Kurokami The Animation

"Can you change a destiny that has already been written for you?"

Enter "Kurokami", a series that shows the struggle of two individuals, as they attempt to change their own path that others say can not be changed.

Story: 7/10
The center of the plot revolves around "the Dopleliner System". What this means is there exists three versions of the same person (2 subs and 1 root). Should any one of these three come in plain sight of the other, they will perish, and only the root will live, and thus will consume the energy force of them known as tera. Our main heroes are Kuro (a Tera ... Guardian trying to stop the Doppleliner system and defeat her brother) and Keita (an ordinary boy who unwillingly ends up becoming her partner). What interested me the most about the anime, is the way that the actual battles take place. It almost feels like you are watching a more mature version of Pokemon at times. Each Tera Guardian can form a pack with a human, and thus use their power in conjunction with their own. So fights take place with the two helping each other--ie: the Tera Guardian fights, and the humans remain on the sidelines channeling their powers to their partner. The fighting scenes are also quite good, because despite the characters featuring "power/energy" moves, the fighting scenes themselves feel very street brawling oriented, and stylized. It overall does a good job of mixing the super powers with more authentic looking moves. Now regarding the way the actual storyline progresses, here is where I feel Kurokami tends to miss the mark. There are enough plot threads going on, and many of them do evolve throughout the series. However, they end up happening few and far between. A lot of episodes play the role of fillers, and some fight scenes that take place seem unnecessary. This can make the plot a bit tedious to follow, as it can sometimes take many episodes for something simple to be made clear. Still, making your way through the anime just to see the last few episodes really makes things worth while, as the final episodes are exciting and fast paced, though I did find it a bit odd that episode 23 ends up being a re-cap of all the others, but through a slightly different perspective. Where this anime really shines through is with its actual ending. Everything concludes nicely, and feels very satisfying at the end. And some events even end up being a bit unexpected. As a whole the story is good, there is plenty of action and plot twists to keep things exciting. But due to the storyline tending to drag on, does hinder it as a whole, but nothing too drastic.

As far as offensive material goes, Kurokami does have a few scenes which contain gory elements where blood spurts and/or is smeared on the ground. These scenes don't happen very frequently, in fact only the first few episodes really have them, with it only happening occasionally after that. Some battles even end with little to no blood spilled at all.

Art: 8/10
The arts style to this is dark and moody, but not really in a creepy kind of way. The backgrounds come off pretty well detailed, with nice looking city designs and foliage areas. Even so, the overall color schemes tend to make the series look a bit washed out. The character design is good, all of them are well proportioned and have a good sense of style to each one of the cast. The super moves (also known as "Exceeds") are flashy and colorful, with each character’s move set differing from one another. The fight scenes are by far the best part in the animation. Character moves are animated smoothly, with every punch and kick shown off with just the right amount of impact.

Sound: 6/10
For me this was the weakest point in the series. The voice acting in both the English and Japanese version is very well done, I still feel the Japanese audio is better by far in the long run. However, a majority of the soundtrack seems to favor one style of genre in music...rock! The opening and ending themes change twice through out the series. The opening animations both play rock style music tracks, while the ending theme (surprisingly) plays soft lite hearted melodies sung by Yousei Teikoku. The background music it plays also consists of rock music. I can see where they are going with this, and while I don’t care for heavy rock music, I can at least appreciate it for this anime. If you like this type of genre in music then you will love the soundtrack, but if you’re like me and don’t care for it, then you will most likely turn the volume down during some of the scenes.

Characters: 7/10
The characters are hit and miss. I will go on record of saying that Kuro is one of the coolest female heroines to come along in an anime as of late. She has a sweet and funny personality, yet holds back a lot of sorrow in here life--she is quite the layered individual. Of all the characters in the series, Keita is probably going to be the one that is hardest to tolerate...especially during the beginning. He tends to complain a lot, and is unwilling to help anyone towards the beginning, and will most likely annoy many viewers. To his credit though, he does end up changing as the story progresses, and at least becomes more tolerable in the end. The supporting cast is also the same, some characters such as Excel, Reishin and Daichi do a good job off adding to the storyline. However, there are a number of supporting characters that just don’t make the cut. Many of them don’t really seem to have much impact on what is going on, and thus make some feel unnecessary to the storyline. They’re not a bad cast by any means, some of them just don’t seem to have a staple purpose in the anime. As a whole though, the main characters themselves do end up doing their parts well for the stories’ purpose, and in that regards it is done right.

