Story (4.99/10): The story of Tsukai no Blade Dance revolves around a magical world. In this world, there are spirits in which only women or girls, are able to make contracts with these spirits and use them as different weapons of different varieties and uses, better known as elemental waffes. (Basically, Zanpaktou). It is here where the only male elementaler (the term used to call the people who use the spirits) in the enrolls in the noble school of using learning how to use elemental spirits, so that he can finish a task in which the headmistress of the school has assigned.
To be completely 100% honest, this story is absolutely horrible in every way shape or form. Tsukai is filled with so many plot holes that it makes SAO's two year timeskip seem minuscule, there is absolutely no focus on plot, pacing is a rushed nightmare, nothing is ever explained, and the ending is so unsatisfying that this show deserves to be shunned from anime history. Maybe that's a bit harsh, but to say that this show has problems is an understatement.
One of the biggest flaws of the series I feel is its lack of explanation. From episode one, Tsukai gives you its world, just straight up gives it to you without any backstory or explanation. Kinda like getting a 2000 piece lego without any instructions on how to build it. It basically expects you to already know what this world is and has to offer before minute one of the first episode is up, which is a very big no no if you want to get any sort of audience engaged with your plot. As the series progresses, you do get some semblance as to what this magical world is, but it's so minuscule that it feels as though they shouldn't have even bothered at all. They mention events within this world that apparently are very significant but are just so glossed over that it's really more of a fact than having really any effect on the plot in general.
Another big flaw of the series is how there is really little to no focus on plot. Many ecchi shows have this flaw where the series tries to go all serious and explain something that's actually relevant and important, before switching gears completely and throwing a pair of breasts or pantsu at the screen to show that this guy is getting more attention than he should. It's a really jarring transition because the show at some very rare points, actually makes itself sound interesting before going the complete opposite and talking about a loli with a bust complex. The series mostly focuses on an extremely clunky TWGOK style story where every "arc" features one of the main girls, solves their "issue", then absorbs them into the almighty harem of ever growing group of bitches.
In addition, the pacing of the show is quite unbalanced as they mainly spend their runtime giving this one magical Infinite Stratos MC copycat five girls that literally throw themselves at them, whilst trying to "maintain" a serious sounding plot. If you're going to make a show, go one way and not the other. You can't do both.
And then we have the ending of the show. Oh boy, was this a mess. I'm that kind of person that always likes a satisfying ending to stuff. Even if the plot itself isn't complete, as long as it resolves itself with at the minimum, most of the stuff getting wrapped up, I'm decently satisfied. The main focus of this show was revolved around something called a blade dance, which is basically a teamfight between teams of people with contracted spirits. They series ends literally right before the long awaited climax, which to be honest, is the worst way to end any series, period. There is no resolution at all as it is all open to hell, they build all this "tension" of the importance of the blade dance in the twelve episode runtime just to shoot it all down with the credits rolling at the run to the what I assume to be the most critical part of the story, thus destroying whatever sort of credibility this show had because of just how much bullshit there was at the end. And with that, it really just puts the nail in the coffin of just how bad this show is.
Overview:
- Swiss cheese story (cause of all the holes, get it?)
- No focus on plot
- Awful pacing
- Worst...ending...ever.
Characters (5.00/10): If the story is any indication as to how bad this series was, the characters will more or less reflect the same sort of detail and quality.
Up first is our main protagonist, Kazahaya Kamito. As most harem MC's, you get your standard "bread and butter" copycat harem leader who is nice to everyone and gets all the bitches. Aside from a few fairly decent traits such as not being reluctant to see girls naked, be a generic pervert, and having some actually good funny moments, he's not really much in terms of actual character. He does have some good wit to him, but really, he's just your average harem protagonist. This however gets much worse in terms of overall characters as he is the most detailed and most well-rounded character in this entire cast, which really isn't much.
And then we have Claire Rouge, our token flat-chested, fiery, and tiny main female. Plain and simple, this girl is your basic cardboard cutout tsundere who feels as though she "needs to get stronger." Literally, that's it. There's nothing more to her character aside from saying her catchphrase "burn in cinders!" over and over again till is gets old like a broken record. (You can get sick and tired of it from episode 1, I guarantee you.)
