-off. It does have some common grounds, but Genei Wo Kakeru Taiyou has proved to me that it stands as it's own series.

Genei Wo Kakeru follows the same formula that most Magical Girl shows have, the only difference it's that, apart from the grim factor, it handles very mature topics.
Each character that is infected by the ... villain by accepting a contract with him suffers from a human problem: Jealousy, anger, sadness, isolation... we all have experimented that once, and maybe sometimes, if someone came to us in our darkest moment, and offer as a deal, would we prefer giving up on our humanity in order to punish those who have wronged us? Or maybe give up our souls in order to save the life our best friend?

I think we can consider this show to be divided in "two parts". The first seven episodes shows us the most exterior part of the conflict, while Akari tries to come into terms with what her job as an Elemental Tarot implies, and she befriends her new teammates.
It's in episode 8 when we FINALLY get to the real plot and the story takes a very dark (and bloody) twist.
I really enjoyed the first 7 episodes, but i believe, as this story is only 14 episodes long, it would have been better if they started introducing the real conflict from the beginning, instead of waiting until half the series and only having a bunch of episodes left to tie everything neatly. They also could have used those first seven episodes more wisely, for example by explaining better more aspects about the Sefiro Fiore, or about the main character themselves. It seemed to me that the only character who had a personal growth through the story was Akari, and only because she was the protagonist. I think there were a lot of missed chances here, but that doesn't make this a bad series either.
But anyway, i really appreciate the change episode 8 gave to the story, as it made it more interesting to watch... i was enjoying previous episodes but i was starting to get bored.

The only thing that bugs me is that there were a lot of things that were left without an explanation. I don't know if this means there is going to be a season 2, but i hope they make it, because if not it will always feel that the story is incomplete.


In my personal taste, i also didn't like the character design... but it wasn't bad either, and it's only a matter of taste. On the other hand, i really liked the battle scenes and the special effects on the character's attacks. Also, Akari's hair animation once she transforms is really awesome to watch.


But all in all, i found it a really enjoyable series. I'm glad this series was able to maintain all the Magical Girl genre's essence, but still being able to step a bit more over the line and handle other things that can appeal to older viewers. Don't be discourage to watch it by those who criticize it by comparing it to Madoka... i think we should appreciate both series as their own, and be happy that the industry is now opening itself to bring the Magical Girls to a new level, by making content for the older fans.

A failed attempt at an interesting concept.

Day Break Illusion (avoiding the tedious title) is a show that started off with potential but a prime example of dropping the ball halfway through.

The story synopsis is above, so I'll just give my perspective on it. Basically, it is unique at first but does not explore its total potential by the end. There are many loose ends not tied up by the end and many things introduced lack clarification (such as the Daemonia). I found the story to be a bear to watch as it quickly became redundant, focusing on several things only and not answering ... many of the viewer's questions. I give the story a 4.

Art was decent enough, really colorful to suit the magical girl genre but dark when it needed to be. Art doesn't normally make a difference to me though unless it's horrible. 7 for art.

Sound was a bit better than average, it had a good variety of songs, which suited the show's ominous tone and cheerful tone accordingly. 6 for sound.

Characters were one of the biggest failures for this show. The characters seemed to be very static, and did not develop by the end. Getting over a single traumatic event is not adequate development for 4 characters in 13 episodes, period. For the characters, I cannot avoid writing spoilers, so I will put a mark at the end for all who have not seen the show.

*SPOILERS BELOW - SORRY*

Akari is a very bland protagonist, timid, not confident, and very concerned about others. As the story progresses, Akari seems to only get over the death of her cousin. Instead of dealing with her hesitation to kill Daemonia, the show glorifies this fault, turning most life-or-death situations into a simple conversation, resulting in the enemy seeming to have a will the sturdiness of paper. She does not gain any mastery over her power, no training is shown, and little is explained about her mother even by the end of the series.

Luna is a tsundere friend, which seems to be the only development she gets the whole series. Eventually she gets over her issues, but not really much is explored into her past or circumstances. Not much to say on this character other than mediocre.

Seira is the BA cold-hearted character who opens up to the protagonist by the end of the series. She is probably the best developed character in the show, since she gets over her cold-heartedness in multiple ways and seems a much more rounded characters at the end. This mostly occurs during the period in which she loses her powers, where she is forced to face reality and the value of life.

