Thirty years ago, the Eurasian continent was devastated by a supermassive "spatial quake"—a phenomenon involving space vibrations of unknown origin—resulting in the deaths of over 150 million people. Since then, these quakes have been plaguing the world intermittently, albeit on a lighter scale.
Shidou Itsuka is a seemingly average high school student who lives with his younger sister, Kotori. When an imminent spatial quake threatens the safety of Tengu City, he rushes to save her, only to be caught in the resulting eruption. He discovers a mysterious girl at its source, who is revealed to be a "Spirit," an otherworldly entity whose appearance triggers a spatial quake. Soon after, he becomes embroiled in a skirmish between the girl and the Anti-Spirit Team, a ruthless strike force with the goal of annihilating Spirits.
However, there is a third party that believes in saving the spirits: "Ratatoskr," which surprisingly is commanded by Shidou's little sister! Kotori forcibly recruits Shidou after the clash, presenting to him an alternative method of dealing with the danger posed by the Spirits—make them fall in love with him. Now, the fate of the world rests on his dating prowess, as he seeks out Spirits in order to charm them.
[Written by MAL Rewrite]
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Comentários
Veronin
Boobs, explosions and cute girls are a time-tested formula. Apparently. If there is one that has remained true about the anime industry, it is that cheap entertainment and low-risk adaptations prevail. AIC's "Date A Live" is yet another addition to this tired trend- doing nothing interesting or even particularly well. It expects the audience to willfully ignore its poor writing, because hey-- there are cute girls to gawk at! Drawing inspiration from the 2008 manga "Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai", Date A Live presents itself as a pseudo-parody of otaku culture. After our protagonist Shidou conveniently encounters two busty ladies fighting one another, he findshimself waking in the headquarters of an anti-Spirit organization, which (surprise!) is led by his bipolar younger sister. Kirino-- sorry, Kotori, proposes her master plan to Shidou: prevent the Spirits' destruction by making them fall in love with him. How is he meant to achieve this? By studying dating sims, of course.
Funnily enough, this ridiculous premise is actually one of Date A Live's few redeeming points. It is self-aware and (usually) does not attempt to be anything more than silly fun. Some of the best moments are when Shidou attempts to swoon the girls with cliched eroge lines, only to be met by awkward silence and/or violent threats. It is a show that prides itself in absurdity. Mostly. At other times it is just woefully stupid.
And that is the problem. Date A Live, in all of its wisdom, also tries to push a semi-serious 'plot' amidst its comedy. A plot so riddled with lazy writing and insufferable cliches that the anime becomes the very thing that is parodying. Transfer students, toast-in-mouth, and the beloved walk-in-on-clearly-occupied-bathroom cliche? Check. Girls falling in love with Shidou for no conceivable reason except to increase the size of his harem? You bet. Deus ex machina? The third episode contains two within minutes of each other. There is even a scene in the anime where the Anti-Spirit Team-- which for some inexplicable reason is comprised entirely of busty, half-naked high school girls-- gets tentacle raped by ramen. Yes, ramen. Full stop. I will leave that to your consideration.
Shidou himself does not do the writing any favors. If there is a problem, he will preach it away- almost always with a few jejune words about self-sacrifice or how his victim simply isn't happy enough. If he is hurt, he will be magically healed through some convenient plot device. He doesn't need to fight or do anything remotely intelligent, because why the hell would he? He has plot armor to save the day. Date A Live is not concerned about petty notions such as 'sense'.
Writing aside, you will indubitably gain some enjoyment from the 'cute girls' appeal. And cute they are. Tsunako's character designs (most easily recognized through her work on the Hyperdimension Neptunia franchise) adds a level of appeal uncommon to most harem anime. Kurumi's design, for example, is one of the most attractive in anime or manga- no hyperbole intended. Their personalities are also equally adorable (though often limited to archetypes) with characters like Tohka frequently finding ways to get your heart racing. If Date A Live were to be judged solely by the cuteness of its female cast, it would be a work of art. But it is not.
It shouldn't come as much of a surprise given the designs, but Date A Live's artwork is for the most part high-quality. Characters are rendered in a consistent manner and the colorful art design tends to make up for any imperfections that the animation occasionally has. It is certainly a step down from the original light novel illustrations, though.
The sound also does not disappoint. It's almost a little saddening, even, knowing that such quality was expended on a show of this caliber. The background tracks are excellent, as is the cast of seiyuu (who do a skillful job of delivering personality to each girl) while even the catchy opening and ending sequences manage to stand out. It should be noted though that the ending sequences are supremely lazy from an animation standpoint, usually containing a single image that is panned over continuously until the song ends. Surely more effort could have been put there.
All in all, Date A Live is an absolute mess of a story-- but a disturbingly entertaining one. It is something to be watched-- maybe enjoyed-- and then immediately forgotten (assuming the writing does not give you an aneurysm). It represents precisely why an anime cannot survive on cuteness alone. Tohka does come close to saving the show, though. Almost.
If you are the kind of viewer that cares not for critical quality, then perhaps the girls will be enough to keep you entertained. For everybody else, and especially those already revolted by the harem genre, make sure to keep a few bandages handy. You might need them after hitting your head against the wall.
lilseph
Note: Everything in this review is my personal opinion. I will try to see both sides of the fence because when i talk to people about Date A Live, they either think the show is a work of art, or they this its a complete mess. I am on the side where I think it's a work of art but I will try to not be bias. ------------------------------------------------------------ Date A Live, or DAL for short, is a show about spirits invading our world and creating spacequakes upon entering our world that kills thousands of people. These spirits are dangerous entities and we do not know much aboutthem. It's up to our main man Shidou to stop these invasions by dating them. Yes, dating them. Now, when I first learned of what the show is about, I thought it was kind of interesting... and stupid. It's a unique idea for a show, albeit stupid, it is unique.
Story - The story is about our harem lead, Shidou, dating the many spirits that invade the earth. To save the people of the earth, it is up to him to date these spirit girls and get them to fall in love with him. While this is going on, there is an anti-spirit team (all girls, of course) and there job is to search and destroy the spirits. As absurd and unique this show sounds, some might think this is a recipe for a disaster, but it’s actually incredibly entertaining. The whole plot is mainly for the entertaining fight scenes, between the spirits and the anti-spirit team, and the several comedic scenes between Shidou and the several spirits that accompany him. They tried to establish a plot half way through the show but it's almost like the creators of DAL just threw their papers in the air and was like "fuck this shit; we'll leave it for season 2". No, I'm serious... That’s pretty much what they did.
Summary: If you think too hard on the plot aspect of DAL your brain will melt. But, if you are watching it purely for the entertainment factor, you can look past the enormous amounts of plot holes and look at DAL for what it is... and entertaining show.