Overall: 7/10
Despite some of its flaws, Kurokami is a good anime. If you can make it through some of the fillers, and don’t mind the story dragging on somewhat, then I think you will find this a deep enough series to check out. There is enough action and plot in this to keep both the Seinen fans and casual viewers satisfied. And as it stands, it’s a series I think anime fans should give a try.

“Power to achieve something”

The Story…

It revolves on a system that we called “Doppeliner System”. The story tells about the involvement of the three main characters, which is Kuro, Keita, and Akane. They are somewhat confused on this system and willing to find out the real main reason why this system exists, making it as an obligation as they put their life in danger or helping others to find out the cure to its existence.

The point of view here is not the twist of the story rather the main attraction here will be the action / super power scenes. It gives excitement and thrill but on ... the other hand there are some minor / major problems that you may notice in it within the show. Though the twist of the story adds effects for the whole series, it’s quite ineffective in such a way that it consists of somewhat boring conversations, bad combination of action and romance, and bad flow of the events throughout the story.

This might be the uniqueness of it from the other anime. It comes up with a different representation of martial arts with super power. It is also the main reason why it’s been quite exciting to watch the series, nothing less and nothing more.

Art & Animation…

Well it might be obvious what the series will give. It emphasizes fighting scenes, stunts, and signature blows and it also gives different camera angles to be shown on every move. The art is quite normal and they didn’t make it a grand, a simple and fitted for the series.

Sound…

The sound suited well to this action series. OP song that has fast beat music and gives a thrilling excitement. ED song that gives a soothing and melodic music that points a change of view to the series. BG music/sounds adds a great effect through the fighting, emotional and funny scenes.

Characters…

Irritating, balanced and appealing. This is what the characters do in the anime, they give such appealing formation or stance, but in the other part they also give an irritating and disappointing effects throughout the show. So in the end it gives just a balanced mood on the entire series that never changes up to the end. It’s quite disappointing in my part.

Enjoyment…

The enjoyment will define as “animation vs monologue”, “story vs characters”. In this cases you may find out in the series that either of the definition will have a contrast to each other, so when it happened it would turn out to be a problem as you continue on watching it. It has a high-low features that will sometimes give you annoyance or enjoyment.

Overall…

Even though it has an ups feature on the series, it also have a down feature that pulls the excitement out of it. A balanced mood will show up throughout the series that will sometimes put you on thinking to quit on watching.

EXCEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED!!! Kurokami will be sure to knock your socks off!

Kurokami is an action-packed, adventure-filled, life-changing anime. From awesome storyline to kick-ass characters ( Kuro ftw. xD ), you could never go wrong with watching Kurokami.

The audio and art effects are PURE GENIUS. Voice acting was a complete WONDER (Japanese VA). The plot twists take your breath away as the characters go through every corner of the story.

Is it just me or is the fact that how the main character always goes to eats noodles funny?

Anyway, Kurokami was one of my favourites and I'm sure that you'll love it too.

HAPPY WATCHING!

Speaking from episode 16, i felt that this anime needed another perspective.

What I Like:
I like the entire "Partner" ideal, and how the characters develop as the story goes along. It is similar to other anime such as Shakugan no Shana, Fate Stay Night, and Pandora Hearts, but it has own originality, suspense, fighting, and story.
What i dislike:
It has some overused anime cliche's when dealing with the romance, and the "Weak guy" + "Awesome girl" setup similar to the anime i listed above.(I wouldn't mind the character setup as much, as long as the weak guy learns to fight as ... well).