Ginka is the "dumb blonde" who is fun to be around. She would have been my favorite character, as the development and character interaction leading up to her "death" were very well executed, but her return at the end of the show was the biggest BS move I've ever seen. The biggest thing the show had going for it was to show the seriousness of the struggle they were in, and her return was an excuse, not a reason, which resulted in me losing respect for the entire show. Death is a serious matter, and making light of it is an instant failure in my book, no matter the circumstance.

Cerebrum is the stereotypical villain: manipulative, secretive, and heartless. Cerebrum was not developed, which loses a huge impact on the viewer for the final confrontation. Whereas a good show makes you invested in all the characters, whether for their defeat or success, Cerebrum is sort of "just there" for the majority of the plot, and only serves as a bland "final boss" for the girls to face. Once again, the limited and vague descriptions of the dark tarot cards made his actions less meaningful. It's like going to a party where everyone has their own lingo and you feel out of place since they don't describe it well.

*END OF SPOILERS*

As for my enjoyment, I found the show to hook me at first, lost me for a couple episodes in the middle, hooked me again near the end, and then smacked me in the face at the end as punishment for watching it through. Needless to say, I did not enjoy the show as much as I'd hoped. I cannot say I didn't enjoy it, but it failed to meet my expectations in many ways. Enjoyment is 3.5 out of 10.

Overall, I give the show 4.25, which I've rounded to 4 for the review. The show is just lackluster and mediocre, and fails to live up to the expectations of the viewers. Even without having seen shows like Madoka or Nanoha, the show does not execute its plot well or develop its characters successfully.

In conclusion, as I said before, this show is a prime example of not using its full potential. I don't give shows scores less than 5 unless I truly do not recommend this anime, so hopefully I dissuade some people from making the decision to sit through the 2 1/2 hours of this.

Daybreak Illusion is a magical girl anime that follows more in the footsteps of the darker “Madoka Magica” than the usual shoujo-oriented ones like “Sailor Moon.” It begins with Taiyou Akari, a young girl with dreams of becoming a fortune teller just like her mother and the other adults around her. She is a bright and cheerful girl with a room full of plants who lives with her cousin Fuyuna’s family since her mother passed away and her father is no longer around either. What she does not realize is that Fuyuna has been building up a burning hatred of Akari and her cheerfulness. One ... night, a monster appears and attacks Akari, which turns out to be Fuyuna. Akari hopes it was all just a dream the next day, but soon finds out that no one remembers Fuyuna aside from her, and it now seems as if she never even existed.

That’s when Akari is taken and shown her destiny as a magical girl by a teacher at a small fortune telling school (though its real purpose has to do with training magical girls). Akari is thrust rather quickly into the new world in which they harness the power of tarot cards to use magic (her last name [Taiyou] literally means “Sun” so you may be able to guess which card is hers). She meets three other girls named Luna, Seira, and Ginka who are already magical girls who use the power of tarot cards to fight monsters like the one Akari saw before called “Daemonia.” Daemonia take over people who are despairing and, when defeated, erase every trace of that person’s existence from the world (they’re a bit more complicated than that but I’ll avoid spoilers). As the story goes on the girls encounter many different obstacles and personal problems that they have to overcome. There are a few episodes dedicated to the other main characters, but most of the story revolves around Akari and her connection to everything that is going on.

The first half of the series is mostly a “slice of life/school/comedy” story with occasional darker borderline-horror moments thrown in mostly during the scenes involving the bizarre looking daemonia. I thought the lighthearted parts early on were extremely boring as they are very simplistic and can be found in many other anime which focus on them much better. But, I really enjoyed some of the darker moments, and I felt these scenes were better executed. They use some surprising tricks to add a little suspense to the darker scenes which is something not a lot of anime have. One of the main problems the story has is that it just never gets around to explaining certain parts of the plot or the characters involved. There is one organization that seems to be overlooking everything that goes on, but the show never gives any explanation for who they, what they are doing, or why there are a cat and crow who are working for this organization but stay at the fortune telling school all the time.

