If that wasn’t descriptive enough, then read on. Below, I will attempt to explain exactly what went wrong with Virgin Soul. Do expect some minor spoilers with regard to the initial few episodes.
Story (4/10):
The story of Virgin Soul starts 10 years after the events of Genesis, and the world is quite different from how we remember it. Humanity has extended its reaches, as far as to bring demon-kind to its knees, while achieving great power along the way. These changes bring with them quite some intrigue, and world-building progresses at an optimal pace. Then, they introduce the new protagonist, Nina Drango. Even ignoring her endless libido and her shoujo manga-esque encounters with pretty much any young man, the story seems to be progressing somewhere. The themes of morality and sociology were quite strong in the initial few episodes, especially from the likes of returning characters such as Kaisar and Azazel. So far so good…
Then, somewhere along the way, the series started on a downward spiral that never really stopped. The intelligent conversations and ideas just slowly faded out into the background, and the focus moved on to a romance which would make the likes of Twilight look half decent. I can state without doubt that the romance in Virgin Soul is the worst I have ever witnessed on screen. One could hope that at least this subplot may help develop the characters in question… well, in this case, it outright broke the character of the male participant, making his personality impossible to salvage.
The rest of the story can’t exactly be called intelligent, with multiple contradictory or even outright stupid reveals and ‘plot twists’. Worst thing is, every single thing just somehow leads back to the central romance, which just sucks the life out of the series. Honestly, if this were advertised as a shoujo anime which was unrelated to Shingeki no Bahamut, it may not have felt like such an insult, but the way it went, it simply became a detriment to its ‘prequel’.
Art (7/10):
The artwork and animation are quite reminiscent of Genesis, and are quite pleasing to look at. The only real gripe I have is how they use some outright atrocious crowd CGI in some scenes, which seem completely out of place.
Sound (6/10):
Above average, but nothing really special. The openings and endings are all decent, yet forgetful. All the Engrish in the songs didn’t exactly help that. Even the soundtracks weren’t anything to write home about.
Characters (3/10):
The greatest failure of Virgin Soul was certainly the depiction of the characters and their interactions. I’ll be analysing this in two parts: New characters and Returning characters.
When talking about the New characters, the first and foremost would be Nina Drango. The best way to describe her would be a female version of Hyoudou Issei. She spends most of her time drooling over any good-looking guy (which, for some reason, seems to be the norm for men in this show), and the rest of her time utterly wrecking the sho…. Umm… Causing trouble for others. Other than her, we have Charioce and Mugaro. Charioce had some great potential, and his views were quite intriguing to begin with… but of course, they decided that he was better off as a pretty-boy version of Hitler. As for Mugaro…. He was literally a walking plot device from beginning to end.
As for the Returning characters, we have Favaro, Kaisar and Azazel (well, there was Jeanne, Bacchus, Hamsa and Rita, but they’re not really worth mentioning at this point). We start off with quite a bit about Kaisar and his views. This was interesting while it lasted, but he started to become more and more insufferable as the series went on. Near the end of it, you’d be left wondering if it’s even the same character anymore. As for Favaro, I had great hopes for him. He flourished in the leading role of Genesis, and I was hoping that he would breathe some life into the show… sadly, all he got was a minor supporting role as Nina’s father-figure. The one good character that we got out of this series was Azazel. His development was exceptional. He portrays a loner, in the truest sense of the word – he fights alone, and takes the full brunt of the responsibilities for himself, including the failures.
One strange thing I noticed is how the characters were never particularly consistent, and their behaviour varied quite wildly from episode to episode. The character interactions ranged from decent to horrendous, depending on the characters in question and the mood of the writer at that time.
Enjoyment (2/10):
Extremely difficult to watch. My tolerance for bullshit is generally pretty high, but this one made me absolutely lose it. There were some moments in the latter half of the show that made me scream abuse and point rude gestures at the screen, simply because of how frustrating and annoying it was. Watching this show made me question the writer’s intelligence (or the lack thereof), at multiple occasions. I had to force myself to watch the last few episodes, just for the sake of finishing this review.
Overall (4.4 ~ 4/10):
With this, it is quite clear that the anime was a disaster, and that the new writer was a mistake. In fact, I’d be glad if she never touches anime ever again. So to speak, avoid this anime – there’s absolutely nothing good waiting for you in this one. With this, I conclude.
