On the outset Taboo Tattoo reminded LA of the To aru Majustu no Index premise, with humans with superpowers (Espers and Tattoo users) of some kind and are at war with each other (Indexes multiple faction battles etc. and Aryabhata Region vs. USA) and LA really liked it because of it and really wanting to know more about the Tattoo's and how they function really intrigued LA.
The last bastion of good Taboo Tattoo had was it's animation done by JC Staff and really from the good looking character designs to the awesome battles were done to polish and shine throughout the anime and LA really didn't see much of animation errors. The animation and it's early episodes (like to Episode 4 or 5 or so) is some of the only good things about Taboo Tattoo.....the problems with Taboo Tattoo...well *ahem* this is gonna be sit...
Let's start with the characters, the characters in the early episodes were cliches to say the least, from the main protagonist Seigi "Justice" Akatsuka voiced by Makoto Furukawa, who is the headstrong, naive and reckless hero, Bluesy Fluesy (no really, it's her name) voiced by Mikako Komatsu the maniac pixie girl who introduces Seigi to the world of Tattoo's along with her bubbling otaku assistant Tom Shredfield voiced by Tomokazu Sugita and Seigi's love interest Touko Ichinose voiced by Chika Anzai, but what utterly cripples the character section in Taboo Tattoo is their utter mismanagement to the characters and LA can easily say that Taboo Tattoo's plot is also mismanaged due to this. For the most part Taboo Tattoo really tries to give backstories and development and majorly fails in that district, why?, well as much as they try to give character development and backstory to the characters that matter, the majority of the characters motivations are either too confusing or too generic, the main villain of this anime Aryabhata voiced by Akari Kito's motivation is essentially world domination because of her abusive father's corruption, but her "world domination" scheme just doesn't make sense or even needed in that sense, as for our heroes they are even worse as Taboo Tattoo likes to kill off main to minor characters (good or evil) without a care in the world. By the halfway point they start really getting into this and really it forcibly makes our naive headstrong Seigi into "hero material" over a cheap death. On the villain side, the deaths were more or less one note with their "tattoo power" = personality, but ultimately it leads to LA saying..."is that it?...", the only exception to the minor villain mook list is Iltutmish voiced by Shiori Izawa (for a little while) and Kar Shekar voiced by Hitome Nabatame with her backstory to Brad "BB" Blackstone voiced by Toshiyuki Morikawa. On speaking of which, the most mixed character development given to was BB as he becomes Seigi's mentor to be hero material, well why?, LA won't spoil but add these hints together and you'll get it; "utter mismanagement to the characters", "Taboo Tattoo likes to kill off main to minor characters (good or evil) without a care in the world" and "MENTOR", as for Touko (yeah forgot about her), she gets one of the WORST plot twists and "development" in the series case in point "Taboo Tattoo likes to kill off main to minor characters (good or evil) without a care in the world". The characters good or evil have terrible mismanaged characters and developments to them and most of the minor characters are nothing but "heavy mooks" to "red shirts" and by the end of this anime the closest character LA ever came to like was Bluesy Fluesy by default.
Ok, characters are mismanaged to all hell, the plot isn't much better...
The plot is infected with tonal dissonance to generic shounen fair to one of the worst points to the anime....it's rushed to no end. The tonal dissonance didn't start round the latter half of the anime, just bringing up comedic and rather sexual moments completely out of nowhere to make the "comedic moments" something of "development" to the fair few minor characters, Aryabhata also gets this as we were meant to taken her a HUGE threat but gives us misplaced fanservice just to be "edgy" what with her molesting Iltutmish to Aryabhata being the shameless fanservice girl of the series in a different kind of way and it doesn't help make her threatening or a force to be taken lightly, sure her battles ALLOW her to be actually threatening but the awkward fanservice with Aryabhata becomes as tonal dissonance and she's the biggest cause of this. The generic shounen fair mostly comes from the entire good vs. evil with the good being USA and their Tattoo users vs. Aryabhata Tattoo users, it also adds in Aryabhata again as her entire "world domination" schtick is prevalent to this flaw as well, ohh the heroes also gets this too ESPECIALLY Seigi. Finally Taboo Tattoo's rushed pacing is the nail that ruined the series for LA and how so, what with rushed character development throughout the board, from Seigi's rushed personality from naive hero to "actual hero", BB's rushed backstory and how he adds into the plot in which his investment becomes nil by the end of it, Aryabhata's rushed backstory although her backstory is detailed for the most part, it's just that her generic and rather confusing "evil just to be evil" through world domination scheme is mixed for LA but in execution it failed anyways for LA to get invested in it.
Taboo Tattoo's voice cast was partially ok, though LA thought Akari Kito who voiced Aryabhata was having some semblance of fun in voicing a villain, Seigi's voice actor Makoto Furukawa was ok, with the shouting in battles to his "speeches" he has was ok. LA thought that by the final episodes that it even felt that most of the main voice cast just didn't care anymore and just wanted to get it over and done with, most prevalent being Mikako Komatsu and Toshiyuki Morikawa and Tomokazu Sugita. LA's favorite voice actor would go to Mikako Komatsu by default though.
The ending, for all the backstory on both sides (Aryabhata and Seigi to be precise) really didn't help things and all the beliefs and decisions that lead it down to this final battle devolved into nothing but "good vs. evil" scthick with good beliefs with a literal "justice" beast and evil beliefs of Aryabhata beast making it a rather boring sit to watch, sure the battle was awesome, but with the devolvement of the battle it lead it down to...it was boring and a rather big copout by the end of it all. The final scenes hints at a second season and really if it was greenlit for a second season, LA is really gonna say this to the first season of Taboo Tattoo, if it got a second season, then the first season SHOULD have been managed better than this and spread the plot in a more detail way, instead it's this cluttered mismanaged mess of an anime, a second season would either dampen and reinforce what LA thought of this series or have a small bright spot for it being better, but considering what LA said about Taboo Tattoo as of now, LA wouldn't like it and would mostly be afflicted with sequelitis.
Taboo Tattoo if there were two words LA could say about is that it's such "wasted potential", where it had a good premise albeit generic shounen but was shot down and ruined by the end of it with mismanaged characters and their developments, battles LA didn't care about and motivations on Seigi and Aryabhata were either too forcible to confusing why they were doing this "just because justice or world domination" and really not even JC Staff's polished and shiny character designs and battles couldn't help LA be distracted by the blatant character and plot flaws and dumb highly polished battles and LA being a JC Staff fanboy just wasn't enough to pull through into being good. Taboo Tattoo, LA WANTED to like you but like LA said at the start of this anime review, you betrayed LA's expectations and slowly but surely became LA's worst anime of Summer 2016...