-----Review Ratings-----

Story: 9
It deserves a 9 because there are some points that entirely focus on fighting, instead of character development, and although the character development isn't effected in this manor, it still takes away from the story.
Art:10
The first episode i watched seemed a little fast paced, but the camera angles, and art styles were beautiful. On occasion, Kuro will make an unrealistic face, but its so rare, that its barely worth mentioning.
Sound: 8
The music is there. It picks up before a fight, and calms down before any sort of disagreement or slightly romantic scene, it is very well mixed into the anime where i don't suddenly jump out and notice that the music is distracting, or is "off" in any way, but its not an entirely epic soundtrack.
Character:9
I love some of the new anime stereotypes I've been noticing, and the anime has a similar character development style to others I've been watching recently but the villains so far are awesome, Twists on the " seemingly good guy slaughtering his clan" and the "Good guy turned bad"
Enjoyment:10
This show kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time. Its a little predictable, but it keeps my mind moving from subject to subject, always keeping me thinking about what is going to happen next.
Overall:46/50
Its an great series to watch, especially if you liked other similar series, or if you are just looking for something interesting.

this is my first time to write a review of an anime and i didn't know why i picked kuro kami. so where should i start? hmm.. basically, kuro kami is about someone who was brave enough to change their fate. this was the story of ibuki keita who tried to be indifferent to the people around him because he thinks that he could affect their fates which lead them to death. until he met kuro.. a mototsumitama. he then became aware of 'doppeliners' (doppelgangers) and 'terra' (could be explained as energy or ki in simple terms). at the verge of his death, kuro made ... a 'contract' with him. and that's where the story begins. he became known to certain things that he couldn't believe exists. of the doppleliners' main roots and substitutes. of the mototsumitama and their 'contractees'. and the probable reason why his mother was accidentally killed on his childhood.

story: 8/10
i will not say that this is not a typical anime because there are some which had the same/similar plotting (but of course with different story lines and characters). but the story is quite good and enjoyable. there were some mysteries and revelations that you have to discover though if you are a hardcore anime fan, you could probably predict some.

characters: 7/10
characters are average. even though i could say that kuro is one of the coolest heroines out there. though she could be compared and/or similar to some characters i've watched so far, still, she still had this uniqueness in her character. keita was a bit dragging in the beginning but nevertheless, you'll like his determination. there are other characters who made impact such as reishin (brother of kuro) with which you would totally give him a second thought as the story progresses.

overall: 7/10
the series is action-packed, has humor, drama, and unexpected revelations in the end. i don't want to say anything that could probably give someone a second thought about picking this anime, it's just that the ending actually 'broke' my heart. i just didn't expect to end it that way. the 2nd to the last episode could have been a much nicer ending even though one could say that it would be just as similar to most animes out there that ended with a cliffhanger. but at least you could just use your imagination and picked a nicer ending. that aside, kuro kami is a good pick anime fans should try watching :)

the story line of kurokami for me is simply beautifully written and animated. it epic and those who liked fate stay night might enjoy watching kurokami as they show some similarities about the character protagonist. also a contract is form between human and super being but in kurokami not with a Ancient Champion but a super Race.

at first the story may seems slow but its worth the wait. As to me the sequence of the story being told was simply heighten my curiosity in proceeding to the next episodes.

The story of Kurokami revolves around our two central protagonists on a journey to exact revenge on the antagonist, so basically at the start Kuro creates a pact with Keita and they search out Kuro's brother who committed a crime in 'there world.' The show introduces the Doppeliner System, the basis behind it is that there are three of 'you' out there in the world and if you happen to have eye contact with one of them you will die (unless your the root.) Its a different take on a Doppelgänger which has been popular in fiction.

I found with this show there was barely ... any breather episodes or fillers as you were in the last half of the show, it's very action packed including a lot of battles where we get to see a wide variety of super powers being used, i really liked how each person had there own ability.

The art for this show is decent, the backgrounds were all well drawn and a lot of detail was put into them, the character designs were cool, and the lighting effects on Kuro's head was neat. As i said previously the different abilities were all great to see, they were well drawn and animated, the fight scenes were what stood out for me, they were highly detailed and extremly fun to watch.

Voice acting was up to a decent standard, i watched the dub and only a few of the original Japanese, all the voices fit there respected characters and we got a few unknown or actors some or most may not of heard of, Wil Wheaton even has a semi big role. The openings were fun and were pretty good rock songs to kick off the show.


