Seireitsukai no Blade Dance

If you are the only male in all girl school what would you expect? Harem ofcourse. This is a story about the only male spirit contractor Kazehaya Kamito in all girl school where he was forced to atend by his old acuintance Greyworth the principal of the school. Because of the upcoming festival Blade Dance he was unwillingly participate to competete in the festival and beat Ren Ashbell in exchange of information about Restia the spirit that he search. The story is your average boys meet girls at first but it was develope into something better but still cliche. What Atract me the most is the cast so lets give a little brief about them.

Kazehaya Kamito
The MC of this series and the only male spirit contractor. Most of people warry of him since in the past Demon King that is the only male spirit contractor create chaos. But because of his ever growing harem now he have a tittle himself that is Demon King of the Night. He is on a quest for searching his past contracted spirit Restia.

Claire Rogue
Our female heroine is red haired pettanko twin tail tsundere. Her affinity is fire and her spirit is a cat. She often revered as Hellcat Ojou-sama. Even thought she is smart she is always causing problem that make her enemy of Sylphid Knight the school police. Despite that she is a good leader.

Rinslet Laurenfrost
She is Claire rival and her childhood friend. Despite always bickering they are stay a good friend not that either of them would admit it. Her affinity is ice so that it natural that she and Claire is rival. She have maid but for some reason it was her that have household skill whereas the maid is useless.

Ellis Fahrengard
Captain of Sylphid Knight and overall strict person. She was not in good term with Claire because she always cause problem. Her affinity is wind. Her skill on cooking is good but still not on level of Rinslet. She say that she practice cooking for pleasing her future husband. Even thought she is strict she have soft spot on cute thing.

Fianna Ray Odesia
She is the seductive type person. Her first appearance is in volume 2. She meet Kamito few years before the story begin but he doesn't remember her. Since she is princess maiden in combat she is act as a support. Claire sometimes refer her as immodest princest due to the fact that she always seduce Kamito.

Est
Kamito sword spirit and my personal favorite. She is a high level spirit since she can appeare in human form. Sometimes reffered as naked kneesock spirit because she often sneak into Kamito bed wearing nothing but stocking since for some reason she thought that showing her feet is embarsing. She is very loyal to Kamito. Revered by author as Unmovable Queen due to the fact that she nearly always in top popularity poll.

Restia
Mysterious darkness spirit that Kamito searching. She was Kamito contracted spirit in the past.

This novel filled with cliche, fighting, tsundere and lot of tease. With the author motto "Increase love, double the fun, supperior battle" this proof to make the story interesting. If you interest try read it specialy if you like harem fantasy setting. And it will have anime adaptation in the near future so make sure to check it out too.

Helpful

read more

I'm not going to tell you what this Light Novel is about. I mean sure I could copy and paste the synopsis, change it to my style of writing and add in a little bit more detail but in my experience, being told what a story is about isn't really the kicker which makes me decide to invest my time. I look for people's reactions to the story and as such, I will endeavor to tell prospective readers, what I thought about this Light Novel.

First off the setting and world building: 9/10
Starts of quite generic, with your MC/hidden past/tsundere female/academy setting but it grows, through a wonderful web of story telling into a huge world backed by solid lore and understanding. When you read this series you can feel that the author has invested himself into developing the setting and building his world.

The story: 8/10
Very solid story, building on from the setting and lore framework, the author does very well to draw you in and make you believe in the story. You're invested, you want to see what happens next and whilst its not the most original story line ever, the execution is done very well.

The writing style: 6/10
I don't know if this is the writing style or just the translation but sometimes it feels a little childish. Chances to develop the readers understanding of what the background looks like are occasionally missed and there seems to be a general repetition of metaphors the writer uses. I can only imagine that the writer or translator has a 'metaphor bank' of 10-12 metaphors which they like to draw on throughout the series.

The characters: 10/10
Okay 10/10 would bang them all. Haha okay seriously though, the dynamics between the MC and his girls are well developed and we see each character get their fair share of development. But all this technical crap aside (I don't want to be some uptight anime connoisseur), I genuinely loved the characters and the reasons for this are tied to the philosophy of emotional attachment. They are, at some level inexplicable.

Enjoyment and Overall: 10/10
Loved it.

Helpful

read more

Well, I've only read one volume of this series, so there won't be any major spoilers. Just from reading the first volume of Seirei Tsukai no Blade Dance, I know that this series will be great.