While the story has its many ups and downs, the characters are much more consistent……….ly bad. Akari is the least bad of the main characters, but there are several problems that they all suffer from: poor character designs where their fragile-looking bodies (even Seira who works out all the time) are about half the size of their hair, annoyingly high-pitched voices, stereotypical personalities, and hardly any good development over the course of the thirteen episodes. Taiyou Akari is the protagonist and has your typical fire powers. She is usually optimistic but tends to get bogged down at times when thinking about what happened to Fuyuna. Hoshikawa Seira is the “jock” of the group (as I said before, she is as much of a stick figure as everyone else despite working out constantly). She has ice powers, a very reserved personality, and has never been very good at making friends. Shirokane Ginka is a very cheerful girl (more than Akari) who I found to be the most annoying of the group. She also has money powers, and her father is a wealthy businessman. Tsukuyomi Luna is also very reserved but becomes very close to Akari. Her powers (well, really everyone’s) are never really explained much, but it seems like she has some kind of cat powers.

The art, like the plot, is filled with ups and downs. The character designs are all “overly moe” (even the few guys, like Ginka's dad) with large heads, eyes, and hair but very thin bodies. The daemonia get grosser each episode, but the supernatural settings for the fights against them get better (for the most part) each episode. The art of the lighter scenes is boring and mostly moe-ish with the scenery taking place either in their school or in various locations around their town.

The soundtrack is the best part of this show. It mostly consists of orchestral themes with a few rock songs like the upbeat OP. During the lighthearted scenes it is mostly unnoticeable, but during the dramatic scenes, the music is often better than the actual events taking place (especially as the plot falls apart later on).

Daybreak Illusion is not a very good magical girl show. Many parts of the story are left unexplained, the characters’ designs are unappealing, and the characters’ personalities are bland and unoriginal. The only part that stands out a little is the soundtrack. The show in general is very forgettable and one of the weaker ones I’ve been following this summer season.

thoroughly terrible anime. It's only saving graces were, character designs, tarot, ED, and transvestites.


The story seems incredibly forced, has pacing issues, unresolved plot points and more.

The character designs are extremely tryhard, but it was in a way I quite appreciate.

All of the battles were incredibly uninspired, usually revolving around someone getting grabbed suddenly

The characters had little depth, but they did a half decent job with branching off into some of them
...
A lot of deus ex machina brought it together as a very uninspired show trying to ride off the coattails of madoka

Okay now, here we have a Persona series clone, merged with some Venus Versus Virus… well, that seemed interesting for me, so I’ve decided to watch this (especially after reading some good reviews, telling me not to think it has connections to Madoka).

Story – 5
The actual story begins on the eighth episode, and all I can say is it’s pretty twisted and has LOTS of loose ends in it, like the opposite tarot cards having no actual meaning (it it present as something really important and dangerous in the series, but it resulted just in a lost possibility of making cool explanation); I really did ... like the first 7 episode, each of them has its own plot and tells us about different people and their feelings… the eighth episode itself is touching and is probably the best in the show, after that all we get is “Humans Versus Shadows”, which is somewhat predictable and… casual.

Art – 8
Yep, I loved the artwork, the battle scenes were quite something (although they did look like Persona 3’s boss fights mostly…) and the scenery at whole was picturesque and worth seeing. The characters could be drawn better. Much better. All those sample faces again, bad-looking figures… Seira looked pretty, at least, like Konata from Lucky Star. Oh, and the final fight looked insignificant and cheap.

Sound – 9
If only the story was as good as the sound, I’d have been very happy. OP caused my heart to tremble, the seiyus were doing their best even during the hardest parts… I could understand those people’s feeling very well cause of that fact. I’ve expected more of BGM, and my expectations failed a bit, leaning me disappointed… I gotta listen to the OP song once again.

Characters – 3
They say there are characters. More than that, they say there are twenty two girls fighting together. As we can see throughout the series, there are actually four, plus two, adding three and two more, making it 9. The characters are cliché, even the main four. Well, I liked Ginka’s style of fighting with money ([C] anime will teach you on that). Akari is a way inconsistent and is yet another a-girl-that-makes-the-world-go-round, but no complaints on this one. The antagonist seemed interesting and having a reasonable goal, but… They also say there are some mysterious beings observing the scene and moving their pawn like in a chess game, but we did not happen to see them. We oughta believe that they exist… what a pain, no more twists please.