Overall if you enjoy martial art based super power Anime then this is definitely worth checking out, fast pace to keep you wanting more, dark atmosphere to add to the grittyness of each battle and the struggles, characters that are cute and lovable to characters to want to see get there ass kicked. This show does have it's flaws, i haven't ripped about them here because i find it hard to talk about them, i know there there it just hard to put into words, i do say the good points do out way the bad points though.

Kurokami is one of those many animes that would have done a lot better had it been given more episodes. For the depth of the story that is told, I would say about 75 episodes are needed. As it is, the series stands very well by itself.

The show takes place in a world in which there are three of every person- a Root and two Subs. The Doppeliner System favors the Roots, in that they have the majority of the luck in life. If a Sub were ever to meet their corresponding Sub or Root, that person would die. People called Mototsumita are charged with ... maintaining the balance of the system in the world and as the show begins, the system is being subverted by a famous corporation for its own ends.

There are two protagonists- Keita (male) and Kuro (female). Kuro was born to be a princess of her land, but she begins the story by wandering the streets of Tokyo. The reasons for this are explained later in the story.

The show mainly revolves around the two heroes' relationship together and their deepening connection through a series of conflicts. There are support characters in the story, but these aren't given enough time to realize their full potential. Because of this, the other Mototsumita showing up to support Kuro often seem like random people. This is literally a series that could have become a popular shounen work with 400+ episodes to its credit had the creators expanded on what was already there. 23 episodes isn't that bad, but the story's advancements often seem to come out of left field and the plot twists lose their meaning because enough time wasn't given to establish the meaning of the development to all the characters involved.

Nevertheless, Kurokami remains a good show. It's a show about two people doing their best to fight against the destiny they were given and the ways in which they overcome the rules society put in place to restrict their lives. In many ways, it's a philosophical progression of Japanese morals which began by saying that people had to work inside the system they were given to now determining the ways in which they want to the system to affect them. If anything, Kurokami is a sure indication that Japanese thought is becoming steadily more individualistic.

What can i say the doppeliner system was the first thing that kept me interested. The art style was superb. It reminded me of Dark than Black and Shakugan no Shana, which were excellent animes fyi :). The opening sympathizer also became one of my favorites. There were some twists that I couldn't predict, but it was effective when it occurred. These twists really rekindled my interest (when i was starting to lose interest in the middle >_>) in the anime in a big way. The only beef i had with this anime was the repetitive battles and transformations.

(i am basing ... my review purely on the anime)
I have read the manga and although it is entirely different you should not shy away from this series.

WHY YOU SHOULD WATCH THIS: First and foremost, for the action scenes. The fights consist primarily of well-choreographed hand-to-hand, with the flashy special attacks mixed in rather than dominant. Coupled with the two-on-two setup, this makes for plenty of exciting battles. Clearly this is Kurokami's strong point, enhanced by strong animation and the rock-style soundtrack. Also, though none of the characters could claim to be deep or complex, the main pair is a refreshing change from the contract mold. Kuro is not a seasoned vet, but rather wet-behind-the-ears with only her training to go on. And though Keita does threaten to be a typical whiny ... male lead at first, before long he comes to fully embrace his role, including (gasp) actually being useful in battle.

CONCERNS: The plot, while not bad per se, is fairly unspectacular. The "doppeliner system" turns out to be little more than a gimmick, and most of the developments can be seen a mile away. It does do its job in allowing for plenty of fights though, and unlike many manga-based series Kurokami comes to a full conclusion. Besides that, I'd be remiss not to warn that battles usually start out with unbelievably cheesy "synchro" sequences, straight out of a mahou shoujo or super sentai show. Not really a big deal, but it will irk some people.

PSA: There is often relevant content after the end credits of each episode, so be sure to watch for it. I found myself feeling a bit lost at the start of each ep until I figured that out.

SUMMARY: I like to say that all an action series needs to be good entertainment is strong animation, music, and fight scenes. Kurokami is certainly a success on that front, and the plot and characters are just decent enough to keep from dragging down... And lastly, ending is FAIR...

