Takt Op. Destiny

The United States of America has been in chaos ever since the emergence of D2s, an invasive species originating from a black meteorite that fell to Earth. A public decree banned citizens from playing any melodies, to prevent further casualties caused by the D2s' hatred for music—even now, in 2047, this prohibition is still in effect. Humanity's only form of defense against the D2s are Musicarts, young women representing pieces of classical music; and Conductors, the ones controlling them.

Takt Asahina, an aloof piano prodigy, finds himself transformed into a Conductor following a spontaneous D2 attack. The same incident kills Anna Schneider's younger sister, Cosette, and brings Takt into contact with his Musicart, Destiny. Searching for a means of stabilizing the pact between themselves, Takt and Destiny—alongside Anna—embark on a perilous journey to the Symphonica Headquarters in New York City.

Takt is in a hurry to reach the city so that he can play the piano again, even though his passion attracts the creatures he has come to despise. Meanwhile, Destiny's sense of duty drags the group into trouble along the way. With a D2-infested path and many more arduous obstacles ahead of them, will the trio make it to New York City in one piece?

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Destiny Main

Wakayama, Shion Japanese

Asahina, Takt Main

Uchiyama, Kouki Japanese

Titan Supporting

Itou, Miku Japanese

Schneider, Anna Supporting

Hondo, Kaede Japanese

Heaven Supporting

Minase, Inori Japanese

Lenny Supporting

Hino, Satoshi Japanese

Hell Supporting

Ueda, Reina Japanese

Sagan Supporting

Hanawa, Eiji Japanese

Walküre Supporting

Uesaka, Sumire Japanese

Schindler Supporting

Namikawa, Daisuke Japanese

Fukushi, Yuuichirou Producer

Kimura, Makoto Producer, Executive Producer

Kawagoe, Wataru Producer

Matsuda, Hiroshi Producer

Reviews

Dec 21, 2021

Marinate1016

Recommended

Takt OP. is the perfect example of “style over substance”.

Whilst I admittedly enjoyed watching the anime, I would be remised to not speak on the lack of any real cohesive story. We’re essentially thrown into a beautifully rendered world brought to life by MAPPA and Madhouse, told there’s a war between humans and aliens who hate music, and made to fend for ourselves. In fairness, the backstory is fleshed Outstanding a bit more, but that doesn’t mean the writing gets much better. This show honestly felt like a tech demo for new animation and storyboarding techniques. Like imagine those Unreal Engine 5 play-tests, but ... in anime form. If that’s what the creators were going for, they certainly succeeded. From the very first episode’s first few minutes I was blown away by the attention to the detail of the artists who worked on the show. It’s not exaggerating to say that Takt OP. has some of the best animation ever in the medium. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have the story to back it up.

That said, story is important, but it’s not everything. You can definitely enjoy an anime that has a weak story, that’s not a crime. I really did enjoy seeing Takt and Destiny grow together over the course of the anime. I found a lot of similarities between their relationship and Artoria and Emiya from the Fate series. In fact, the whole musicart/maestro dynamic seems like it’s taken straight from the Type-Moon universe. The ending was “ok” at best, but I still felt most of the characters got a decent conclusion to their arcs. The writing just wasn’t really good from the beginning for them to get much better. Even though this isn’t the strongest show out there, I did have a lot of fun with it. The fights, slice of life and overall artistic quality made it an enjoyable experience and I definitely think everyone should check the anime out, if only for the sakuga.

Takt Op. Destiny is somewhat of a preview of the future of anime. I think some time in the not too distant future, shows will consistently be made with this type of artistic quality. It also seems like collaborative efforts between studios are becoming more common. This means more staff working on a project, less stress on staff and a better product for consumers. A win win for everyone.

Takt gets 7 pianos out of 10.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Dec 21, 2021

Stark700

Mixed Feelings

Over 10 years ago, studio MAPPA was founded on the grounds to make a show called 'Kids on the Slope'. Madhouse has an even more extensive history tracing all the way back to the 1970s. Fash forward to 2021 and the rest is history. When you put these two studios together to producer a quality show, what can go wrong? Well, let me tell you. A lot.

