I have no idea what to say or feel about this... it's like... It really feels like this was supposed to be an anime version of a visual novel or otome game, where the maker just took the bare bones plot points and their favorite jokes from it and threw it in there... So little is explained and so little yet so much happens I don't know how to feel. I guess there's enough to say "yeah that happened" but just barely and there's not enough in there to really know how or why or when or what's really going on. We don't even learn who these people really are, either.
- Story - It's like they just wrote down notes for the bare bones of what their story would be and just said yep throw that in there as exposition. Nothing too unique or special. It's not that there's NO story, but it opens more questions than it answers, instead focusing on the basic tasks at hand, while throwing in lots of things and references that are never explained or expanded.
Full Plot: Little girl is last survivor of a monster attack on a village, the main characters are driving her to stay at their school with them. She's become mute from shock. She has a puppy. Most of the boys try to cheer her up. The one boy not trying to cheer her up talks with some official guy about how the little girl might actually be a monster. Shenanigans with trying to cheer up the girl more. Later, the girl goes on a walk around the school in the middle of the night and comes across bad boy and official man talking about her possibly being a monster again while outside. She gets upset and runs away. Later, all the boys look for her in the city. A monster alarm goes off, then they find the girl surrounded by dead bodies. So the boys think she must really be a monster then, but the shota can't believe it. The rest of them pull out their magical collar weapons and pose, but then, another monster flies in (which they have a flashback to fighting? but it just looks like the current battle, the girl standing there and all? Is one of them seeing the future of 5 seconds forward?) and they fight it but fail, then the puppy turns into a monster and fights it. They all pose in the rain while watching the dog fight. Doge loses the fight, gets killed, the girl screams, this gives the shota a flashback and he decides to pull out his weapon, but can't for some reason and there's a sudden yaoi moment with him and the bad boy where the bad boy pulls the sword out of the shota as he moans and bad boy whispers seductively... So bad boy uses shota's sword to finish off the monster. They then feed shota a vile of blood because he fainted. The girl cries on Doge and it turns into feathers. Later, the girl can talk just fine, and she says a pretty cute thanks goodbye to all the guys and she goes to live with her grandparents.
TL;DR We saved this girl from monsters. She might be a monster. Actually it's this random monster. Ok bye girl.
The setting is confusing. There are monsters and it seems like a fantasy setting that there would be knights and archers in, and the people mostly dress like they would in an older time period, there are lots of farms and open country and castle-walled cities, but then also there are guns and technology, monorails, eletric skyscrapers, and old fashioned cars. Yet even though there are machine guns and awkwardly different levels of technology, people still get killed by monsters and the main characters fight with swords and other magical fantasy type weapons, well I guess one guy uses guns but still... It doesn't really fit together very well.
Most of the dialgue is boring or confusing exposition, pointless, or disjointed jokes. I'm not sure what it is about the pacing or awkwardness of the jokes, but they just feel so oddly timed. I think it's that they all feel like inside jokes that the audience is not in on. But they also come out of nowhere or at bad times and it just seems weird that they would say what they say. Other than that, there's a lot of long silences. I get that they were trying to show not tell sometimes, but I'm still left confused and either not shown or told enough to really understand this world. Then of course there are tons of plotholes, probably more questions and plotholes than actual plot that gets dealth with.
Animation - Okay compared to a lot of things, the art style was actually pretty good. Probably the best part of this whole thing. But the animation could be pretty cheap sometimes, mostly the effects. Many many still pictures, they really tried to cut as many corners and animate as little as possible. There were a few awkward looking scenes and shots, and that girl's puppy justs looks creepy. But most of the time it didn't look bad. The backgrounds and scenery were pretty nice. The characters usually look... good, but their weird hair bugs me.
- Sound - I didn't notice any problems with the voices, I think they did fine. The dog sounded bad but I'm probably biased to dislike it, and the stock whines got annoying. Music was pretty good. Mostly classical sounding stuff and piano. I think the music really helped to set the moods. The opening was dramatic. The ending was fine, I mostly liked seeing the pretty fanservice pictures at the end.
- Characters - Yes they had... "cool" designs and were all trying to look unique, edgy, distinct and all, but is that where all the thought for this show went? Still, you could say their outfits looked a bit random or haphazard, while all following the basic theme of their school uniforms. And even though they tried so hard on the character's appearances, lots of their hairstyles just looks messy and random more than it looks unique, and the boy's uniforms have pleated skirts attached to their coats I guess? And about how they all act, I just don't understand why they do and say all the random things they do. Like times they should be serious they say weird things. Times they should be or seem to be acting nice, they do mean things. They don't really explain the characters and we don't come to understand any of them, they just seem to do random things. Don't even think of getting any history on any of them.
