The Familiar of Zero: Knight of the Twin Moons

ReviewBonfire Jan 9, 2021

3.5

Zero no Tsukaima: Futatsuki no KishiThe Familiar of Zero: The Knight of the Twin Moons   The second season and what I feared happened. The first season was mostly acceptable, simply because the fan service seemed irrelevant and was covered by subtle humor. Now we have even more underpants, asses and breasts without end. And it gets worse, the aforementioned humor has almost completely died. The jokes consistently only of "Some girl grabs Saito, Saito feels sexually aroused and stares at her breasts. Then Louise comes in and spams" EXPLOSION "in the low budget format. And that was it, repeated this every episode. And yes, it goes on in the other seasons. The only reason why this season has not slipped further with the rating is the last 3 episodes and especially the final fight. One can certainly not speak of drama here, since the characters have no real relationship. However, the implementation was not bad and the atmosphere of the finale was right. Under different circumstances and with a different author, this would even have been a potentially successful ending.   Story Nothing changed in the plot. The war continues, mostly in the background and only towards the end of the season do you find relevance for this as the main topic again. Apart from that, everything is again the everyday perverse life of the protagonists. The background story in the area of ​​episodes 6-8 was okay though. Animation / pictures Are a bit better than before. However, still not an average level. Characters Louis becomes more understandable from episode to episode without irony, while Saito can barely control his sexual drive. The supporting characters hadn't changed, apart from the fact that they hardly had any screen time. Music Just like the first season we have a more individual intro and the Osts are basically the same. Conclusion This season had two distinct strengths that outperformed the first. However, everything else was a complete downgrade.

tollie01 Nov 20, 2015

5

Allright. It's been a while since I've done something like this so bear with me as I try to find my way again.I did quite a lot of them in the past on a different website which you can find here: http://legendsofsatura.net/index.php/forum125/6-reviewing-guild.html ....They probably aren't very good though but please do stop by if you have the time and inclination. Originally the site was for writers, mostly original but also fanfiction. Also I'm Dutch so there will be spelling errors. If you find them annoying give me a shout and I'll try to fix them. Oh, I will try to keep spoilers to a minimum but there will be some. Usually the worse I rate an anime the more spoilers this will contain. You have been warned So, you have probably already read what the animation is about in the discription given by Anime-Planet, which is the same as on the box. I will therefore try not go into the story that much unless I'm ranting about something (spoilers). ART: ...Meh. I suppose that this is the best I can do for the art as it made zero (<-- pun intended) impression on me. It is not bad but nothing special either and gets the job done so ....yay? SOUND: I could very simply refer to the text I wrote in the art section. It is not bad and that is about all I can positively say about it. Voice actors are the same as the first season so there is that going for the anime. They do their best with the material given but that isn't all that much. CHARCTERS: Main characters are Louise and her familiar Saito. Their relationship is essentially the same as that from the first season. They feel for each other but every time it comes up something happens or they change the subject. Louise is still the useless mage that blows stuff up but as the only void magic user she is very valuable to her kingdom. Saito has been blessed with the ability to use any weapon created and become an instant master simply by holding it. As such he is not just her familiar but also her protector. Unfortunately he has a habit of looking at other women a little to much and often gets punished for it. Henriette is now the queen and as such tasked to lead the country. Unfortunately for her the shadow of war looms heavy over the country. She wishes nothing more than to maintain the peace but may not get the chance. STORY: I really dislike anime such as these since it excells in maintaining the status quo. In this I mean the situation between Louise and Saito. Although they clearly care for each other their relationship keeps going nowhere. Saito keeps leering at other women and Louise keeps catching him at it. She throws a fit and blows him up with magic or punishes him in some other way. This is supposed to be funny but, as the viewer, you know they love each other and as such it becomes very annoying very fast. Especially when it gets used against them later in the series and yes, there will be spoilers. Minor annoyence is about Henriette. In the first episode she is crowned queen and the people cheer and party. SO WHY IS SHE CALLED PRINCESS THROUGHOUT THE SHOW?! Seriously call the woman queen because she simply is just that. It is not wrongly translated either as I know enough Japanese to know that Hime means princess. Why keep calling her princess when she is the queen? More problems I had with the war plot in the anime. Henriette is very against starting a war and is pretty adamant in her views. She clearly states multiple times that she does not wish to start a war unless she absolutely has to. Yet during one meeting she changes her mind in about 2 minutes and declares war. All the forced stuff between Saito and Louise gets old very fast. With forced stuff I mean the ways Saito strays and Louise punishes him for it. This shit starts in the very first episode when Louise gives Saito a pair of glasses. These glasses glow up whenever he looks at another woman and feels arroused by this. Since Saito is portraied as a healthy young male this means that he is arroused by rock shaped like a woman and Louise goes mental on him every single time. Another one that truly pissed me off was in the family mansion of Louise where Saito goes looking for her. In the anime he walks through a long hallway with multiple identical doors lining the wall on either side. After walking past a few of them he looks at one and decides that this is the door to Louises' room. Why he thinks this is so I do not know as the doors are not marked in any way and they all look the same. Of course it is the door to one of her older sisters and he gets beat up not only by her but later Louise as well. This was supposed to be funny. As the war continues on we see Saito who has no interest in fighting the war because he knows how destructive they can versus Louise who is honor bound to do her best for queen and country. This is a major plot point as it shows the difference between the 2 and it becomes a major argument between them. Saito does not understand why Louise is willing to sacrifice herself and she does not understand why Saito is so against it. This is bullshit as Saito is Japanese and Japanese history is filled with this shit. He may not agree with it but he should at least understand it. So instead of having these powerful dramatic moments between the main characters you get this and it is just plain stupid and annoying. They marry in the end. Yep, Saito and Louise decide to get married. This is because Louise just accepted a suicide mission and wishes to follow her heart before she dies. Saito has more or less the same idea as he plans to take her place and send her off instead. Well what do you know.... something that the chatacters do that actually makes sense. So what is the problem? The problem is that during the ceremony they both have these flowers. The flowers are magic and they will reflect on how the other is doing regardless on where they are in the world. This is important and pulled straight from the anime. I did not make this up in any way. So Saito dies in the finl battle shown by his flower dying and seeing Saito on the battlefield as massive amounts of fire is launched at him as he lies completely spend on the ground. This fucker is well and truly dead.... or is he? As Louise grieves with her dead flower she suddenly becomes aware that it starts to bloom again. She rushes out and sees Saito walking towards her. Yay! Saito tells her this weird story in that he was saved by a fairy and this actually made me laugh as another character was saved by her previously and nobody believed him. So to have Saito just come out with the sory like that was comedic gold and I loved it. So what about the flower then? It was dead and so was Saito but it should have revived the second Saito was or rather it should never have died in the first place since Saito never died to begin with. He states in his story that he was saved by the fairy and NURSED back to health. So he was alive and in her care for quite a while so why was the flower dead? Why did the flower revive when Saito was just outside the Academy and not before when his wounds were healed? Remember that it was clearly stated by the characters in the anime that the flower could sense the condition of their person no matter where they were. Do you see my problem with this scene? The ending of the series is pure sequal bait so don't expect any resolution happening. EDIT: I forgot one point regarding Saito and his ability to weild any weapon he holds. At some point he is ordered to train with the other students and Saito mentiones that his ability only works with real weapons. This point is stressed in the anime as important but it also opens up a interesting discussion. Just what is a real weapon? In the anime he uses a practice sword that, although perfectly resembles an actual sword, is made out of wood and his power does not activate. However, wood or not and blunted, in the hands of a master even that can do some real damage and even kill so why is it not classified as a weapon? Is it because it was not created as a weapon but an instrument of training? Using that logic lets look around and see what there is to be found. A baseball bat is not designed as a weapon so does not qualify as such yet if you will ever be chased by someone wielding it you will most definitely run for your life. So when does something become a weapon? If I go into the woods and pick up a thick branch this is not a weapon. I can bash someones head in with it but it is not a weapon. So what happens if I use a knive and file a sharp point at the end of said stick. Is it a weapon now? Because I essentially just made a spear... or a plactice sword maybe? A mentioned before in the anime Saito spars with a wooden sword that looks exactly like a real one. This includes a pointy end that is more than capable of skewering an unlucky opponent. So again, why is this not a real weapon? It may be a small matter but as you can tell it really bugged me.