Art - The art style and animations are beautiful to look at. If there is one thing DAL does great its the animations. There were no derp faces, the fight scenes looked crisp, the backgrounds were well done, everything about was done to a tee. The character designs were also very well done. You could tell the creators of DAL put a lot of effort into the art and they didn’t skip a beat. Hats off to them they made the show LOOK good.
Sound - Soundtrack is another category DAL excels at. The BGM fit almost every scene and really brought the most out of each scene. The OP is one of my favorite songs to date and the ED isn't half bad itself. The voice actors fit each character really well. Especially Kurumi... her voice was great and fit the character perfectly. All in all, the soundtrack as a whole was really well done and does not disappoint.
Characters - You can look at the characters for DAL one of two ways. One way is that pretty much every character has almost no backstory and isn’t well devolved. They aren’t very unique as each of them are either the token Tsundere character, or the crazy girl etc.. Or, you can look at it as they are cute anime girls that are funny and entertaining in their each own way. Each girl is cute in their own way, each girl has a great voice actor that fits the character well, and each girl is different enough so that everyone has a different favorite. They are fun; enjoyable characters and each have a different view point on each situation. Albeit while they might not be very flushed out, they do the job. Last but not least, we have Shidou, the main lead and (really the only male character that matters) the one who has the duty of saving these spirits. All I can say about him is that he’s not shit. That is apparently a lot to ask for in these harem type animes. Thankfully, he’s not as bad as most harem leads and in fact he’s pretty good himself. Shidou was probably the biggest surprise out of every character in the show as he didn’t suck.
Overall - If you critically look at DAL and try to pick it apart asking yourself "well, does this show have a good plot? Were the characters good and have deep, meaningful backstories? Does the show have a great soundtrack? Are the animations up to snuff?” you're in for a bad time. The plot on a whole is a mess, and the characters really aren’t that great if you look at the big picture. But if you are like me and just watch DAL for what it is, a fun and enjoyable anime, then the show is great.
If you are a critic of every anime you watch, DAL might not be the anime for you. But, if you watch an anime for cute girls, cool fights, entertaining comedy, and just plain don't care about plot holes and such, DAL is a must watch.
dudetb3
Ok I am kind of scared to write a positive review for this anime due to the fact that all the positive reviews are getting hated on but I just have too. I know people are saying, yea yeah its a fan service, and the popularity of fan service animes are comparable to hipster music, but i gotta say.. this is quite simply one of the best fan services that i have ever scene. Really, the plot is actually intriguing. It may just be because this year of anime has been incredibly awful and has led me to believe that every single action anime produceris scared to go up against attack on titan, but why lie... when you get passed attack on titan, this anime ranks among the top. On top of that there is a catchy opening and the music featured in the anime is actually pretty good.
Rating for Characters: 8
Look i wont lie, many of the characters are actually intriguing. We have the average protagonist, but the supporting cast is very entertaining. Tohka contantly made me crack up and Origami is a perfectly written annoying girl. She does her job perfectly.
Rating For Art: 7
Ok the art is nothing special, but atleast it doesnt hurt the anime.
Rating for Sound: 9
The voice actors/actresses did their jobs well in this one. Wow did they do great.
Rating for Story and Enjoyment: 10
This is not your stereotypical fanservice. There is a plot with back story and there is action. The action is perfectly written. Yeah i do wish a character would actually die for once but other than that i have no complaints. It is a very entertaining 24 minutes watching this.
Overall: 9
Say what you want to say, but I enjoyed this. It had comedy and action, and after watching the train wreck of an anime "Karneval," i really came to love this little fanservice. I do hope that season 2 does not try too hard, because the balance of action and cute comedy is perfect.
Stark700
Life isn't always fun. It's especially bothering when you have a little imouto who drives you nuts everyday when you wake up. But more so, sometimes people wish they get more enjoyment out of their lives. But that might just be a bit too much for a sudden young boy by the name of Shido Itsuka. He gets more than what he ever hoped because on a faithful day, he meets a strange girl who completely turns his life into one hell of a ride. Yup, the ride begins here and Date a Live takes the concept of 'dating' to a strange level. It's nosurprise though as the anime industry seems to be often seeking new ways to present the harem/romantic comedy genre. Date a Live is a Japanese light novel series written by Tachibana Koushi with illustrations by Tsunako. There's also a manga version of the series but let's cut to the chase of the anime adaptation rather, shall we?
Date a Live is a series and some may imply is about 'dating'. That part of the concept is correct because it's up to the main male protagonist of the series, Shido Itsuka, to save the world by making certain characters fall in love with him! The series literally takes the concept of a dating sim and transforms it (at it least tries to) into an animated medium. That's a lot easier said than done though to be honest especially since the majority of the characters in the series are not so normal. Take for example, Tohka Yatogami (code name: Princess) who came to Earth unexpectedly. She tries to follow the way of the world but lacks common sense. Even with her huge appetite and elite fighting skills, she often behaves like a child and acts immaturely during many situations. However, Tohka does have a cute and adorable side to her and wishes to protect what she treasures. These include the feelings of others as well as the people she has met.
Among other characters, the series clearly follows the path of a bit of harem theme. This is shown in the form of another girl (Origami Tobiichi) that Shido attends high school with. To make things more bizarre is that she also seems to have not only have a secret but literally stalks Shido at every corner. For unknown reasons, she seems to have a connection with Shido and declares him as her “lover”. At the same time, her actions often speaks louder than words as she is very direct with her affections which often puts Tohka at frustration when it comes to Shido. In general, Origami is a girl of peculiarity and mystery that surrounds her character throughout each episode.
Speaking of mysteries, there's definitely some in this series here and there. For one thing, Shido has a mysterious power and that itself is a mystery. Furthermore, the method to seal the deal with the spirits throughout the series is through a contact with the lips. However, at the same time, there's questions regarding how this is power is manifested.
As mentioned before, the series is titled “Date a Live”. The 'date' is the keyword here because to seal a spirit, one must make them fall in love with the protagonist. The dating sim part comes into play here as Shido is “trained” by his superiors in order to achieve their goals. The organization known as Ratatoskr practices dating simulations and gives advise to Shido in order to make the spirits fall in love with him. These often ends up with mixed results.
It also seems that at many instances, Shido doesn't want to get involved with the whole dating process and is forced directly into it by his superiors. In fact, there's no true evidence showing Shido showing any real romantic affections towards any of the spirits he has encountered. Needless to say, he is in a world where he just wants to get the job done and move on with his once peaceful life.
The series itself is consisted of only 12 episodes. Going by the phase of the light novel, that leaves only about 3 episodes per 'arc' for each Spirit. This can spell out a pacing problem with the usual 'things that should have been there but are not'. However, the series makes some big mistakes in this case as there are instances of fillers as well as cases where an episode has almost absolutely no value to progressing the main storyline. To make things as typical as they seem to be from this romantic comedy/harem, the common usage of fan service is employed in the form of bare skin and gratuitous outfits. These outfits are reflected in the battle gear that the military uses to combat the spirits throughout the series.