Since the announcement in March this year, the franchise didn't really spark much hype at the time. After it was revealed that studio MAPPA and Madhouse would handle the production, the show got boosted interest. The previews and promotional ... material speaks for itself, at least on a technical level. With a mixture of 2D and 3D artwork, Takt Op. Destiny did on some levels, take the world by storm. That doesn't make it an anime of the year contender but does bring in more eyeballs. But yet, somehow, they couldn't completely capitalize and became a shell of its technical accomplishment.

Watching Takt Op. Destiny first felt like seeing a cinematic movie, at least for the first few episodes. The flashy fights, cinematic sequences, and overall chereography makes an impressive debut on the screen. Then, there's the plot dealing with a fictional enemy to humanity known as the D2. The show makes it clear that music plays a prominent role against them, and hence, we have two type of resistance: Conductor and Musicart. The story follows two prominent characters who play this role known to us as Takt Asahina and Cosette Schneider (aka Destiny.)Joining them also includes a girl named Anna, who plays a valuable role as an ally. Together, these three try to make a difference in the world as evidenced by their actions.

At a fundamental level, Takt and Cosette shares a somewhat personal and professional relationship. Both characters get the job done when it calls for it but it's also clear that the duo has some interpersonal issues. For instance, Takt takes music perhaps too seriously and is generally considered anti-social with an indifferent attitude towards almost everything but music. Cosette can be brutally honest although she appears to be more friendlier than Takt when dealing with people. While the two are compatible, they form a peculiar character chemistry that I find to be confusing. It's hard to get emotionally attached to the pair when everything seems like clockwork. Almost every episode have them fight the D2 and the story rarely evolves from its base premise. There's some occasional background storytelling for them but ultimately, the show suffers from an engaging plot. Character development is limited as well when the majority of the show focuses them on taking missions. They work like robots day and night and even during off-time, following their adventures quickly grows into a chore. You may get entertained by Cosette's sharp tongue, witty humor, and sensational appetite towards sweets at times. But is that all the anime has to offer?

Looking deeper into the anime, it feels like the show has little personal connection towards the main characters when they are doing their work. Every episode falls short in developing our cast. One somewhat unique element I do want to mention is the realistic settings of the modern world. Takt Op. Destiny almost feels like a futuristic dystopia at times but retains mostly a real feeling of familiarity. Settings such as Las Vegas are what we are familiar with while New York has its metropolis vibe. There's not too many places our characters journey across the world but it's safe to say that the anime has a degree of realism, despite all the otherworldly shenanigans.

Outside of Takt and Cosette, the rest of the cast are ambigiously underdeveloped. I say this because it's difficult to feel invested about the characters. Even though they have their reasons for fighting (Lenny being a noticable example), they are often overshadowed by the plot's purpose or Takt and Cosette. That is to say, they are still somewhat important to the overall story but it's obvious from day one that the anime is mainly about Takt and Cosette. And for for better or worse, Anna feels more like a main supporting character than the middle girl of the trio. Acting as a big sister type for Cosette, the anime does go into some depth to show her kindness. The overall character chemistry is unfortunately, meek at best. Oh and before you ask, this anime does not have any real romance. You may get a surprise at how Anna responds to Takt near the end of the story, but overall, don't expect any sort of love to bloom between the main characters. Takt and Cosette aren't in this show to start a relationship. No way.

Even though it's been mentioned already, Takt Op. Destiny's most outstanding feature is its technical accomplishment. It's one of the few CGI/2D art mixed anime that I've been impressed by in recent years. The colorful visuals sometimes reminds me of ufotable for their high level production. This is especially true in the first few episodes that looks and feels like a movie. Character designs are also highly decorated for the Musicarts with Cosette/Destiny being the poster girl. Even the D2 in this anime inspires a sense of fear with their monstrous look and impact of their actions. And overall, the road-trip like story adventure takes us to realistic places around the world. Take some notes, Tesla Note.