This is my first review here, so please bear with me!

Kurokami is about "Kuro", a mototsumitama and her human contractee Keita. They journey together to Okinawa to defeat Kuro's brother who abusing the dopperliner system. This system means that in the world there are 3 copies of the same person. If you see your doppelganger you will die. It gets a tad more complicated but I wouldn't want to ruin the story for you guys so ill stop there!

--Story--

I found the story really unique and interesting. There is one thing Kuro and Keita wish to do during the entire series, their main goal is to ... defeat Kuro's brother Reishin. There is also a rather big side story relating to the K-on mart who also wish to take advantage of the doppeliner system. Series 1 has less of a story than series 2, it is much slower and gets you to know some of the characters. Series 2 is where most of the action is and where the plot really comes together and has you on the edge of your seat.

--Art--
The fighting scenes have to be mentioned here - I found them so well choreographed and they were very fun to watch. The art in Kurokami is beautiful, everything is very clear and vibrant. We also see those big cute faces especially Kuro's when she is eating Ramen! :3

--Sound--
This was not bad at all - the opening and closing for scene for series 1 was a little boring for me but I loved the opening to series 2 as well as the music the fights were choreographed to in series 2! Guitars are pretty heavy in a lot of the music in Kurokami.

--Character--
Character development for Kuro was fab, you really connect with her she's just so cute. In the first episode you see her eating Ramen with her big mouth and shes just so happy. It's hard to believe that she's a tough cookie when you see her like that. Throughout the series you learned more and more about where she has come from and why she is in Tokyo, why did she choose Keita to be her contractee? Why does she want to kill her brother? There are flashbacks as well as her own explanations. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for her contractee Keita. I felt that this anime made him look useless. He would hang back in fights and you didn't get to see his fighting spirit until quite a few episodes in. This series does not do a very good job of explain Keita's background.
Other characters join in here and there, Steiner and Exel were my favourite background characters, they are a very powerful pair from Germany. You'll also meet another motosumitama from Kuro's clan who wants to help her to defeat her brother as well as another who wants to kill Reishin for revenge. I'll leave it at that :3

--Enjoyment--
At first I was disappointment with this anime - there was a lot of stuff thrown in that didn't make a whole lot of sense. After finishing series 1 I was almost ready to drop it but I'm really glad I didn't as season 2 was much better.

--Overall--
If you like anime where there is lots of action and fighting then you will like this - there is a fight almost every episode and they are long. I can't say its the best plot ever because its not, its not the best anime out there but I would definitely give it a try! :3

Ok, first review. I saw this because it was on Crunchyroll for the iPod. Overall, Kurokami was enjoyable, especially some of the earlier hand to hand figting scenes. I'm no huge fan of those over-the-top channeling energy stuff, so that turned me off later in the story. However, it was well animated and had a cool plot twist near the end. It's fun to watch and definitely is worth your time, especially if you like action.

Oh and I noticed some copy pasted animations, notably the Tera moves and Synchro. That got kind of annoying, especially after many Exceeds.

I just finished watching this yesterday and I think I'm feeling better now. The show is good. It really is. What I'm having a problem with is the ending. I don't want to reveal any spoilers, and it's not a typical ending, but I'm unsatisfied with it. If they would just change the last 2 episodes, it would really make me feel a LOT better about the show.

Until Ep 21, I was ready to give this series a 9 for story and character, but the ending just ruined it for me.

Now, don't get me wrong, it's a great story and the pacing is VERY good. ... I haven't seen something like this in a LONG time. It's the kind of story that keeps you engrossed and wanting to just see it to the end.

The ending itself, they tie up all the ends, so there really isn't much left asking ... but. ... well,, it's probably just me.

The show itself is really good and I enjoyed it. I really did.

to be honest, i agree with everyone on how confusing this anime was in the beginning. I kept watching and i started understanding more of the plot of the story. After finishing this anime, i was happy to say that this anime is actually pretty nice and good! The story in the beginning was confusing but after watching more episodes, i knew what was going on and enjoyed the anime. This anime is good if you didnt give up like other people. I love this anime, the ending was so sad.