The fan service doesn't seem to stop there though. Even from the first few minutes of the anime, the series takes off with the panty shots and an annoying voice coming from a certain 'little sister'. Then, there's the characters' designs. Tohka's school uniform is generic but Origami's military battle suits takes it to another level with its designs showing the suggestive parts. The other spirits are also dressed strangely although it does bring out a colorful background to their characters. Still, it is generic with their different colored hair. Despite them all being spirits, I can hardly take the series serious sometimes with the whole dating concept. The development between Shido and most of the spirits are also cliched and hardly any meaningful if at all. I don't sense a real sense of connection or build up but rather as a dating sim game. The dating concept itself is also weak with the lame pickup lines that lakes any flavor. It's hardly any humorous at times and often misused according to the whole concept itself.
Luckily, there's still the action presented by the members of the military. The gadgets they use are as deadly as it looks and packs some devastating firepower. It shows that the military are serious about their tasks of dealing with the Spirits. It is because they hope to contain them should Shido fail in his quest. The spirits themselves are also damn powerful. Some of them proves to be more than a match and it seems that Shido is the only backbone to save humanity. It's the whole 'save the world' concept again but with the twist of dating.
Oh and speaking of dating, there's definitely some of that where it comes from. It's quite awkward though because by the way of things, Shido doesn't seem to have an ounce of dating experience prior to meeting the spirits. He often takes actions from “advise” from the military and Kotori, Shido's superior. These create awkward situations. Along with the misunderstandings, Date a Live continuously falls under the common cliched anime of the romantic harem genre. It's complete with the transfer student, the cute little sister, the nice guy, and of course dating.
In terms of soundtrack, I have to admit that Date a Live did pull off a magic out of its hat. "Date A Live “ by sweet ARMS has an electronic rhythm and gets the point across quickly. One can even see some action in the scenes along with the spirits who are soon to debut. It's colorful in the sense that the OST also depicts comedy, drama, romance, action, and emotional moments. Furthermore, there are many different ED songs to the series giving the viewers a variety to enjoy.
The artwork of the series is mediocre though. The outfits that the characters dress whether in combat or at school is generic and suggestive. It doesn't help by the fact that some of those outfits are little more than a reflection of the characters. Although colorful and distinguishing, it still remains barely tolerable with the way spirits should be. It's almost difficult to take it serious at times especially when there are 'gory' scenes out in the open but the artwork makes it seem like romantic comedy.
In general, Date a Live is just another series that takes the theme of science fiction and then mixes it it with some new twists like the dating sim concept. It's a fun theme to embrace but can hardly to be taken serious to heart at all. The whole concept itself is weak with the development and rushed sequences. Having read the LN, the pace of the series also seems to fall apart. The catch here is more than just a simple kiss. Rather, Date a Live just tries too hard and make it almost too unbelievable for its presentation. In the end, there are several choices that viewers can choose if they decide to watch this:
1) For fun and pass time
2) The concept/premise
3) Storyline
4) None of the above but rather just go with the flow
If option #4 was your choice, then just do what it says. Go with the flow and turn your brains off while hoping to enjoy the series.
noptovius
Date a live is a great anime which I think deserves a nice overall rating. The story is great, the complications, the climax, it is all interesting and can be enjoyed well. However, in the resolution, or the ending, there are still some questions left unanswered which dissatisfies some of the watchers. It is possible that they will answer it in the second season if there is any. The art is great, the character illustration is realistic and well drawn. The characters in the story is also interesting as some of them are not just ordinary humans and are spirits, and it adds some interests to theanime.
I enjoyed the whole story except for the ending part, because it's very teasing for me and I don't feel satisfied by the ending.
For the overall rating, I think it's a great anime. But there are some problems on recommending this kind of anime, because of the fan service, I can't possibly recommend this anime to everyone. Even so, I think this is a great anime which you should watch :) This is my first review so far, forgive me if I made any mistakes. Good day~!
Nebarto
MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS Date a Live, definitely an interesting series, and does take a unique spin on the harem/dating theme. Please keep in mind that this is my own personal opinion and whether you choose to think I'm an idiot or not is up to you. Now returning to the anime, I haven't read the light novel to Date a Live, but I usually just watch the anime or read the manga series if I found the anime interesting. The one thing that did keep me hooked onto this series had to be the way they spun a new way to the aliens to earth/ in thiscase magical spirits each containing their own specific type of power.
The Story: I'll have to say one thing, they better air a second series or I'm going to be one pissed new fan, this is caused by the amount of story lines they left hanging and the still missing background info on the fire spirit that turns Kotori (Shido the main character's non blood related little sister, into one of the spirits that seem to torture Japan, but in reality are just lost entities with no memory or purpose). Other than the missing plot continuations of several possible character developments, the story was one of the main reasons I kept into the series, although it seems as if they tried to end this series on its 12th episode and rushed the ending SIGNIFICANTLY, the plot twists they provided were sufficient to the unique hold it had on the whole harem/dating to save Japan kind of thing.
The Art and Sound: I haven't found an anime series yet that I have to complain about the art and the sound. Being a new 2013 released anime the picture and animation looked great along with a soundtrack to compliment the scenes sufficiently.
The Characters: The main character Itsuka Shido is a combination of an innocent, kind, caring, and savior type of character during the series which contributes to him winning over a few spirits and humans to add to the harem theme. Other supporting characters which play standard roles in the harem theme include Yoshino, the shy, quiet, kind of lolicon aspect who has powers relating to h2o. Yatogami Tohka who contributes as the main girl as which the main character will likely end up with but a easily embarrassed,jealous, supporting, lacks common sense, is very pretty and can eat like Goku. (find this helpful if you got that reference). Now Tobiichi Origami is an interesting type of character, working for the enemy of the spirits, known as the AST, she doesn't fail to be attracted to Shido in the pushy,get her way type, but when it comes down to her purpose of life, nothing else could matter. Origami may be the most peculiar character in the series, beside Kurumi who can control time. Since Kurumi is a big part of the arc and its ending I will leave out her description, however she is one of the major factors along with Shido, Kotori, and Takamiya Mana's lack of memory of the past. Takamiya Mana is supposedly Shido's biological sister but her only proof is an old pendant of the past, some possible character development and foreshadowing of major conflict and sadness is revealed but never resolved. (Another reason to hope for a season 2).
Overall I enjoyed this series it provided a few chuckles, and some tasteful ecchi moments but not to the point where the female characters' boobs have a rave party at every moment,(Highschool of the Dead), and the unique dating harem aspect. I highly recommend watching this series if, you read the LN (which I still need to), and or you liked similar anime such as Angel Beats!, or Sekirei, the To Love Ru series and Sora No Otoshimono (Forte). They fill the time well and the episodes aren't full of too much filler, with some comedy on the side you'll blitz through all 12 episodes in a few hours without knowing it. It's a definite good series and worth watching, the only fault I find it with is the change of pace in the plot development, and the possibility of not having a second season xD.