Takt Op. Destiny is the type of show that had a fantastic start but began to degrade over time, with each episode, to the point where it never managed to truly recover itself. Maybe some people set higher expectations than me after watching the promotional material. However, I stand firm and say that the anime is average at best, being that it's not breakout anime of this year yet also watchable and on some levels, recommendable to those seeking for some popcorn entertainment.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Dec 21, 2021

SingleH

Not Recommended

Takt Op. Destiny may rival Fate/Apocrypha and Fate/Grand Order as the single most kludgy, embarrassing, confused mishmash of otaku-culture stew that the Japanese anime industry as ever attempted to pour down my throat. You have to be confident when you recognize vapidness to say, “This is vapid. There is nothing of value here. I cast it aside. I’m moving on with my life.” And this show desperately calls for that kind of an axe-grinding. If you can watch even the first episode of this gacha game commercial and see anything other than lifeless, artless, cynical trash appealing to the absolute lowest common denominator of the ... anime community, then I imagine you'll be fine with anything it does or anywhere it goes so long as it continues to have waifubait and vaguely cool-looking, lopsidedly produced action scenes to keep you horny and awake. I beg you, please don’t take this the wrong way. I’m not trying to condescend. This is my genuine recommendation. Watch Takt Op. Destiny if you legitimately do not care about the quality of the anime you watch.

Anime adaptations of manga, light novels, and even anime-original concepts have a story at their core and something they are trying to portray or convey while also attempting to expand the audience of the original work, but shows like this have nothing at their core except shitty mobile games designed to drain money from gullible pay pigs. This is a business model you should feel insulted to have aimed at you. It's why there's absolutely no creativity or originality in any of its story beats. As with all generalizations, exceptions exist—projects like Shingeki no Bahamut exist—projects rooted in gacha games where the producers gave the studio creative freedom and money to guarantee their audience be treated to high-quality TV anime they wouldn't have had otherwise, but Takt Op. Destiny is no such example. You can tell when a corporation just dumps money on a committee of burnt out writers and borderline enslaved animators, and they just vomit out whatever they last ate onto the animation frames. They are in it for the paycheck, as they frankly should be, and all you get is sterile, soulless mediocrity.

The pitch meeting for this was just one executive going, “Guys…GUYS! What if we just…COMBINED Vivy and Fate?” While the rest of the board room proceeded to desperately try and mark their bank accounts while simultaneously suffering from violent orgasms. Every central element this series features is a shameless, boldfaced rip-off. Master/servant relationship; autistic kuudere waifu heroine; loudmouth ponytail tsundere who gives exposition dumps and advises the master/servant duo; self-insert MC on the ground looking up at the blonde, stoic, female warrior backed by the moonlit night sky. I mean, they literally got Takahiro Miura himself to storyboard that exact same shot from Fate/Stay Night into episode one of this shit. It’s like one producer went, “Shit! These otaku losers aren’t buying enough Saber merch anymore! How will I pay for my fourth yacht?!” And another one just said, “Dude, calm down. Just make her fourteen years old and stick her in a lolita road movie.” Then they had to make her an idol and add the music theme because POWER OF MUSIC GUYS MAKE SURE TO BUY OUR SOUNDTRACK!

It rips-off Guilty Crown as well, but I hesitate to even bring this up, because comparing that gorgeous Production IG original to this pile of rat shit just feels insulting. Everyone who criticizes this show insists on saying, “Basically everything about this show sucks, but at least it has good animation.” But it doesn’t. It looks atrocious, and this isn’t just another case of, “Oh, 90% of the show looks cheap, but the action scenes are flashy enough to get kids hyped about it, therefore no one cares about its usual quality.” This is different. The action scenes themselves look bad. This was a joint production between Madhouse and MAPPA, and while the Madhouse episodes humiliate the MAPPA episodes, the Madhouse fight scenes still look fucking terrible, and it’s not always the fault of the animation—it’s the compositing, the cinematography, and the utter lack of consistent in-between frames. It tries so pathetically hard to copy how ufotable does their action sequences, but since its 2D animation is so choppy and off-model, all it can muster up is that horrific, abrasive, epilepsy-inducing digital effect spam they do.