And then we have the rest of the female harem involving Rinslet and Ellis, both tsunderes (seriously, three tsunderes in one series?), Fianna, the walking pair of breasts with a pension to get Kamito's D, and Est, the kuudere sword spirit who will sleep beside you with practically no clothes on and follow your EVERY command despite looking like an 11 year old. And then we have Carol, the maid who's only purpose is to act as Rinslet's dere side.
Apart from them, you have the supporting cast of random characters that I won't even bother mentioning since their appearances are so scarce and so varying (in addition, their names are freaking long), that I feel as though there is no point to them even being mentioned. There are however a couple special cases in this cast that I feel deserve a little bit more insight on.
The first is the Calamity Queen. This character just feels so useless to me as a character just in general. For one thing, she never shows up in the series. Not in person, only in flashbacks. She's a part of Claire's character development (as small as that is), and is only ever really mentioned. To me, this seems like a big waste considering how much they talked about her in the series, and never even did anything to make her seem any more important since the character apparently had some motivations to do what she did, but was never explored.
And finally, what I feel was the biggest waste in the series was the character known as Restia. This girl was by far the most mysterious character and was legitimately the most interesting character in this entire series. It's shown in this series that she has a connection to Kamito and I felt as though that was the most defining moment this series had as it delved a bit more into the story and it really made something in this series, regardless of how small it was, shine. I feel as though she was the most underused character in the series and it was really a shame since her motives were nicely shrouded and gave something nice that this series was seriously lacking. In the end though, we got a character that basically appears out of nowhere, titters, then leaves mysteriously. There was a lot of underused qualities that Restia had, and it's a shame she wasn't explored or used more than she was.
Overview:
+/- Meh MC
- 3 tsunderes
- Completely forgettable supporting cast
- Very underused character
Art and Sound (7.11/10 and 6.06/10): The art of the series is actual a rather nice and aesthetically pleasing style. There's no real standout moments for the actual animation as it's pretty standard/consistent all the way through, but the color scheme and the overall look of the show is rather nice. (However, if you don't greatly dislike moe style characters, I suggest you stay away from this.)
While the art in general is nicely detailed and very nice-looking, there is one very big flaw that this series has, and that is its ecchi. This show is very big on ecchi and basically strips its girls naked just to reveal to you that "it's this kind of show." (Hell, the opening scene for Claire is a scene of her bathing in a lake with Kamito "peeping" in.) The ecchi for this show is quite extreme and they really don't hold back on flaunting their girls. They even go to the extent of doing a close up shot of any single girl's chest or lower torso region during any transition between the first half and the second half of the show meaning, you're basically forced to watch an ecchi scene. So if you really don't like eechi, this show is not for you.
The music for this series is meh. There's nothing really noteworthy about it. I don't like the opening, the ending is ok, there's nothing really much to say. It's generic, it's ok to listen to, but it's not really a memorable track.
Overview:
+ Decent looking art
+/- "Ok" music
- Ecchi get in the way of a lot of things
Personal Enjoyment (5.49/10): To be honest, I expected this show to be bad. From the very beginning before it even aired, reading the synopsis, I knew that this series would be disappointing and basically, bad. However, there was something that always pulled me to watch the next episode. An almost unexplainable force pulling me back to watch more and more of this awfully created series. Strange. Anyway, off to the three questions.
Did I like this series?
No. Just straight up, no. There were too many plot holes, there was absolutely no background explanation to give some semblance of what this magic world was, and to top it off, the characters were beyond bland and overused. Not to mention the ending being one of the single worst endings I have ever seen. But somehow, regardless of the horrendous amount of flaws, I continued watching with slight eager anticipation. (I don't know why I did.)
What didn't I like about this series?
Apart from the rather decent looking art and fluid action, everything.
Would I recommend this series?
Honestly, no. There are so many flaws with this show that it doesn't even make it a good fluff show. In my opinion, there is nothing about this series that makes it stand out in any way, and I wouldn't recommend this to be put on anyone's list. It's poorly written, there are no good characters (except the mysterious and underused Restia), and the plot points of this series were incredibly rushed and overall, just very jarring to watch.
Overall Score: 5.01/10