Thanks for reading!
GonzyChan
Quality entertainment is one thing in any anime show that has ever existed, whether it’s supposed to be the intention or if it was unintentional. With that in mind, many people conclude that shows like Date A Live are why anime has gone downhill in recent years because it has officially run out of ideas on what to do with any story. It doesn’t matter how well they tell it, just how it entertains the masses. I find this thinking overly cynical and silly because this isn’t exactly a new way of thinking. For years, anime studios have put filler shows in season slots sincethe beginning of anime; whether they were all bad or good is debatable by today’s standards. Nowadays, these harem shows are the best way to churn out these kinds of filler slots to appeal to the casual fan base who like to watch girls flaunt over one guy in comedic ways.
The premise of Date a Live is a common trope of parody anime like The World God Only Knows, where one male character is sent on a mission to capture the hearts of girls around him. The only problem is that Date a Live doesn’t rely on parody or satire. It’s a straight-up action show with romance thrown in for good measure. I can describe this show by taking The World God Only Knows and ripping out most of the charm and wit that show had, and then you have Date a Live. It may seem unfair to say that these two shows are similar when they follow different genres. Still, they are identical in one particular area, which makes them indistinguishable from what I described earlier.
With that said, is the show entertaining to watch regardless of this? Yes, it is. The one thing that I will commend Date a Live is the production value, and the artwork is gorgeous to see. It makes you marvel at the talent the animators have in giving us excellent eye candy even outside of action sequences. Even at a draw distance, the characters still look magnificent even by today’s standards.
With the special praise gone out of the way, how does this show fair with its characters? The characters from their archetypes and personalities are mixed with elaborating this further. On the one hand, you have someone like Tohka, who is an absolute joy to watch because of her very energetic personality. On the other, Origami is very nicely detailed from her battle armor and humorous deadpan emotions. Many characters don’t give anything on the plate of depth or entertainment. You could call them cliches, but sometimes you can develop imaginative ways of providing cliched characters with good depth to them. Still, you hardly get any of that with Yoshino, Kurumi, or Kotori. They're in the show just because they’re there to get the plot going and nothing else. It doesn’t help the fact to make the story going when you put too many filler arcs that aren’t very entertaining in the first place.
While I’m discussing the characters in Date A Live, Shido himself is a weak protagonist in the sense that there's absolutely nothing about him that makes him a well-rounded individual. He is nothing more than your average teenage boy who is friendly but doesn’t have the guts to ask any girl of the girls anything with a straight face. Yes, I know some real-life guys are like him. But in no single second did they give any strong trait that makes him indistinguishable from other protagonists in most harem shows. I know it’s not often you get protagonists such as Yokodera in Hentai Ouji or Tomoki from Sora no Otoshimono who are very strong in expressing their feelings, but is that asking too much?
One major problem that needs to be said is the show's overall pacing, not only with the plot but also with the character progression. It seemed as though the writers wanted to rush out the essential steps that made great characters and didn’t bother to slow things down. These steps would make the girls understand Shido more instead of him just kissing the girls to make them head over heels for him. It is not uncommon to see anime adaptations of manga or Light Novels skip many things that the source material initially laid out. Still, it’s essential to realize that the best way is to cut the unimportant arcs in the original Light Novel. From what I can tell, being a person who never read the novel, they seemed to have rushed some plot arcs that seemed crucial in the Light Novel. Then there’s the ending that looked like a cop-out telling us, “Hey, there’s going to be a sequel! So you’re just going to have to deal with it!” At least that’s what I wished they should have said. At best, that could have been a little more amusing.
In the sound department, the voice actors do an excellent job with their material. Marina Inoue as Tohka is a definite highlight out of everyone from the cast. From the sound of her voice, you can tell right away that she was having tons of fun voicing herself.
In the current Spring season of 2013, I would say this is not a terrible show to sit through. I did have some decent fun with the great action scenes and charming comedy, for what little material they could come up with. With the 2nd season announced, I wouldn’t mind sitting through another season of this. Let us hope that they will learn from their mistakes and make it better than the first one.
Grade: C+
nishi_san
- This is a Edited version after the show finished - This contains a small amount of SPOILERS. As this is not a very complicate show, I would go straight into business. By no means was this bad show, but this is not something stunning/moving either; despite a rather attractive background and seemingly innovative setting, This is a mediocre show: It is not really that innovative, Not really that corny, not really touching/entertaining and not really humorous, but Instead it stucks right in the middle of everything. Despite a clear vision as they attempt to innovate by adding Galgame Elements into the plot, adapting some sortof “Love-Meter” into the show and makes a parody show about Galgame, It goes nowhere beyond that. The setting was nowhere near complete, for example you never know what the Ratatoskr does besides helping Shido to date and helping him to make his choices, which seems to be everything that this seemingly huge organization does.
Despite a rather innovative approach of adapting Galgame Cultures into anime backgrounds, the core elements (Like the screenwriting) that hide inside the Galgame setting are the wrongdoings. The pick-up lines are incredibility cheesy and old fashioned. Rather than dating, most of the time it almost seems to be some sort of social worker trying to help the wellbeing of the applicant, along with some quite heroic actions that you could certainly live without because you’ve probably seen it too many times – to be exact, four – as every single segment ends with shido trying to man up and save the girl.
And, surprisingly, the best part of the show comes not from the main plot, but from the side elements of the show – which is the jokes and some of the characters. Tohka Yatogami’s four episodes are not very interesting. However, those tiny bits between Tohka and Shido after her episodes were more then enough to show the relationship between Tohka and Shido. Tohka is the only one that had showed growth and had thought for the others at the final episodes. Besides Tohka, the rest only serves as jokes and side dishes that were not very important. Origami took a major role in the show, but whenever she comes up, she would be only doing three things: trying to kill somebody, ask for Shido’s care, or act as some sort of joke. The rest was either not potray entirely and had to wait till second season (like Kurumi), some was just not very interesting and act as a joke/insignificant plot device throughout the whole series, like DEM, AST, Mana, Yoshino and so on.
To conclude my short review, I would say that Date Alive attempts to be joking but act serious (by using a joke to cover up the serious bits), but it becomes the other way round and turned into something that is seriously joking. It might be interesting if they actually manage to pull it off (what they are trying to be), but a show like this is probably just outrageously ridiculous and had turned into some sort of funny show that somehow sounds stupid. I would say that this is an entertaining show, since some of the episodes actually made me laugh hard, but probably that would be my biggest (and my only) compliment for them.