Blade Dance takes place in a fantasy-like world where spirits and Elementalists live. The MC of this, Kamito, is a special man that can tame spirits. He meets a naked girl, Claire Rouge, in a forest and almost gets whipped repeatedly with a fire whip. Figures, he was commenting on her panties and how flat her chest it. Black is too early for you! Anyways, the girl is trying to get another powerful spirit along with her black fire cat called Scarlet. After she fails to tame a sealed sword, Kamito gets in the way and tames it. Since Claire wanted the sword really badly, she wants Kamito as her own manservant. Women all think that they're greater than men, right? Girl logic. As the story progresses, new characters are introduced, like Ellis who pretty much half hates Kamito, Est, the sword spirit who doesn't have any idea about society, Greyworth, a slightly perverted witch, and Rinslet, a cold girl who's a rival to Claire, including trying to make Kamito her servant. FUCK GIRL LOGIC!

The art inside the novels was pretty average, maybe slightly above, compared to other light novels. Not many special things there.

There were a bunch of characters here with different personalities. Ellis, a tsundere with (maybe) feelings for Kamito, the big-breasted maid, who's clumsy and doesn't like too much violence, Grayworth, a slightly cold witch who likes to blackmail, and Claire, another tsundere with feelings for Kamito. Overall, it was varied and it worked with the story.

I enjoyed this anime. Right when I thought Machine-Doll wa Kizutsukanai was damn great, this novel shoved it to the side and was like, "Read me, bitch." I gave it a try, and damn was it good. Enjoyed it as much as Machine-Doll, as in a 10/10.

Overall, this was a really entertaining light novel. A few jokes, nude scenes, action, yeah. Pretty much sums up into a great light novel. Thank you Japan for light novels, because I get bored after reading 200 American novels in my lifetime.

Helpful

read more

Seirei Tsukai no Blade Dance is your "retired badass returns to fight once more" story crossed with harem elements. As we all know, in a harem, there is a boy with lots of girls. The problem here is boys don't have these "elementalist" powers. Except for our main character.

The story follows our main protagonist after he was hauled out of retirement by the almighty headmistress of a girl's academy for elementalists. With the world "girls" being redundant because only girls can be elementalists. Our retired badass seems to have a history with the headmistress, and in his heyday, he crossdressed to avoid attracting attention as a male elementalist (which should not exist). The headmistress calls him back to participate in a tournament, and that's what the premise of the series is.

The story is full of an interesting plot mixed with various running jokes about our MC being the only guy, our MC being a sexual deviant, and our MC's crossdressing past. The jokes do get old sometimes, but there are many more times where one would read that chapter and smile on the inside.

Another point I like is how they bring back characters who you have long forgotten. Arc villains return after several books as anti-heroes. This is a good way to make side characters seem more significant, instead of seeming like weak one-book characters.

Story: 8/10

The art for this light novel is decent. The anime that was adapted from this however, is a huge upgrade. The biggest bone I have to pick is how the sword designs in the illustrations were incredibly simple. Est and Restia's sword forms are depicted as rectangular pieces of metal with a handle. Even though the novel is categorized as "ecchi", it still is called "Blade Dance," thus I would have expected more work to have been put in to drawing the weapons.

Art: 4/10

The cast for this light novel is somewhat lacking in depth in the earlier books.

We have a MC who, due to his upbringing, has little experience interacting with people. He vaguely shows attraction to the girls in the harem, but seems preoccupied with his long-lost partner.

Then we have the generic red-haired tsundere with abandonment issues, blonde rich girl, blue-haired brawn-over-brains, black-haired naughty girl who has some dirt on the MC.

I found the girl's personalities to be bland until they were fleshed out more in later books. Variety is also increased later on due to the foreshadowed Tournament Arc.

In terms of development, the girls are on the receiving end of major development as the series goes on. Some stop being brats and begin to pull their weight. Some make amends with rivals. However, our MC remains the same old person he was. Except he now has the power of love and friendship.

Yes, that's what our MC gets. He goes from solo fighter, to team player. Except it's evident that for the earlier half of the series so far (Vol 1-6) it feels like his team is holding him back. In fact, MC-kun is proven to be BS levels of strong. It's just that he's out of practice (another thing the book never lets you forget) and the big opponents he has to face are all people who were able to fight him on equal ground in his prime.

Characters: 6/10

Overall, I loved reading this. There is ecchi in the light novels, but its not as much as say, Highschool DxD. There is also an engaging plot within the series and the Tournament Arc is different from the tournament arcs we have seen in other series, but still gives the feeling of everyone competing for a common goal.

Enjoyment: 10/10

Your mileage may vary. Some people are okay with overused running jokes. Others are not. The overuseage of the "shy, pure, holy princesses" type of character is also a possible turn off for many people. However, I enjoyed the series very much.

Overall: 10/10

Helpful

read more