Individual characters: I don't remember any of their names. They mostly have weird names.
Blonde loli girl (Spika) - Her name is Spika but it sounds like they're all saying Sippy Cup. She has blonde twintails, short straight bangs, and wears a couple different dresses, her main one making her look like Alice in Wonderland. I guess she's the main character but she's temporarily mute from the trauma of being the last survivor of her village after it was attacked by monsters. (Yet after she goes through more trauma by the end she can talk just fine again?) She acts depressed and disinterested in most things other than her puppy. She eventually warms up to shota boy and goes along with him, and I guess becomes okay with the rest. After she can talk again she's just a normal sweet little girl.
Black haired okay boy (Hokuto): Weird top heavy black hair I'm not sure how to describe, blue eyes, and blue earrings. His uniform is altered to have black suspenders, and open on top to show his white shirt underneath by his shoulders down to his armpits, then I guess detachable green sleeves that connect to the white shirt underneath. In the beginning he's totally cold, distant, and randomly mean. He insults people a lot, but in such a way that I think it's supposed to be funny or he doesn't mean it or something. Then later he just switches to trying to be a quiet-ish nice guy. The girl seems understandable afraid of him, but then wants to sleep in bed with him. At the end it turns out the little girl thought he was a girl the whole time. He doesn't sound like one at all. I guess it's because he has earrings (and all the boy uniforms look like they have skirts). His magical collar turns into blue light and... Wolverine claws.
White haired shota (Nil): His hair is pinned and sticking out in all sorts of random places and looks a bit awkward. His eyes are big, round, and red, so he's albino. His uniform is altered to have black shorts and knee high boots with garter belts. He's a bit stupid, but he's nice, sweet, and hyper. You've probably seen this character type lots of times. He spends the most time with the girl, as he tries to get the girl's attention and cheer her up the entire show. There's some running joke where the other boys say he's a dog and treat him like one but it's never explained. He's the most energetic. His magical collar turns into yellow light, a sword, and sudden yaoi, but he can't use it himself for some reason.
Orange haired glasses guy (Regulus): He's the only one without weird hair, and it's light orange. His glasses are usually shining so it's hard to see his eyes, but they are green. His uniform is altered so his green coat is a vest, and he wears black fingerless gloves. Everyone thinks he's a bit of a weirdo, he acts dramatic but then is like "nah I just want to be in the background." And then he is. I guess that's his running gag, that he wants to pretend he's not there? He cooks and reads. Apparently he's afraid of dogs, or allergic. He's either protective of the girl, or just likes calling the bad boy a pervert/make rape jokes all the time to bug him. He seems to be the second most energetic. His magical collar turns into green light and pistols.
Other orange haired guy with bandana (Ulbireo): His hair is lopsided, it's longer on the left side of his face. He wears a black bandana with some band under it that looks like eyepatch lines but there's no eyepatch. But he still has a big strand of hair in the middle of his face. His right eye is blue and left eye is green. He has some upper ear piercings. His uniform is longer and more trenchcoat or cape-like than the others, and has some belts and straps, mostly on his left arm, which the coat is half black on. He avoids all the main characters most of the time, then randomly comes in to try to be nice sometimes and gets mad when the other characters jokingly distrust him over it. He's suspicious of the girl. Obviously he's supposed to be a mysterious bad boy. Apparently he's a pervert. He's arrogant and full of himself, vain, acts like he's special, totally self-absorbed, but he does have his own mission going on. He's the only one who acts like there is a plot going on, but is almost always away from the rest of the cast and with some side character official-ish adult guy. His magical collar turns into red light and a scythe, which he then doesn't use and uses the sword instead, and fire magic. K den.
Final words: It did look pretty alright. Maybe if this was actually a series or visual novel it could be much better, because so little is explored or explained. Did the creator just want to showcase these pretty backgrounds? These OCs? Their favorite scenes from some game I can't find? Was this made by a weeaboo? Really though it looked and sounded fine but the writing was the worst. This anime just filled me with questions. "Am I missing something?" "Wait what did he just say? Why? That's just weird" "y tho". Maybe it was translated poorly? The subs I saw seemed to have good grammar and sounded about right with the little Japanese I could pick up on. Well... yeah, it looks and sounds nice enough, that's all there really is. I guess it's just fluff in a coolish fantasy setting, well at a fancy school, and a battle and some sadness. It's only 20 minutes anyways. I spent way too much time trying to review this...
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