PS: It is said that the second season would be much better. Many of the fans from the original novel series actually recommend me to read the novels. I would consider that as an option as the original series is something quite big. If you manage to find a copy, I would suggest you to do so.
LuciaWalrus
Pedo bait would be appalling but it could be worse. If someone tells you they enjoy the how get escape while you can. i regret watching this show admittedly i was 13 but this is some disgusting sh*t. there is no plot like most ecchi and its core focuses on the mc saving the girls and lewd situations idk been a long time since watching just here to give others a warning. story 1/10 not unique character. bad. There was no goal just terrible romance and with the utmost sincereness stay away from this show. how much do i need to type with thenot enough info i will just answer the questions ts gives.
1.The story is not unique and very predictable i remember the show still (unfortunately) you will know all the plot to come from ep 1.
2. The art is fine and fitting its 7/10 but that is not the issue
3.The characters are not well rounded they are basic and predictable "blush" (sorry but i need to get the point across) no one has ever been this kind to me or "i've been alone my whole life i can't believe you saved me. just trash.
4. No use previous example above.
TheJamjam1997
This does not deserve it's hype. Actually, how did it even get hyped in the first place? This show? Basically fanservice, fanservice, fanservice, more fanservice, boobs, explosions, boobs, explosions. The main character's reactions to everything made absolutely no sense and had no rationality whatsoever. My adoptive sister is suddenly the commander of a floating invisible airship? Okay, cool. She wants me to date potentially life-threatening girls who can flatten a suburb in a matter of seconds and kiss them? SURE! No problem! I don't even care if this spoils the beginning, hopefully you won't make the same mistake as me and watch this garbage. I havethe lowest standards for anime out of anyone I know. I enjoy anime people find horrible, but this was just unbearable. I think the only noteworthy character was Kurumi, because she was the only character that didn't drop to their knees within two episodes.
Avoid it, however you can. It's bad.
Katanadude
This is easily one of the worst anime I have watched so far in 2019. You see, it's garbage like this that gives us real anime fans a bad rep. I'm surprised that this horrible anime even has sequels to it. It's literally just the typical cliche harem you get all the fucking time. When this anime tries to be original it just fails miserably and ends up going back to the stupid ass harem tropes you see in every damn harem anime. This review will only be about the first season btw. The first mistake I noticed in this anime is that it actuallytries to have a serious story. When I first started watching this trash I only i did it to watch a guilty pleasure ecchi anime to beat off to. This anime is a fucking joke. On one hand it tries to take itself seriously, on the other hand it's just your typical harem bullshit trying to be funny (even though it's not). It keeps flip flopping 24/7.
The premise of this anime is extremely stupid beyond belief. There are spirits that invade earth and cause spatial quakes, and it was never explained why they do this. All of the spirits are coincidentally female, just to add to the main characters stupid ass harem. The main character has to make the spirits fall for him, turn them into good guys, and kiss them to seal their spiritual powers away. That is the most stupid bullshit I have ever seen.
All of the damn spirits fall for him so easily as well, and it's because they're all poorly written one dimensional characters. I'll talk about how bad the characters are later on in this review.
There are many nonsensical things about this anime, here are a few for examples. Firstly, even after he seals their spiritual powers away they still fucking get it back over and over again. What's the point in kissing them to seal it away if they constantly get it back everytime?
The action in this anime is pure garbage as I expected it to be. Every single fight they're always using force fields and there isn't actually any injuries or anything. That isn't even entertaining to watch in the slightest. They always have their god damn force fields up, so there is no fucking sense of danger at all!
Now onto the characters. The characters are straight up garbage as I expected them to be. I was extremely disappointed to see how cliche of a character Tohka ended up being. In the first episode she was hinted at having a depressing backstory, or having motivations. In the end she falls for the main character easily. She goes from being edgy to a straight up bitch. The way her personality completely changed was just awful writing at it's finest. I thought she would be an interesting character at first, but literally two episodes in and I took that thought back.
The other characters are horrible as well. Kotori is just the typical sexualized loli bullshit. Nothing about her character was interesting as far as I've watched. Origami is a shitty character because of her generic backstory and motivations. Wow you want to take revenge? How many times have I seen that in an anime, like 1000 times now? Not even going to be talking about the other loli ventriloquist because she was absolutely irrelevant.
Just like every other stupid ass harem, the main character in this anime is completely fucking clueless. He doesn't even realize that multiple girls are trying to get into his pants. He's such a shitty character it's actually ridiculous. Again, he has no depth to his character whatsoever. All he did in this show was whine and bitch whenever the other girls got into a conflict. Nothing he did made me think he was interesting character. Again, he's just your typical harem protagonist with absolutely no depth whatsoever.
People seem to like Kurumi, but I don't see it. She's just a generic yandere bitch and that's it. Nothing else about her character was interesting. Well that's it. Those are the only characters worth mentioning, because the rest shouldn't even be considered characters. The only other character I know is the blonde haired man that constantly talks about Kotori's body and shit. So there are multiple instances of this character being a pedophile, which is absolutely disgusting.
Didn't have fun watching this piece of trash at all. Again, this is easily one of the worst anime I have watched so far this year. The only anime I've watched this year that's worse is Mirai Nikki. I didn't enjoy this piece of trash whatsoever. Bad characters, stupid story, pedophilia, incest, asspulls, plot holes, horrible fights, horrible plot, etc.
Now as a reviewer, I should always try to point out the good things about an anime in my reviews. The problem with this anime is that I couldn't find anything good about it. I guess the girls are hot, but then again I can easily go watch another anime with even hotter girls in it, so that wouldn't even count. So yeah this anime doesn't do it for me. Pure garbage
ap1001
Toilet paper and pretty pictures review - Date a live I'm going to strangle the person who recommended Date a Live to me when I asked for an anime similar to TWGOK. From the setting of Date a Live, you would think this is like a mix of TWGOK and EVA, with date the girl to save the world. YOU ARE WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Cause obviously you never seen what made TWGOK and EVA good, what we have here is not a show like them, cause they were GOOD and Date a Live is SHIT.story - 1
Jerk off parade, cause there is no plot. As I said many times, all magic school genre is trying to be Toaru whether they admit it or not, but none of them ever understood why Toaru was good. (ie ridiculous high octane action) So Date a Live's idea of innovation is to rip-off TWGOK, except TWGOK had humour, interest, atmosphere, character and wit! Keima had much more personality than a cardboard box and a great development over the arcs. While Date a Live has...nothing.
As for the dating girls, they try to satire dating sims, and that is a big fucking joke. I'm not sure whether you played a dating sim before, but Shidou's actual personality is even less than the faceless Dating Sim protagonists, and the way he actually get the girls to fall for him is the classic "LN good guy", ie having no personality.
Characters - 2
The girls are LN cardboard cut-outs, and TWGOK had better girls.