So this anime is actually better then what I was expecting. The animation reminded me of One Punch Man specifically the fighting scenes wich surprised me, because the main reason I watched this was cause I watched a tiny clip on youtube. Like all the animes I watch that have been out for awhile. The story sparked my interest in the beggining and then the theme of Doppelganger and the psychological factor as well when people died out of nowhere turns a bit emotional and makes you a little sentimental towards our MC (cause literally everyone one around him just dies out of nowhere).

Dont know ... if this consideres a Psychological Anime but it scared me of the though of one of the characters I started to like or actually like suddently died. Luckly for me no one died that fits that category except the little kid in the first episodes made me feel sad. But they kinda dont die but I wont spoil that much besides that I just mentioned just now.

Note: Not a fan of Psychological anime dont know if this is considered one but I started watching just cause I saw a clip on youtube and was going in blind. Also has a bit of plot twists like any Psychological anime

But onto to the point of this review:

- Do I recommends it? Yes
- Is it good? Good animation (fighting scenes), Soundtrack is surprisingly good, Story never been good to judge that but I think its interesting, Characters those that I like dont die so everyone else to me is irrelevant.

Overall i would recomend this anime. I perfer subs to dubs but i watched the eng dub of the anime just because i like the main character's voice actor(kuro's). in my opinion episodes 3-7 or 8 start to have way more corny moments in them than the ones before them. i found this rather annyoing but it makes me wonder if the sub would have been this way, because i started to watch one of the subs once and one of the very first sentences was "Shut the #*@% up" and that same sentence in the dub was "How qwant"..... (sorry for spelling qwant worng ... i havent had much sleep and cant think of how to spell it right) so the dialog seams to be quite different in the dub than the sub. At some parts in the story i dont really think the characters react the way they should at points in the story. I am also not a reall fan of the way it ended. Thier is one point the story controdicts itself too... you probably wont notice it tho and it is to big of a spoiler a state here. In the first half of the story i was annoyed at the way Keita acte ( i had not been that annoyed by a charcters atitude scince Shinji form Neon Genesis ). The second part of the anime had a way faster pace to it. The anime was good enough for me to want to read the manga someday too so i would recomend it. I just hope the manga ends in a diffrent way.

" BOXING GIRL? "..... NO NO NO, I dont say that..

This anime is not about the battle between the hands, but a story about a girl that has a great ability to fight.

Synopsis: "Although time has passed quite a while but still, my memory will not disappear when it
The girl who appeared in front of my mother and I are very similar to my mother "

That had in mind the thoughts of a young man named Keita Ibuki. Since the meeting when it was her mother later died. Nine years later, Keita has grown up and worked as a freelance progammer until one day ... he finally get the chance to join a company sebuh game maker of some standing.
His return he stopped at a ramen shop customers, and there he meets a strange little girl named Kuro. Because of her compassion Keita gave ramennya to Kuro. But moments later a man appeared who attacked Kuro. Keita trying to help but that happened even one of Keita's hand off. Since these events will inevitably be involved in the conflict Keita Mototsumitama and unexpectedly it will also take him to know the truth about her mother's death nine years ago.

Like Ordinary Anime Square Enix producing an impressive ...

Kinda ironic, i had lots of chances in the past to watch kurokami.
But i was skeptical about it and mostly said "Meh dont think its worth my time"
and maan i was so stupid saying it.
When i finally decided to watch it,i was simply amazed the anime was fantastic and the character development is truly amazing.
and throughout the anime it left me with so many questions and no answers(dont worry all your questions will be answered as you watch the anime).
If some of you watched shakugan no shana before kurokami or the opposite,You will find lots of similiarites between both of these animes,examples:
-A girl with super ... powers who makes some sort of a contract with a guy which bonds them together
-The main protagonist ends up getting dragged into something he never wanted to
Personally,i watched shakugan no shana and i liked it very very much. but kurokami was simply amazing,i gave it a 10/10 and i rarely give my 10s,well unless i find an anime with something truly amazing.
One thing i truly learned about animes before watching it is:Dont judge a book by its cover,or more like dont judge an anime by its cover art.
Oh btw this is my first review i ever made about a complete anime so yeah im not very experienced in this yet and pardon my english if i made any typos

Just finished kurokami. I tried it and liked it but at the end it seemed they rushed the whole episode and didn't explain much but idk. Good anime tho

tl;dr: An anime that starts out trying and failing to have depth, but becomes quite solid in terms of action and characters when it embraces just being a good battle anime.

