Reviews

Absolute Duo is a show I never planned on watching, but I found "some" free time and thought I'd find some guilty pleasure or enjoyment out of an Ecchi Harem show. Now the way I usually watch light-hearted shows like these is by listening to the dub and playing a game or doing some work while it's going on. I "watch" shows this way because I had a general idea of what kind of show it would be and I could probably guess what was going on at any point. However, for this show I actually made an effort to keep my eyes on the video itself. For the first 3 episodes, the buildup was quite nice and thought I might be in for something more. However, episode 4 onward (to when I dropped the show midway through episode 8) just felt depressing. I really disliked how the overall plot was hardly developed and how random ecchi moments were just scattered with seemingly no care. You would have serious battle situations that suddenly lost all tension because one of the girls thought he panties might be exposed to the male protag and panics. Now my gripes with this show primarily come down to my personal sense of humor and standards. I am sure that there are plenty of people who would enjoy a show like this. But as someone who has watched anime for many many years, I think this show has aged very poorly due to the overall rise in quality and harems in shows executed much "better".

Story:
The male Protag's intentions for coming to the blaze academy are revealed slowly but it suffices for a motivation. However, the other characters' intentions are hardly explained. Julie allegedly has a reason similar to the male protag (:O SHOCKER). Gold hair apparently is just stuck up and was bored. Miyabe seems like she doesn't want to be here. Tomoe seems determined to learn what she can... whatever her reason may be. The real problem comes with how the overall plot is revealed, tiny tiny pieces of foreshadowing are given throughout the first few episodes but almost nothing of importance actually happens. To avoid spoilers: one character does something very very bad but then all is well the next day no questions asked. The plot after episode 3 just feels kind of pointless, nothing of much significance really happens. Basically the reason I don't like the story is because they mix foreshadowing with pointless drivel.

Art:
Not pretty not ugly, the animation is passable. Notably the camera is very frequently zoomed in onto one of the female characters' breasts for some inexplicable reason. I'm serious, there are so many boob shots in this show that I got bored every time there was an ecchi scene. By the way, there is no nudity as miraculous streaks of light and hair cover the body parts. I don't have much more to say about this.

Sound:
The dub voice acting was solid, but some of the lines were so unbearably corny. Neither the OP or ED is particularly memorable. Fights sounded like fights, I wasn't terribly engaged by the music or sound effects.

Character:
Male Protag: Same as every other ecchi harem show
Julie: Flat-chested and naive (innocent) girl
Blonde Hair: Not flat-chested and openly sexual girl
Black Hair: Not flat-chested and serious girl
Brown Hair: Not flat-chested and shy girl

If most of these characters sound boring to you, then I think you should avoid this show. These general descriptions describe their entire personality throughout the entire show. And yes I'm not kidding, their breast size is relevant enough to be considered a personality trait.

Enjoyment:
I got bored very very quickly

I'm writing this past midnight because I just dropped the show and the game I wanted to play still hadn't loaded. But I've been switching between writing this review and playing the game so it took me a while to finish. I feel sleep deprived and will make a blog post later if I feel like anything I wrote should be modified.