Enjoyment – 9
Regardless of the bad points, this anime got my attention, and it probably will come to liking for you. Why? It’s about cute girls fighting viru… errr, I mean Daemonia, they face RELLY serious obstacles, mostly psychological and emotional, they think on what’s being right or wrong, they hang out and have some spare time… Yet it has blood, minor gore and almost NSFW content… If only the plot was more interesting…

Overall – 7
It was my fault I didn’t notice this anime while it was still airing… I’ve acquired a bunch of wonderful memories of it upon watching, and I could bear the weaknesses (even have agreed with the ending, whoa); it may not be the best anime ever, but it is not inferior either, my verdict – recommended to watch, especially if you are into magical girls (Madoka ^^),Tarot cards or exploring ones’ hearts.

Oh, DayBreak Illusion.
*Oh*, DayBreak Illusion, you poor, poor, poor, soul. Why did it have to turn out like this?
Genei wo Kakeru Taiyou is the prime example of how not to do a dark magical girl anime- No scratch that. Genei wo Kakeru Taiyou is the prime example of how not to do anime collectively. It's not absolutely dreadful, but it should have never turned out how it is.

The anime has a collection of six actually good episodes, where there's emotions and development that seem realistic. And then there's the rest of the anime, which is unable to decide what it wants to do with ... itself as it hoplessly meanders through the plot, trying to grab as many plot points and characters as it can but only getting the most minimal grasp. That's not even mentioning all the down to earth, heavy, real-life topics featured here, like pedophilia, rape, possibly off-screen sibling complexes and the idea of sacrificing one for the good of many.
Except none of those - sans the last- are done as a problem in the narrative. Instead they're plot points that are addressed as some kind of twisted romance between the characters- Actively sexualizing and objectifying twelve year olds for the sake of what is played as making the antagonist seem disgusting, but is really just gross fanservice.

The sound design is okay, but the only things that are really memorable are the OP, Traumerei and the ED, Mirage. The only really memorable voice acting comes from Seira's seiyuu, who seems to have a penchant for blue haired magical girls. The art can be really nice, especially in the Opening, where the animation is truly at it's best, along with Episode 8, which probably does the best job of all the episodes. In a thirteen episode show, mind you. The story started out nicely, and the concept really could have gone somewhere, but then they decided they wanted to be the new Madoka Magica and it all went down hill from there.

I personally really enjoyed watching the show, whenever I didn't question anything and pretended there wasn't as much fanservice as there was. All in all, DayBreak Illusion was okay at best and really awful at worst. It's actually worth the watch- if you have absolutely nothing better to spend your time on, and chances are, you probably do. It's not nearly the worst but when it comes to choices, your time is better spent elsewhere.

Well, I'll try to review one of the most discussed anime of the last season, at least for the hype that this apparently dark majokko created in who was expecting another Madoka.

Story: 6/10
Personally, I didn't find it quite entracing; magical girls who receive their power from Tarots and fight against evil creatures, the Daemonias, that invade weak human beings feeding from their inner fears and hatred, it's not what I can call original. All the magical girls who discovered to be a power connected to a card from the Tarot deck are gathered in a fake Divination School, in which they are trained to ... fight against this beings, and all of them, apart from the main protagonist, Akari, seem to have any problem in doing this work mainly because all of them have a purpose in doing it, or at least doesn't care much about it. For Akari is different, for reasons that I can't explain without ruining the pleasure to watch the show. The thing that make this show look like Madoka is the fact that tricks you into thinking that it will go into a certain direction, watching the first half of the series, but then at the end you can say that this show it's quite a different thing, fortunately. (Or unfortunately, it depends on the expectations of the viewer).

Art: 7/10
The character design might take a little while to be get used to, because of the very sproportioned bodies that only the girls seems to have and their quite funny hairstyles, but I think it suits this kind of show very well. The artwork of landscapes and buildings is very rich, instead.

Sound: 8/10
OP and ED are really quite something, very very powerful ones, that you cannot absolutely skip. They're worth watching the show, in my opinion. The rest of the OST is very epic in the battle scenes, while in other moments is rather forgettable.

Character: 7/10
At the beginning of the show, I have to say that I found quite difficult to empatize to the main protagonist, Akari, and the other co-protagonists, Seira, Luna and Ginka, because they look like stereotyped ones. Episode by episode we get to know them better, and while their development remains unfortunately rushed, at least the viewer learns how to like almost all of them, and the relationship between them. Some of the others characters, like Ezia and Ariel, are really left behind, and nothing is really explained about their past. Same thing for the main evil character, Cerebrum.