WolfAngelus Feb 21, 2018

7.5

Unfortunately, only season 1 got an English version, a bit of an annoyance to have to switch because comparing both, the English fit the characters better for me. This season focuses a lot on the war that was starting up in the first season. Also unlike the first season, this one is quite a bit more perverted. Even for it being just another season, it somehow feels really different, especially in terms of presentation and the general theme. These episodes strike a roughly equal balance of seriousness with the whole war theme, and the other half being the perverted content. I don't think think it was quite as good as the first season due to that, as the first one felt far more adventurous and magical in a sense. The big issue I had was the end. We see something happen, then suddenly off camera a HUGE and major thing must have occured, and we are only told about it briefly by the characters. Considering how much emphasis there was on building up for this, only for it barely to be seen, it doesn't feel right and leaves a lot of questions. There is a lot more focus on certain characters, and others are rarely included. It's good or bad pending on who you prefer to see. The main duo is more present than ever, and you see a lot more into Louise's family. The princess and those close to her are also a lot more present, with the war revolving around her country and all. That means a couple new characters there, along with another one that currently seems unrelated to the group. To make it interesting, at least 1 character will die. I found the lack of inclusion on some of the other characters a shame, since they were revelant in season 1 and created a dynamic on what and how the Anime plays out. Oddly enough, the artwork looks far more updated compared to season 1, the change is quite noticeable. The coloring and lines look more defined. Overall, a part of me kind of wished it would have ended with S1 simply because the theme and everything was great. I am not huge on the war part, even though it relates to the character class status a lot. The ending was nice, but not the ending of the story bit. Somehow a large event must have unfolded off camera, and we are only told about it briefly. That made a lot of the prior content feel like it had a lot of build up and no reward. Nontheless, I like the Anime too much so I am glad it still has 2 more seasons after this. Also a shame the English version was never continued on.Review of Season 1 ; Scored 9Review of Season 3 ; Scored 8.3Review of Season 4 ; Scored 8.4