So onto the MC, Let's see, Shidou have a bland face, a bland voice, and no personality beyond "LN nice guy". Again I'm going to drawn comparison to the works that did it better, Toaru "insane sarcastic moralfag (recently became self-righteous as of NT14)", TWGOK "anti-social genius who slowly walk out of his shell", EVA "depressed kid who finally breaks".
Again DAL tries to present itself as a satire, but it have no self-awareness of any degree, and comes off moronic. How do you make fun of dating sim archetypes, when your characters are even worse than those archetypes.
Music and sound - 4, 4
It is AIC, ie the studio that never makes anything worthwhile, so it is quite bad.
Overall - 2
You want magic school combat? Watch Toaru.
You want dating sim satire? Watch TWGOK.
You want to have a wank? Watch Hentai.
So it comes down to the question of why DAL exist, cause it shouldn't. Just watch TWGOK again if you are in pain of TWGOK ending like I am.
ProjectZakuro
-Project Zakuro Reviews: Date A Live- Date A Live is an anime that was released early in the spring of 2013 and has received mix criticism from viewers. Some loved it, some hated it. Many anime released prior to Date A Live have been well below decent so how does Date A Live stack up with the new releases? Well then, let's find out. From my experience, I felt the story had a lot of potential but unfortunately some of that potential was bogged down by rather ridiculous concepts. I'll explain as I go along. A strange phenomenon called "spacequakes" has been causing destruction all over theglobe and they are caused by female entities called "Spirits". Our protagonist Shido has been tasked with having to seal their powers before they can cause anymore spacequakes. With what you may ask? By having to go on dates with the Spirits and make them fall in love. That explains what I meant earlier about the story's potential being lack-luster. The concept of spacequakes and Spirits where in my eyes well conceived and I think they could've add more potential to the anime then they let on. But unfortunately the ridiculous concept of a dating sim has killed off the seriousness of these ideas and made it feel more like a harem comedy (which is the anime's true genre). And this was only the first episode. After finishing it, I thought the concepts will make the rest of the anime crash and burn. It turns out that I was wrong. Despite the ridiculous concepts of the plot, this anime was still able to maintain its entertainment factor and improve as the episodes progress. This was a big surprise for me. The rest of the story is basically Shido dating Spirits to seal their powers before the Spirits are killed off by an organization called the AST (Anti-Spirit Team). The story is flawed but it makes up for it with a well-executed entertainment factor.
I'm not too familiar with Tsunako's art work but I can tell that the art style of the characters is pleasant to look at. Each character has their own unique style that makes them quite memorable. Whether it be Kotori's twin pink ponytails or Kurumi's goth-like outfit. The character designs were well done. The setting and background art though are average. Although not bad or terrible, the city designs didn't catch my drift as much as the characters did (mainly because the city the anime takes place in doesn't have some very memorable spots like other cities from other anime). The overall animation is also good and everything runs smoothly to the frame rate. The only issue I have with the animation though is that some scenes will show background characters completely motionless or show only a still image that is being panned. This takes away the livelihood of the scenes that should have been. Otherwise, the art is good nonetheless.
The music that plays in Date A Live has been well composed and each tune fits their scenario very well with their unique melody. So far I haven't heard one mediocre tune in the anime that disappoints. The opening theme is also good but because of the story's quirky concept, the theme feels out-of-place. The ending themes are basic and average and they fit more to the genre than the opening theme. The voice acting is also superb with each character sporting a unique and pleasant voice to listen. But because this anime hasn't been dubbed yet, there's not much I can say about the voice acting at this point.
As far as characters go, each of them have very likable personality traits and their personality developments runs very smoothly throughout the course of the anime. Such as Tohka starting out cold and distant and eventually becoming cheerful and protective later on. So far I haven't seen one excruciatingly hate-able character in the anime. One exception though would be Kotori and her "annoying Imouto" trait but I never found her a really huge problem. She's still likable. But if there is possibly one character that is the best of the bunch, it has to be Kurumi for her Yandere personality. Just her alone makes her very entertaining (I don't know why, she just does). However because this is a harem anime, there will be a lot of "WTF" moments with these characters. Such as Shido making the most ridiculous choices possible that makes him seem like a pervert in front of the Spirits. Despite this though, all the characters are likable and they will keep you entertained for a while.
Despite its lack-luster story and quirky concepts, Date A Live still manages to keep the entertainment factor going with its likable characters and memorable soundtrack and art. This anime is definitely worth a try. The first episode is the anime's weakest point so if you can bare with its flaws, you'll have yourself a good time with this anime. However keep in mind that this anime has a lot of fan service so if you're not into these types of genres, I recommend you stay away from Date A Live until you're sure that you can handle them all the way through.
Overall, it is worth the watch.
ItsSPY007
If you are here, It means two things 1) You watched that "Suki Suki Dai Suki KekkonShiyou MY HONEY" edit of Kurumi 2) You saw the harem and ecchi tag and rushed to check what this anime has to give Either way, this anime is about a bunch of hot ladies called spirits whose appearance causes a black hole bigger than those of your average school hoe to appear and annihilate everything in its way towards total DESTRUCTION. DESTRUCTION of property, DESTRUCTION of mankind, and DESTRUCTION of your brain cells that is If you decide to stay up till 3 AM in the morning trying to binge-watch thisanime like me. Now these hot ladies are available in a variety of shapes, sizes, and even brands. We got that dumb troup, a loli, a tsundere witch who can change her body size, twins, a red mafia lady who can control time and is a top-tier waifu material. Fan service is endless.
Now these spirits appear at random places and at random times and they can't control it and don't even know how it happens. And BAAM, Black Hole. There is an organization called AST whose job is to kill these spirits because of the destruction they cause. Then another organization took pity on those spirits and wanted to seal their powers. Now the way their power is sealed is very... Ummm... Very Questionable. The main character has to date those spirits and make them fall in love with him and when those spirit's affection level becomes high, he has to kiss them and then their powers are sealed. Yeah, I know right??? IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN MEEEEE!!!! Once their powers are sealed, the AST won't be able to detect them anymore and thus won't target them anymore.
When I first learned about this plot, I was like how long can it get? But man they stretched it all the way to 5 seasons. The story has many turns and is quite decent enough. Script writing was good, and the music was great too. Solid character designs and peak comedy. The fight scenes were great. Overall, this show is peak fiction and I would definitely recommend this to all the fiction/fantasy enjoyers.
Jamada
Shows like this don't have to be plot heavy to get by. A gimmicky premise plus some cute girls and action is enough to justify watching for many people (and that includes myself). Whether it's the cuteness of the girls or the hokey Hogan's Heroes/military-ish sounding music used for the preview (and as background music during various light moments throughout the series), Date A Live has a certain charm to it that doesn't need to provide a deep experience to be enjoyable. That said, I found that I was more interested in the plot than I thought I would be. While I wasn't immediately impressed fromthe first episode, things did become more interesting about halfway into the series. That isn't to say that the previous episode weren't entertaining in their own right, but the dark side of the story really shines (insofar as darkness shines) in contrast to the light side. In fact, the episode just prior to the (well-placed) injection of drama was fluffy enough to be called filler; the contrast between the two sides makes the drama feel (subjectively) deeper.