Enjoyment: 7/10
Apart from other consideration about the story and how it's been developed, I have to say that I've quite enjoy this show; it will never enter the list of my own personal favourites, but I've liked it, mainly because it wasn't full of fanservice and easy to follow.

Overall: 7/10
Many things are left unsaid, and that's a bad thing, for the full comprehension of the story. It deserves another season, to at least explain more about what really Daemonia are and where they come from, same thing about the organization who controls the deeds of the magical girls, called Leguzario.

Just finished watching this. My thoughts gravitate toward different ends of the opinion spectrum. Hmm. Well, I’ll begin by saying that I did enjoy this series for what it was: in essence, a magical girl series with dark elements and an interesting take on tarot cards. The characters are colorful (figuratively and literally) and develop in their own ways throughout the span of 13 episodes. The scenery and overall art of the show is colorful and vibrant. The general idea of the story is kind of cool with a few interesting concepts. The show has no problems with setting an atmosphere with an overall serious ... tone (with a few comedic elements here and there). And of course, it’s generally entertaining.

I do, however, have some problems with the show. I feel like this series had (and maybe still has if we get another season) a lot of potential what with several really interesting story attributes and concepts being introduced, but it falls short of that potential by rushing everything into 13 episodes without properly explaining (or explaining at all) much of anything, leaving many ideas up in the air. You’re kind of just tugged around, expected to accept everything as is without knowing all of what you’re accepting. On top of this, many additional questions aren’t answered, and some things are just left messed up. In summary, one might consider this a case of horrible pacing issues. And that’s really the gist of it. Spread the series out into several more episodes, address everything properly, and and don’t attempt to throw in a bunch of ideas if the only thing that will be done is rushing to show off templates of ideas rather than being concise and coherent (i.e. actually making it a point to tell me and not just tease me), and I think there’d be a solid story with no plot holes to fill. Great ideas, poor execution. Beyond this, the only other things I didn’t like were some of the predictable, conventional plot devices which gave the show a mediocre feel at points. But I think this also ties into pacing since, well, when you’re rushing things, you tend to sweep under the rug rather than actually clean up.


Overall, I liked the series. It was a fun watch, and I don’t feel like time was wasted. Another unique series added to my roster of what I’ve seen. If you like magical girl series, I think it’s worth a watch, at least for its entertainment value and intriguing (albeit not fully executed) ideas.

P.S. To those familiar with Puella Magi Madoka Magica, this might immediately seem like a “rip off” of the series. In my humble opinion, I will say it’s definitely influenced by Madoka, but is still pretty different. Rather, I think Madoka Magica popularized if not started a certain trend of including dark elements in the magical girl subgenre of anime. Regardless, I think if you like Madoka, you’ll appreciate this. I sure did.

Ah, another one of those dark mahou shoujo that try to cash in from the fad Madoka Magica created with its hype and financial success. Although it does a fine job at having polarized imagery of happy moeblobs on one hand and creepy murderous monsters on the other, it still fails to accomplish the thing that actually made Madoka Magica such a hit. Which one is that you may wonder? Could it be the deep characterization? The elaborate storytelling? The amazing analysis of its various themes? HELL NO, that show sucked in all that.
… It was the production values, ok?

AIC is no SHAFT. They can’t ... throw a mountain of money at it, nor do they have overrated anime creators in their disposal to hype the damn thing six months before it even begins to air. And this is why despite all the good efforts the artwork of Gen’ei doesn’t look very good and the soundtrack is just ok at best. The character designs are practically laughable and the motions during battles are very crude. The action bits that SHOULD feel epic for the build-up they get, end up being nothing but a random line of magic attacks with no real strategy and an excuse for the heroine to use the power of friendship.

Anyways, as a stand-alone show it is not bad but sure becomes sort of repetitive in its plot very soon. Some person is lured to the dark side, turns to monster, does bad things, and the girls are sent to kill it. The theme of how you are willing to do murder in order to fulfill your deepest desires can be interesting but not when it is done in an episodic manner. Every episode is essentially 15 minutes of fuzzy slice of life, followed by 5 minutes of photo-epileptic battles full of gore and death around people we will never see again. It is hard to get attached to any of the characters since every conflict is resolved in the very episode it is created. Also, they resort to that stupid amnesia gimmick where the monsters and the victims of the monsters are erased from everybody’s memories. Their deaths are treated as accidents, which is a cheap way to maintain the status quo but also removes the drama from the setting. And sure, the main characters, the mahou shoujo themselves, remember everything but even they seem to get over it by the next episode.

