I liked Dantalian no Shoka quite a lot. BUT it is some sort of hate-love. At one point I almost threw my phone in pure anger at the wall.
Plot:
Dantalian no Shoka follows the story of our two two main characters Dalian, a seemingly childisch, tsundere like but very mysterious and intelligent girl and an ex-military pilot, Hugh Anthony Disward, also known as Huey. Huey unexpectedly inherits a giant mansion from his uncle. As a former book lover he decides to visit it as soon as possible and quits his piloting job. Within the endless towers of books he finds a young girl, dressed in Gothic/Victorian dresses. She explains him, that she is the "black princess of Dantalians mysterious library. On their quest to find and store socalled "phantombooks", Books and texts that contain paranormal powers all scattered around the world, they meet various persons. The entire story happens around 1918 and 1920 (estimated)
Disclaimer:
This review is "S P O I L E R F R E E" (excpetions of names and general informations)
Story:
Oh boy, where do I start. The story begann unbelievably strong. A first episode, that truely captured me with every frame. But as time passed by, more and more of the beautiful facade begann to cramble away and uncovered the very raw und undefined core of the story.
Not only do we encounter one stereotypical plottwist after another. We also beginn to ask ourselves: "How? Why". As the show tries to make our characters seem caring and prudent over their actions, it makes them seem fucking dumb. Especially Huey has to suffer under this decision, as he often is displayed as a very generic and kinda dense character. This is however a great contrast to his true nature, indicated at various points.
The story is devided into 12 Arcs of their own, each covering one Phantombook.
And the arcs vary greatly in how pleasing their storytelling is. Some are truely fascinating, others are mere bullshit and pain for the viewer. I will not go into to much detail here, just keep in mind, that you will have to bring a lot - and I mean A LOT - of patience when watching this show.
Art:
This is kinda hard. I wanted to give the show a 9 for its art, then hesitated. Although there is a very consistent art and animation and some scenes are extremely beautiful, they seemed to be a bit lazy at times. Of course, reusing the same frames from time to time makes sense. However it is just lame to see the sequence of Huey accesing the mysterious library of Dantalia every episode in the exact same frames. They literarely just copy and pasted the sequence whenever he gets permission to use Dalian's Library.
BUT, take the op of the show as an example: its hard to deny, how beautiful the scenery is and the setting is an absolute beast in terms of ambiance.
Sound:
Nothing to be added. The OST is phenomenal, probably one of the best I've ever heared. Listen for an example to the OP and this song:
https://youtu.be/j5VRIQtyQyU (from episode 12)
Now tell me, can an OST get any better?
I don't think so.
Character:
Huey was a very interesting Character at first, but soon turned into your average, generic sidekick. On the other hand there was a very nice background story later revealed, that gave him some extra depth (and he needed it very badly)
Dalian is a very cute character. I can understand that a lot of people may dislike her very tsundere like behaviour but I found it kinda fit her pretty well. Her Design was refreshing and fits my taste very well. On the other hand some may hate her for beeing that "gothic loli with an eatingdissorder". Thats up to you.
Enjoyment:
I liked the show a lot, especially for its Mystery/Gothic theme (something that is sadly very rare in the world of anime). I recomend checking it out, but don't drop it after the 3 episodes rule: take your time and watch until episode 5 or so, then you'll be able to tell, if it fits your taste.
Overall:
Well, I liked it. But it got a lot of deductions for its poor handle of the concept and the fairly dense huey (I really had my hopes up that he would be more than the sidekick)
Overall this show tries to be a paranormal version of Gosick, but miserably fails at it.
If you liked this show, you may also like:
- Gosick
- Ergo Proxy
- Guilty Crown
- Shiki
- Rozen Maiden
Thats it for me folks. Cheers.