I should firstly note that I haven’t read the manga. There are apparently major differences between the two which fans of the manga have disliked, but I’m judging the anime solely on it’s own merits independent of how well it adapts the manga.

Kurokami is a battle anime centered around the Doppeliner System and Mototsumitama. The Doppeliner system is essentially this anime’s version of the urban legends surrounding doppelgangers, wherein if one see another then one ... will die in the near future. This anime explains this phenomenon as one of the people being a Root with high Tera, which is essentially luck, and the other a Sub with low Tera, and upon meeting the Root absorbs the little Tera the sub has, thereby becoming even luckier while the Sub becomes so unlucky they die not long after. This system is watched over by Mototsumitama, who are essentially super strong human like beings that can form contracts with humans to become even stronger.

The plot of the first arc, which spans the first half or so of the anime, mostly just sets the foundation for the latter two arcs. It introduces almost all of the important characters and provides some background on them while also fleshing out the various systems and such and how they tie into character’s motivations. The main characters are the Mototsumitama Kuro and her human partner Keita. Kuro was a girl who was seeking her brother, Reishin, who had strayed from the path that most Mototsumitama followed but was instead seemingly just trying to cause chaos. Keita inadvertently got involved in her fight when Reishin’s underlings came after Kuro while he was with her and in order to save him, she had to form a contract with him, and thus the two of them were connected.

The majority of the first arc is pretty weak for a number of reasons. The first would be that like a lot of battle anime/manga, it doesn’t actually start out as being a proper battle anime, but rather tries to be something more complicated, focusing on the complexities surrounding the Doppeliner system and such. There’s still action, but it actually seems to spend a good amount of time trying to flesh things out in regards to ethics and such, but most all of it isn’t very good. Mototsumitama are meant to maintain the Doppeliner System to maintain balance or some other nebulous concept like that. However, it’s very clear that this system is god awful so it isn’t really clear why the viewer should be invested in that.

Furthermore, while the villain of this arc’s motivations aren’t properly explained at this point, his goal seems to be to essentially mess with the system, which doesn’t seem like a bad motivation to have. That could have been the basis for some actually decent ethical issues, but as mentioned this is largely left completely unexplained, and the anime instead just explores small things surrounding that while kind of trying to portray maintaining the system as a good thing. This largely doesn’t make sense, and thus everything just feels kind of contradictory.

The second issue is Keita’s personality during this arc. He behaves in a perfectly believable manner for someone that was dragged without a choice into an incredibly dangerous situation, and probably handles it better than I would have. That doesn’t change the fact that he still seems lame as hell. Him lashing out at Kuro and essentially trying to run away from having to be involved with any of this just felt kind of pathetic. This may well be because essentially all other similar stories seem to just have the protagonist roll with things like this and thus I’m conditioned to expect that, but it doesn’t change the fact that the protagonist was immensely unlikable.

There are a few other minor issues as well, such as how there are some ridiculously forced moments for the sake of plot advancement, such as characters just randomly running into other important characters somehow and just going with the flow in a way that feels really unnatural. As a result of those issues, the pacing for the anime overall felt pretty slow and like it was really dragging on as a lot of the content simply wasn’t that good.

Thankfully, all of that turns around near the end of the first arc, at which point Keita goes through major character growth, there’s solid growth in the relationship between him and Kuro, and the anime seems to drop it’s pretense about being deep and goes full battle anime. This leads to a pretty exciting climax to the arc, that doesn’t really resolve anything, but is a solid transition into the second arc, which spans the next quarter or so.