Once again the main heroine ends up being the most basic and dull of them all, constantly trying to reason with the monsters and save everybody with the power of love and all that crap. It doesn’t work to the most part (thank God) but it still makes you wonder why they even have her in the demon busting team. She constantly refuses to fight, which results to many lives being endangered, hers included. I mean I would understand if they kept her in the sidelines until she gains experience; but moving her from JUST GOT SUPERPOWERS straight to FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE is overkill and helps nobody in the longrun.

I am also not fond of themes that are rubbed in your face, something which all dark mahou shojo do. They end up having depressing stuff along with cute moeblobs in order to manipulate emotions in the most obvious and lazy of methods. In case you have watched Blood C, Black Rock Shooter, or Symphogear, you will recognize that unsettling feeling of the uncanny valley. Now it’s cute. WHAM. Now it’s gory. WHAM. Now it’s loli fan service. And yes, that is too an issue in case you don’t take pleasure in watching naked moeblobs with squirrel voices for a few minutes before blood starts splattering all over the screen.

What I do like a lot though is the attention they gave to slowly explain what is going on. The monsters have motivations, and the magic comes from an explained source, something which beats having no real reason than being evil and having magic. It is also not trolling you to think it is a fluffy show for 3 episodes before it throws in someone important dying. In those departments, it blows Madoka Magica out of the water. The problem still remains though; the drama and conflicts are piss poor and rushed, always resolved with brute force and mind control. Nothing matters past the episode it takes place in.

The show is not bad in overall but lacks tremendously in tension. Despite being dark and violent, you just can’t get into it when they throw lolicon fan service amongst silly drawn characters and expect you to gasp at the tragedies they face before they forget them in 5 minutes. So in the long run it fails to be something actually memorable and poignant. Hell, I can even throw in the fact that Madoka also worked because most had never seen a deconstruction of the genre before, so they were taken by surprise. The same trick will never work with any show that tries to pull the same rabbit out of the same hat so soon. And boy, does this hat look ugly by now.

Don't ever trust the MAL rating. A 6 for others may mean a 10 for you.

Genei wo Kakeru Taiyou is one of the biggest hiddem gems I've ever discovered. Despite its low rating on MAL, the anime was actually fucking lit and I couldn't find any flaws in it except from the mediocre voice acting.

It has Yuri. Its dark and edgy. What else could you possibly want?

I can't explain the story. My brain doesn't work anymore. But I'll tell you something. It's all about emotions and choosing to move forward. Something along that line.

Incredible OP, great story, kawaii, edgy. Recommended to ... those who are looking for a good and dark magical girl show. Also. Don't fucking compare this to Madoka.

STORY:
Daybreak Illusion has a fairly unique basis, being based around tarot cards, something I have never seen in an anime before; however DBI turns into your typical magical girl anime with a group of young girls being able to turn into magic girls, in a sense, with their powers being based off their personal tarot card. I thought the story was slightly interesting, there wasn't alot of development except the story being centered around the main character being able to hear the voices of the "daemonia" and the girls fighting these daemonia. Although I initially found the story interesting, it turned a little repetitive and ... was slow to speak.

ART:
The art in DBI isn't exactly bad, the character designs in general were fairly cute before turning into a more serious style of animation whilst they were fighting which I thought was great. The animation wasn't the most memorable but it wasn't the worst I've ever seen.

SOUND:
The sound in the anime wasn't too memorable or enjoyable although the opening in my opinion was pretty good. The background music wasn't the most fantastic but it suited some of the fight scenes well.

CHARACTERS:
The characters weren't the most interesting although I'd compliment the producers on balancing the personality types well. The characters were pretty stereotypical, especially the main character who was so golden and innocent, I would've preferred if she had some flaws no matter how little.There were some characters I still liked though.

ENJOYMENT:
I started off enjoying this anime but as it progressed I found myself tired with the repetitive and slow story. The story line became pretty stereotypical being your typical magic girl anime; I believe you'll enjoy this anime if you like that genre.

