While this anime was incredibly boring to me, there were parts where things touched me, and made me sad, due to some creative romance events that happened. This is where I get into the romance vs the action genres. For some damn reason, they've managed to make both genres conflict with each other by making one suck and the other quite nice. So lets talk about its genres.
Story: First, its romance is beautiful and touching especially when Kazumi entered the picture. The whole school they were at and Ike (Pronounced Ee-kay, not Ike from South Park), Ogata, the original Hirai, and many more, all made good school characters for a good anime and managed to add a bit more realism to it. Now granted, the main plot line has to be one of the most creative and unique plots I've ever seen but when the actual plot was presented as the story progressed, that's when I started having problems. You will be fooled by the first three episodes because is has a great world set up. Deeper in, you'll get tired and even confused.
The action doesn't make sense, the enemies are annoying, the story is too predictable, the main characters are too dull, and its all "the hero saves the day over each enemy that shows up after the other dies." Oh where do I start? Lets take a look at our enemies because that where our story comes in... There is a good amount so I'm not going into every single one, but they are all so annoying. Friagne, was actually the only enemy I found to be not that bad. He was like our insane enemy who had a weird obsession for this certain doll. His powers? Energy blasts...or raining balls of energy...this is one of the main problems of the story. What are the powers of the characters? Energy blasts? Looking at the wiki...I got a better understanding of their spells they used but examining how they present their battles, nothing is very creative. You really have to look for it and then say, "Oh so this is what the character does."
The Professor was my breaking point. He is the worst character out of this whole series and he isn't even dead yet. Why is he the worst? Because of the silliness, waving his arms around speaking in a high trying-to-be-comedic voice that sounds like it should be in a little kids show. He's trying to be insane, but fails at it so bad that he's just acting childish which creates a poor, non-intimidating enemy. On top of that, he's a mad scientist, so scary right? He's a joke.
Bel Peol is boring, enough said. Sydonay is a creepy old guy that looks like he has perverted fantasies with Hecate. Hecate wasn't too bad except for the end which was understandable but didn't have much of a point. These enemies ruined the show for me. The action is mediocre but the romance is quite nice at times.
Characters: Now onto our main characters. Yes, I saw a little bit of character development with Shana but Yuji, not so much. Their relationship between one another is horrible because of one huge mistake they did. Shana's backstory which they wasted - three! - episodes on. It starts out with the old cliche when Shana and Yuji sit together and she basically thinks about it for a second which expands into three episodes. This was a complete info-dump. You don't do this. This was like, one of the key elements to have the relationship build between Shana and Yuji by letting Yuji get to know her background as things progressed. They could've spread this through the entire story a lot better, instead they compressed it all into one and Yuji doesn't even get to know about it. The romance makes up for it a little, but it just feels like there's a missing piece.
Sound: I can't believe I'm getting into this. Almost everything is so robotic and virtual, it makes everything incredibly boring. The mom has some nice things to say sometimes but overall, her voice actor is awful because she's so robotic. Wilhelmina, Bel Peol, Khamsin, and sometimes Ike is the same way. Wilhelmina is suppose to be that character that's all about her destiny as a flame haze, that's fine but you're not suppose to make her look like an android that's just so dead and uninterested. This was my least favorite character. I watched this dubbed, maybe subbed is better. Don't watch it dubbed.
The music. Three words; add more instruments. The strings and choir sound so synthesized. Sometimes it sounds good, though they have to use different synthesized sounds for the string sections which makes me think its just suppose to be a synthesizer and not an orchestra. I love synth instruments but there's certain sounds that go with certain music and certain music that goes with certain shows. With what I learned in programming music, you can't just make any old synth, you have to have an ear. I think it would've sounded quite nice if there were more things going on but no, just cheap synth ambiance. And the choir is so repetitive, just turn it off. I've never heard music be this bad in anything.
Enjoyment: Maybe the smallest age range of 13-17 could enjoy this. Any other, I can't understand as there are plenty of better anime to watch than this, ones that have way more interesting characters.
Overall: This was a terrible anime and I don't think I can sit through another season of this. Maybe the second season is better, and makes up for some of the things, but I'm so tired of this anime, I can't do it. It's so boring, I'm giving my final 4/10. Good day.