In any case, you shouldn't expect a masterpiece out of Date A Live. However, if you keep an open mind to light fun and humor mixed with surprisingly interesting story developments (and with bits of action interspersed), then this could be the right anime for you.
Flashflame00
The whole idea of dating girls and getting a kiss from them in order to free them from a burden brings Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai to mind. However, the whole idea of girls in Mecha armor should be an obvious hint that it's nowhere near close to what we though it would be. I'd have to say that what made this anime enjoyable was the balance between comedy and plot. It wasn't too serious and at the same time, it wasn't too comedic. The amount of fanservice here was average for a new anime (In this century at least). What captivated me the mostwas the climax where things started to intertwine. However, the big disappointment was that it came when the series was close to halfway done. The biggest flaw of the anime had to have been the sheer amount of things left unanswered. For example, what happened to this character, or that one, or this one? They could've gone more in-depth on the characters rather than stick to the main crew. In fact, if they did then the series wouldn't just be a half series. There'd be more story rather than just dates after dates after dates alternating between battle and fanservice. This just means that there are a LOT of open questions that need to be answered. Once again, there could've been a lot more done with this anime and that is it's fatal flaw. I enjoyed the characters. Each one of them was loving. One more things that bothers me is that they never dodge and they recover at the speed of light like nothing ever happened. Anyway, that's all I can say about Date A Live. I reaalize that I'm pointing out a lot of flaws but it's a good anime. It just lacks story and information. If you're looking for an anime that is similar to Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai but with a little more sparkle, then you've found a good anime. Kotori wins Imouto of the year. Overall score: 8/10
Ayame-chann
At first i want to say this is my first review, and I tried. Date a Live, an anime that is either a classic, or was messed up entirely. For me, it was. Even if its a parody. My friends know I have no nice words for this series, but I'll try to stay nice now. The story is simple, the earth is endangered by these huge earthquakes, wich turn out to be very powerfull girls. From what i got, they are aliens, and are vieuwed as enimies. They get attacked but it doesnt work because everything still gets destroyed. So our protagonist is forced to doanother approach, date them!
What?
Yeah.
And it doesn't end there, but I'll spare you the spoilers.
Even though I hate the story itself, the art is pretty good. Nice coulors and scenery, your moe girl here and there, cuteness altogether. It's not an eyesore, to be fair.-6
The sound was decent, I dont really remember any remarkable things, so I wont go into it.-6
Characters were easy written, and had no development in this series. I feel like they had no depth or anything interesting. Even the secrets in some weren't very interesting. Although I liked Origami, but one character doesn't really make up for it.-4
Overal I didn't really enjoy this anime myself, but I can see why others can. It's a refreshing series, although a bit confusing. The only good thing I have to say about it is the art, and it wasn't even that great. -4
Again, this is my first review, I tried (and English isn't my first language). I don't want to discourage you from watching, but I wouldn't reccomend it, as I found it a waste of my time.
GiancarloLS
Now, in MAL, there seems to be a disparity of ratings. The ratings really don't reflect on the quality of the anime because it is purely subjective. Being subjective is like talking to guys who like Hyundai because of its "fluidic sculpture" and immediately concluded that Hyundai is awesome; and if you're like me who's looks at what's under the bonnet on car displays and motor shows, you'll end up asking yourself if those guys have never seen a Ford or Toyota before. It's exactly the same in anime: you find out that a harem-anime has almost the same score as Ano Natsu de Matteiru,you wonder yourself for a moment, then you realized that if we're on the same wavelength as I talked further, then you've quite been able to understand me for being calm as I review one of the many harem anime that reached a 7/10 rating here in MAL.
There's another harem anime that has a score of 7, Inifinite Stratos at 7.26. Then there's a romantic anime worth the watch and just scored a little higher of 7.78: Isshukan (One Week) Friends. And then there's Fast and Furious 7 shown at the theaters right now, and you'd rather watch that because you can't anymore comprehend how come a harem anime got in the same flooring as a romantic one.
But that's how anime is. In the words of a fellow-MAL-member, Veronin, "If there is one that has remained true about the anime industry, it is that cheap entertainment and low-risk adaptations prevail", then he/she quoted some more: "It expects the audience to willfully ignore its poor writing, because hey-- there are cute girls to gawk at!"
Really, I couldn't agree more.
Harem anime is, for better comparison on cars, we're not using Hyundai. They're like BMW. If you ever wind yourself on BMW showrooms, you'll be offered the 3-series, 4-series, 5-series, and 6-series. Then, you'll be offered with the M3, M4, M5, and M6. The 3-series and the M3 are pretty much the same, just like the 4-series and M4, the 5-series and the M5, and 6-series and M6.
BMW will say the M-series has better engine, better suspension, better seats, entirely better than the number-series, but honestly they're practically the same car in a perspective that there's no way you'd drive these cars at max horsepower and drift them to be totaled by an incoming Hyundai on the other lane. That's how harem anime work: you watch Infinite Stratos, To Love Ru, Kore wa Walking Dead desu Ka, Ore no Nounaiwerawerwrljkjkjkkjkwsheeshteiru, Strike the Harem, the list goes on, and with a sound mind, you concluded that they're the same in every sense. Different characters, same structure of story, the ending could spell the same.
STORY: 6
There are conditions why I dared to review a harem anime. One, because Marina Inuoe is in it; two, because I'm currently listening/reviewing UVERworld songs the same way I was listening/reviewing Nightwish's new 2015 album the other day; and three, because this is the only harem anime really worth reviewing.
Let me tell you how to review some other harem anime. For example in Infinite Stratos, there's Marina Inuoe on it, as much as Yoko Hikasa on it, there's even Kana Hanazawa on it! Yet, reviewing IS (and the rest of the harem anime) isn't near reviewing a BMW, but is more like reviewing a Hyundai instead: it runs if you press the accelerator pedal, it brakes if you press the brake pedal, it has wipers, a stereo, seats for five people, and an aircon.
Date A Live presented its story about the fiction world where global threat is caused by "spirits", and a male MC, he is an average highschooler, yes, who is needed to save the world from being blown for no real reason. It's like watching Ultraman actually, just that it's all about pretty shoujos with bouncing boobs for delectable eye candy and borderling the ecchi genre, not a stuntman with a grey mask on a red diver suit with props.
Then if you've watched TWGOK (or Gaworare--both are not the stereotyped harem anime), it also has the same formula of trying to subdue girls by love and kisses, sealing their destructive powers, thinking that at the end of the day, they'd be moe enough to be presented on the next episode filled with fanservice.