OVERALL:
Overall I believe Daybreak Illusion began as a fairly interesting anime but I found myself getting bored. I thought the anime had great potential but the lack of interesting characters and a developing story line made the anime slow and stereotypical. It may be a great anime for someone who enjoys a decent magical girl anime.

Day Break Illusion is a series that could of joined Madoka Magica in building the dark magical girl sub-genre, instead it simply copied it with little originality. What little originality this series does contain comes from its Tarot Card Reading theme which doesn't effect the progression of the series as much as you might think. Day Break Illusion can be exciting at times and deliver emotional scenes here and there but overall, it's a disappointment. Not a failure but a disappointment. Everything is actually really predictable except for what happens to Luna or the information dump in episode eleven. Day Break Illusion's story is centered ... around young girls who are called upon to sacrifice themselves and save the world as magical girls. In the beginning that was actually well performed, with each girl finding their own way to overcome or ignore the fact that they're basically executioners but we needed an antagonist to really get the ball rolling. Too bad that we literally never figure out why the antagonist (Cerebrum) does what he does until the last two episodes. Cerebrum was such a poorly executed villain, I felt that this show might have actually been better if the producer left him out, let the Daemonia appear as the creatures that naturally exist and focus on the girls mental and emotional development during their times as magical girls. This is just one of the reasons why Madoka Magica managed to be such a hit.


Day Break Illusion tries way to hard to be Madoka Magica and that becomes incredibly noticeable after the first episode onward. After 12 episodes, you will finally know what Cerebrum is after and you'll most likely bust out laughing or facepalm because it's just plain stupid. This series really seems to give nothing to you but questions and the few answers that are given are either silly or seriously late for you to even care. Despite how disappointing Day Break Illusion it's not all bad I guess. The battle scenes between the magical girls and Daemonia are actually enjoyable but the animation makes some parts of the fight unrecognizable.


Day Break Illusion's cast is made up of your average group of magical girls; the optimist, the tomboy, the joker and the weakling. The girl's primarily survive through the power of friendship and it's just so cheesy, I felt like I should of been eating mac and cheese while watching this series. Day Break Illusion gets points for action and disturbing atmosphere but not much else.

Horror comes from inside and is directed inside. People who want to kill us are quite scary, but they’re a very specific problem. True horror is in realizing that we can be the killers, that we can be what we hate. It throws a big wrench in our grand narrative and shatters it to pieces. That’s why we limit our consciousness, assume the patriarchy or the media or the government is to blame for it all. Negative feelings are bad, but the true problem must be outside us.

Obvious comparisons to Madoka spring up, but these are superficial comparisons. The latter is more existential and philosophical, ... less concerned with the emotions of its characters and relying more on structure and mechanics to deliver its philosophical idea. Daybreak Illusion is far more emotional, fantastical and wild. Each character has distinct demeanor, it has many arcs which peek into other people’s lives and the main subject matter is emotion, not the grand meaning of life.

With that aside, let’s focus on what’s actually going on here, something deeper than how ‘logical’ the story is. Cliched stories that flood your cinema have an external evil. These are comfortable fantasies. The bad is always outside of us. We need to kill it. Some of them improve and we can converse with these evil, but it’s still outside. The third stage is recognizing something inside of us is evil, but an external thing brings it out. The fourth, and most horrifying stage, is realizing that each of us partakes in the conspiracy against the human race.

Daybreak Illusion belongs in the third category, which is a weird one. Stories that reach there are aware of theme exploration, that their story shouldn’t just give us a good time with pretty visuals. You can’t reach that stage without trying to be deep. The anime really wants to be more, not just a copy of Madoka but to compete against it and expand on the genre. It does that fine enough, but not good enough.

Daemonia are the big evil, but they’re amplifiers of already-present negative emotions. Yet by pushing the source of the bad outside, the series isolates it and doesn’t explore their issues too deeply. Many of the characters become ‘not themselves’ when the Daemonia take over, but that’s just avoiding the horror. The horror is realizing that the bad side is just as a part of ourselves as the good side.

The series is always close to truly delving into the depths of emotion, but never getting there. A climatic conflict does it the best, showing how we’re responsible to each other. Main character finds herself needing to actually face another person’s emotions, and digging inside of her to find out what she really feels. It’s an interesting position to put the main character in, but it doesn’t solve the big conflict. All ends with a big Final Boss Fight full of flashing lights and explosions.