The villain in the second arc seems to have somewhat complex motivations at first in that he tries to explain them as such, but it’s pretty clear that he’s just sacrificing others using the Doppeliner System for the sake of gaining power. Thankfully, the anime doesn’t really try to flesh things out as complex as it did during the first arc, and thus plays to it’s strengths by basically just being a battle anime with clear good guys and bad guys. There’s no exploration of complex themes, but there’s still solid character and relationship development in Keita and Kuro as well as solid character development in the side characters Akane and Yuki as well. Other side character’s don’t really get much in terms of development, but it builds well off the cast introduced in the first arc and a few still manage to seem pretty cool and add some variety to things. The anime felt well paced throughout with key moments built up to well and twists that properly felt exciting, and thus overall this part of the anime overall felt well written. This arc also ends in what feels like a proper conclusion.

However, this conclusion immediately transitions into the final arc. The beginning of this arc was somewhat of a mess. It introduces a bunch of new characters, many of whom basically only matter once. It also provides a lot of explanation for things previously not explained properly, such as where the Doppeliner System came from or why the Mototsumitama were protecting it. It ultimately is somewhat complex from an ethical point of view, though for reasons completely unrelated to those that were explored in the first arc, rather the reasons here are much simpler and make a lot more sense. Though it doesn’t dwell much on that either, still primarily being a battle anime with the complexity mainly coming from who’s fighting who and why. The mess arises from the fact that a lot of this isn’t explained very well, either not really properly being explained at all, being explained in a weird order where characters, mainly Akane, feel really inconsistent, or being explained through straight up infodumps and infodump flashbacks which kind of kill the pacing.

Still, ultimately everything is adequately explained, the mechanics of the world are clear and all the character’s involved have motivations that make sense, leading to a climax that’s intense, exciting, and easy to get invested in. This is paced reasonably well and ultimately ends in a pretty satisfying manner that showcases the major characters and the growth they had gone through quite well. After that, episode 22 essentially serves as an epilogue that isn’t action focused but rather focuses solely on how the characters will live their lives after everything had settled down. It builds heavily on the relationship between Keita and Kuro as well as other relationships built up to a lesser extent over the course of the anime for an immensely impactful ending. It wasn’t the type of ending I generally like, but I still found it pretty satisfying and a good end point for the series.

The problem is that episode 22 isn’t the last episode. The actual final episode, episode 23, is essentially just a footage from throughout the series that adds some context to earlier scenes in the anime. The vast majority of this context is unnecessary and doesn’t feel like it adds anything at all, and the scenes that do add something would have been better if they were properly integrated into earlier episodes. It’s somewhat a recap of the series, but it didn’t feel like all that great of one, in that it’s written weirdly in how it uses flashbacks. This episode also has an extra epilogue that goes beyond the ending of episode 22, but it doesn’t actually change anything or add anything the ending of episode 22 didn’t already suggest would happen, so I feel it would have been better to just have left it out as the ending of episode 22 was a really strong emotional beat to end on and this epilogue kind of dilutes it.

As for more general notes, the Doppeliner System is really interesting, even if the anime didn’t use it’s complexities all that well. I also wonder why the system was explained as involving three people instead of just two as the third never had plot significance with anyone and as far as I know the doppelganger urban legends only involve two. And if it wasn’t clear, I also really liked the action in this show. It’s mostly just fast and powerful martial arts, but with a single special move per character that was of the more supernatural variety to add some spice to things. It was really simple but also really effective and awesome to watch. The battles flowed incredibly well and were just in general really hype, in no small part to how the soundtrack and animation fit really well and greatly enhanced the experience.

Speaking of the art and animation, overall it was really good. The art style fit quite well. The character designs started out kind of weak at first, but improved tremendously and overall were pretty much all nice, and I especially liked the clothing designs. The sequences used for special moves and power ups were also really cool, with the Synchro sequence never getting old. And as mentioned, the animation for action in general was great, feeling quite fluid and dynamic. The soundtrack had a number of memorable tracks that worked really well, the majority of these being vocal tracks for battle scenes. The OPs were both really solid and good at getting the viewer excited for the episode, though to be honest that didn’t really fit all that well for the first third of the anime when it was still slow. The EDs are much softer with simpler visuals but were decent enough.