As much, no matter how the Date-A Live story was written, it has the same backbone or base all throughout. There was really nothing new to it as its other harem cousins.
CHARACTER: 7
It may be harem, but the shoujo (female) characters may have just enough spark on them. The defining character element is because they have the ability to decide.
And yes, for a harem anime, THAT'S HUGE!
They are not the usual submissive, pathetic personification of anti-feminism, they can actually think and helped put the development of the plot from point-A to point J, K, and L.
Tohka vows to protect the world after seeing the beauty of it (and for Shido ofc), there's Yoshino who only uses her powers under duress and was not intending to harm anyone, then there's Reina who's reliable enough to help with the shoujo characters' emotions. As much, the character profile is not perfect: there's Kotori who's real charm was that she was voiced by Azunyan, Origami who must have originated from the Infinite Stratos world and brought back the harem-essence because she is just being a stalker, and there's the astonishing-beauty Kurumi who is actually wicked and a better poised antagonist, just that she went all the trouble because she's crushing the MC who said her beauty is astonishing, all made more of failing to break free from the harem-essence.
Then let's not forget the main character Shido: the personification of what guys/shounen surrounded in harem usually acts as reluctant and being the center of rabu-rabu doki-doki for no apparent reason; yet he, too, can decide on his own. Thus, he's not any of those flimsy MC's on other harem anime who waits for the author to get over his/her harem fantasies and wrote how the story progresses based on his/her subjective terms.
In the end, this is how I put it: despite it's harem, the character development was able to take matters into its own hands.
ART: 10
it may be shoujos with boobs and fanservices, and that's what is mercilessly pointed out by hundreds of fans because that's what this is primarily all about, but they forgot the other artwork that made the rating to 10: the presentation/artwork of power and destruction, the buildings and geometry, action-scenes, all the secondary artworks that has nothing to do with the superficial (but primary) reason of shoujos and their boobs, and the fact that "ART" is a different criteria and nothing to do with the development of plot and characters, are the reasons why I rated this as 10.
SOUND: 8
The opening/ending themes sound just as right. It's a bit aggressive as a pop-rock kind of songs if you will, but fits to the "world destruction" theme that Date-A Live presented.
Seiyuu-wise: there's Marina Inuoe (who uses her exact wavelength voice she used on Kana Minami of Minami Ke), Ayana Taketatsu (Azunyan), Nomizu Iori (Blood Lad's Fuyumi), and Sanada Asami (Sawa-chan sensei), they put a good deal of effort and helped seal the sound criteria to be as fitting to the character voices.
ENJOYMENT: 7
Surprising, I rated this as 7 as what I could rate 5 (or 4, or even 3) to the rest of the harem anime. Like I said, aside that it has Marina Inuoe on it, Date A Live has the potential being an anime that could break the standards of harem genre. It's like if we're going back to the BMW analogy, you just found the BMW M7 at back of the showroom. The M7 does not exist YET in the line of BMW cars, which then will lead you to conclude that what you've seen is the 7-series with nice touches on it.
OVERALL: 6
Like I said on the enjoyment part of this review, you found the BMW 7-series.
What I mean is, Date A Live could have held the potential, but maybe the author still lacks the conviction to break the standards, or perhaps the publisher of the Date-A Live manga were too standardized and firm that harem anime must include the usual, stigmatized harem elements. There could be other reasons (theories) as well, but somehow, Date A Live is perhaps the only harem anime you need to watch, give and take, the rest of the harem anime are something that Date A Live already encompasses.
Verdict: If Date A Live is a BMW, then it's the 7-series: it encompasses what the 3-, the 4-, the 5-, and the 6-series have in their boot, bonnet and portfolio.
korison
This story really seems to be absurd and I have to admit, that it actually really is. That was the point, where it got a lot of attention for. Deserved? Story: The Anime is adapted from a Light Novel of the same name: "Date A Live". It's takes place in a quite near future (at least it seemed to be future), where events called Spacequakes happen, because of which many people die. To prevent this from happening, everyone gets evacuated whenever they happen. The Anime now revolves around Itsuka Shidou, a normal highschool boy that one day wittnesses a space quake and finds a girl inan armor standing in the middle of it. She immediatly attacks since she thinks he wants to kil her. Fortunately Shidou is safed after explaining to the girl that he was just searching for his little hyperactive sister. He finds himself in a big space ship, where he finds out that the sister he had been searching for, is the tsundere leader , of an organization that needs him to seal the powers of the girl from the Spacequake called "Spirit".
Date A Live definitely gets a bit of credit for the originality of the whole concept (I mean saving the world by dating hot girls...I guess it's the dream of every teenage boy). The execution though is only mediocre. The show is set up as a romantic comedy, with your typical fanservice (4 pantyshots in first minutes) and the typical humor (which I myself don't like but that depends on the person). Later on though, where the big twist starts to happen the series suddenly gets darker, seemingly pulling of a Madoka Magika and just fooling around a few episodes and then turn everything into epic darkness. But it doesn't follow that path and doesn't decide where to go, so they just put in a dark scene and a bit fanservice right after, which doesn't fit at all.
6/10
Characters: The characters are in total quite ok. At first seem to be quite generic, but as you dive a bit deeper, you can see some developement and some attachment to the characters presented.
Itsuka Shidou is the typical main protagonist, that wants to help everyone and doesn't have ANY further motive. He reminded me a bit of Emiya Shirou from the Fate/Stay Night Series, but a little better executed.
Yatogami Tohka, is the spirit from the spacequake Shidou witnesses. She doesn't believe in Shidou at first, but as it goes on she realizes he was serious about the saving the spirit thing.
Itsuka Kotori starts off as the cure little sister character that only seems to be there for the fanservice, but it's not that late until we see her Tsundere side as the leader of a group which wants to save the sprit.
7/10
Art: Date a Live has been animated by AIC Plus, which never had any major work before, the only thing that might be notable being "Asobi ni Iku yo". The Animation is nothing spectacular. The fighting scenes are quite well done, but all the other scenes were rather mediocre. The character design looks quite good and whoever is supposed to look cute looks cute as well.
5/10
Sound: The sound was at some points really good. The Opening was one of the best of the whole season in my opinion and it actually got used in an instrumental way several times within scenes later on. The voiceacting was quite ok but not incredibly good.
Personal enjoyment: To be honest...I got bored quite often! While the first half of the series only focused on humor I didn't like (I just have a weird taste I guess), it really wasn't good for me and I would've given it a 4/10 then. When the show reaches a certain episode though, it kind of gets really interestiing and I found myself even looking forward to next week. If it would have kept this up, it might have scored a lot better!
5/10
In total Date a Live is an anime with an original concept, that was not really well executed. When it just got interesting it went down to being a fanservice Anime again, and that was what annoyed me!
in total: 6/10