In the most of the arcs though, the victims are just innocent people who are tempted by the devil. By the time they start their rampage, they’re supposedly ‘not themselves’. The escape from horror isn’t deliberate. Our heroes talk to the Daemonia and are frigthened by the fact that these are people. In a way, by showing us that these distorted monsters are still actually human beings, we’re supposed to be all the more horrified by our negative feelings. Yet this doesn’t work, since these Daemonia too end up too alien from us, their cause being external. People transform into monsters because something infected them, not because they made decisions (or were born in environments) that turned them into monsters.

For the characters in the story these people are real enough, even when they come looking like man-eating plants. What it does better than Madoka is showing the journey and emotional development of heroes caught in the midst of a cosmic battle. Characters actually have a will and their reactions to the events. If in the first episodes the anime seems aimless, it’s only because it really tells the story of these girls and nothing else. Any time the story loses its direction is when it sways from it.

Although these characters aren’t particularly deep, they’re given distinct views about the battle, the world and what they get from it. In the first few episodes the anime actually threatens to improve on Madoka, since it’s far more in touch with what kind of dilemmas and conflicts would arise in this situation. Of course it uses Monster of the Week format, because anything else is a distraction. At its most exciting, we see them clashing and arguing and talking about what they’re going through. How it feels like to be the hero is where the excitement lies.

The drop in quality comes later. Suddenly we get a more rigid structure and a main villain. Already in the beginning we had some meaningless technobabble, but it avoided getting technical. Battle ended when there was no emotions left to explore in that conflict. The final conflict also ends thanks to the heroes reaching a conclusion, deciding to rebel against their own fate. Yet we don’t actually see them reaching this conclusion.

A trait of messy anime, especially those with huge epic stories and wacky art styles is that they have a slew of themes and they don’t know which one to focus on, or even which one fit their structure. First the anime start with exploring how negative emotions get the best of us, how the evil is supposed to be inside of us. Then this is thrown away, not completely resolved and instead out of nowhere the girls are fighting against fate.

Now, if the series had something to say about emotional determinism it would be fine. Exploring the conflict of will and choice is the next big thing, since so far we all agree we can’t control our emotions. The whole idea of fate comes from the Tarot, though, not because the series wanted to explore it in the first place. Messy structures tend to arise naturally from theme-focused anime, but here it’s because the show couldn’t focus on its ideas.

At least on the surface it works well enough. As a simple heroic story, I’d take this over many others. Even if its exploration is shallow, it gains from it enough emotional weight. These battles matter. We see the characters going through something during these moments of violence and how their psyche is affected. It’s not just ‘beat up those deamons and get some shwarma’. It hasn’t reached the heights it’s aiming for, but it’s still an exciting story with great visuals. For some, that’s enough.

3 daemonia out of 5

Being a fan of Madoka Magica, I was looking for another dark mahou shoujo anime to get into. When I came across Genei wo Kakeru Taiyou it was described as a very dark mahou shoujo that hit hard and had no reservations. I was a little skeptical that it might just be an attempt to jump on the hype of Madoka Magica but I gave it a try. What I didn't expect was for the first episode to hit me like a semi truck with the grim nature of the magical girls and their fight against the Daemonia. As I watched, I was drawn in ... by the unabashed chuun, the unique tarot card based approach to magical girls' abilities, and the unusual characterization of some members of the cast and their families, including the main heroine Akari Taiyou. Some other characters were not as original but were strong enough to support the narrative and undergo interesting character development themselves.
I like Genei wo Kakeru Taiyou because it goes all out to create a dark and chuuni mahou shoujo story and I believe it holds up on its own. It pulls no punches in its grim story and bloody battles, and the characters' development is both natural and important to their growth. The end goal is in my opinion the weakest point, being somewhat rushed at the end of the show's running, and is more shallow than most other conflicts throughout. Genei wo Kakeru Taiyou did a good job of making me despise the antagonist, as they acted purely evil for the sake of evil, but gave very little in the way of revealing their humanity or motivation like they did for random Daemonia.

Overall I give Genei wo Kakeru Taiyou 8/10 for its unique approach to magical girls, unapologetic chuun, and its very fun dark and brutal battles.