First of all, they use foreground focus to hide shitty digital background art. It’s like a bootlegged version the depth-of-field blur you see in KyoAni shows like Hibike! Euphonium or Violet Evergarden, only it's implemented in such a way you know is only done to hide bad compositing and hideous backgrounds. Next is the hazy cinematography. The Director of Photography was also DOP on Attack on Titan: The Final Season, and holy fucking shit, I could’ve told you that from a mile away. When it’s not assaulting your eyeballs with that ufotable digital effect spam, all the colors look so washed out and arid. It could very well be a stylistic choice, but it’s not stylized enough for that to be apparent. I don’t know if the compositing was done at Madhouse, MAPPA, or if it was outsourced, but if it was MAPPA, I wouldn’t be surprised, because while there was no laughably egregious shit like the characters in Jujutsu Kaisen running on air with CG backgrounds twirling around behind them, it’s not too far off. I invite you to go watch the first six or seven minutes of episode one so you can see everything I’m talking about.

The only other projects this director has ever had any significant involvement with is a forgettable Nanoha continuation and Granblue Fantasy (another hollow, lifeless advertisement for some video game I have no interest in buying), and you can tell. Random monsters appear with no rhyme or reason outside of a few bare-bones mechanics necessary to facilitate tensionless fight sequences and ambiguous anime superpowers for our special chunni heroes to fight them with. No matter how much they try to gild it with recognizable studios, it's still just your everyday soulless gachashit. The MC has zero personality to better facilitate self-insertion by the gachabrain, his harem only grows as the show goes on, and every girl is cut from the exact same sheet of cardboard. As if idols fighting aliens through the power of music didn’t sound fucking retarded enough already, the scriptwriter’s god-awful track record stood strong, and everything about the screenwriting is a heap of trash fire. The dialogue is cringe inducing at times, and the character development is so incredibly surface level it hurts.

Takt Op. Destiny is more corporate filth taken straight off the assembly line. Its main gist is to market some potentially profitable anime girl, so when they start pulling out the hamfisted dramatic backstories, I rolled my fucking eyes. I don't mind watching some tongue-in-cheek Fate rip-off if I have enough alcohol in my system, but slogging through paper-thin backstories for these non-characters who no one will ever remember or give a fuck about two days after the show’s finale just shows how the creators responsible for this garbage have no idea what the tone of their show is supposed to be. It’s the definition of lacking self-awareness. The ambient animation looks awful enough even without factoring in the blurry cinematography, the plot was nearly nonexistent, and where they did actually try to advance something it was terribly paced. Last but not least, the setting was criminally wasted. It was extremely jarring to see these people who were supposed to be saving the American countryside happily destroy people's homes and businesses and just laugh about it like callous, detached psychopaths.

It’s a music themed anime where the BGM is completely lackluster. It felt like a series that needed someone like Hiroyuki Sawano but instead got music that is pretty generic. Yoshihiro Ike composed the soundtrack with ryo as the music producer, but the soundtrack never felt particularly outstanding. Sawano’s work may sound a little samey after a while, but his standout tracks are simply fantastic, and I don’t know anyone who wasn’t blow away by his output from 2009 to 2017. But ultimately, this show’s attempt to sell itself with music and classic orchestra just falls flat. Everything about it is totally insipid and lacking in any substance. When I first called this show a rip-off, I had to lure you in with big, famous names like Fate, Vivy, and Guilty Crown, but now that you’ve stuck around, I can finally reveal the series which Takt Op. Destiny rips-off the most. It’s called Shinkyouku Soukai Polyphonica. What’s that? You’ve never heard of it? Well, that’s good. The plagiarist hacks responsible for Takt Op. Destiny were counting on it. Fuck this show and everything it stands for. If Beethoven were still alive to see his work used in this way, he’d tear his eyes out so he could be deaf AND fucking blind.

Thank you for reading.

Reviewer’s Rating: 1

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	Poll: Takt Op. Destiny Episode 5 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) Stark700 - Nov 2, 2021	136 replies	by waldy713 »» Nov 27, 12:06 PM
	Poll: Takt Op. Destiny Episode 4 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) Stark700 - Oct 26, 2021	116 replies	by waldy713 »» Nov 27, 12:05 PM
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