PyraXadon

Ok Silver Link, here's the deal. When you decide on your projects for the season, please spare ALL of us and never make more than one thing per season. Because given your track record, you either spread your budget so thin that you completely ruin everything that you're making at one time, or, you devote most of your time to one project while leaving the other one to dry with such poor quality that it can be considered as both a waste of money and time. And so, here's Silver Link's summer 2016 mistake, Ange Vierge. Story: In the world of Ange Vierge,girls (yes, only girls. Big shocker.) are able to gain 'special' powers and become someone known as a 'Exceed' who're...special fighters, or something. Exceeds come from the 5 worlds of Ange Vierge, all of whom have ridiculous names (like f**king DARKNESS EMBRACE. Yes, that is the name of one of the worlds.) and fight against the Ouroboros, unnamed and unexplained creatures who want to join all 5 worlds to create the...apocalypse, or something like that. We follow the journey of 5 Progress (who're the fighter characters) and their Alpha Driver (Who I assume is their support/damage sponge, or something) on their quest to save their senpais and the 5 worlds. Ok, that is probably the most unsure synopsis that I have EVER written and for good reason. This show's story. Is. Sh*t. Ange is one of those fantasy shows that tries to be cool and fails for a number of reasons. The first reason is how many terms they use to describe the entire world that they attempt to describe. They're all given such paper thin explanations that as the episodes roll by, get so confusing when you're watching the show that whatever the characters say legitimately make zero sense and like they're making everything up as they go along. And that's not even the worst offender. Another offender is just how bland, generic, predictable, uninspiring, and boring the entire plotline is. In a nutshell, the whole point of this series is to go rescue each of the 5 girls' senpais while 'saving the world' in the process. A process that's so damn easy that it takes all but 2 episodes EACH WORLD to save. Rinse, repeat, and done. Hell, I bet Silver Link even knew that their creation was terrible, because they pad the runtime of the series out with so much extra and unneeded crap that you you probably accumulate about 2 full episodes worth of material that ISN'T part of the main story. Filled with 'comedic' yet cringeworthy scenes involving two idiotic sisters joking about things on the battlefield, cutaways to the group of side characters in the command center whose only purpose is to fail at explaining what's going on because of how nonsensical the show's terminology is, and a ludicrous amount of bath scenes that spawned the joke that Silver Link's budget was so thin for this show that they took the clothes off of the girls to save time on the animation. But I think the reason why this show was so terrible is the sheer amount of forced character development the show tries to make the viewer sympathize with. Every one of the girls' problems in this series feels made up on the spot in order to give the show a reason to continue forward, complete with a backstory that we're supposed to feel sorry about even though we JUST met the character, and a relationship with the plot device known as 'Amane' that's so lazy that they copypasted that sh*t 5-6 times over. And guess what? We don't get to know ANYTHING about Amane as a person either, or so little that by the end it doesn't f**king matter. So, long story short, the story's a mess. Its predictable nature is just barely overshadowed by the sheer amount of sappy and horrendously aggravating 'character development', padding out its runtime with the exact same 5 minutes of opening cutscene to explain what kind of world Ange Vierge is, that you'll probably skip cause you were sick and tired of it in episode 1. Oh by the way, did I mention we don't actually get to know ANYTHING about the Ouroboros? The supposed villains of the series? They want to make the apocalypse happen. They're just nameless villains who want to end the world for some god unknown reason. Overview: - Just...just terrible all-around. (I cannot be bothered to pinpoint what's bad in this TL:DR section when literally everything about this series is terrible.) Characters: Ok, these aren't characters. They're puppets. Puppets forced onto a stage that I doubt that even they wanted to be on. Ok, first off, 4 of the 5 main girls of the series, Saya, Elel, Stella, and Alamaria. All of them are one-note characters, they all have some kind of inferiority complex that make them agonizing to watch because of how much they complain about their inability to match their senpais or whatever, and they all have some form of redemption in the end of their 2 episode arc where they magically gain the power to overcome their senpai through the power of friendship before quickly getting shafted off to move onto the next girl. Ok, moving on. The only girl I singled out in the list is the one known as Nya, a girl who I think is probably the only half-decent character in this entire series despite only having only a single episode to herself. She's tired of everything, thinks everything's a pain, and doesn't really have the same sappy and annoying "I'm a failure because I don't know how to do something" forced character trait that all of the other girls have. Decent character, just not used at all, even in the one episode where she's important. Then we have Amane. Oh...Amane. As the sole reason for why everyone suddenly gains the power of friendship, Amane is revealed to surprise, have the exact same annoying and self-victimization story as the majority of the other main cast. Not only that, but she somehow influenced everyone to change their life goals and/or entire character despite 1) not being there and 2) act like nothing but a clumsy dunce that for some reason gets people to think of her as a friend. Like...how?! Where is the logic in this? This gap of understanding makes the whole of the series just that much more irritating to watch and I for the life of me spent my time shoving scissors into my ears when I so much as heard her goddamn name in this series. From what I saw, she's done absolutely nothing to make even a significant impact on any of these sad excuses for characters which begs to question quality of the writing that much more. Everyone else is a situational side character that's either a senpai used for the 'character development' or part of the goddamn command center people who have no character traits to them aside from trying and failing to explain what the hell is going on on the screen at any given point in time. Overview: + Nya's a decent character - Everyone else can suck it Art: Silver Link's animation quality is pretty on the ball in terms of how good stuff looks. Of course, Ange really doesn't look all too terrible with its moe affiliated artstyle and bright colors, but that could probably be attributed to how lazy the animation crew was when drawing out the scenes. Hell, the CGI on the Ouroboros wasn't...that bad. Noticeable, but not bad. Of course, the most noticeable thing about the artwork are the bath scenes. This show has such a large amount bath scenes that for the first half of the series, at least HALF of the runtime was just seeing the various girls naked in the bath. Hell, the first episode was ALL bath scenes. (You'd think that'd dry out their skin.) But even worse so was the fact that the show reuses a lot of scenes. Aside from the padded out runtime of from the opening cutscene to explain the goddamn worlds to us for the 10th time, the show constantly goes back to the various senpais in their baths, reusing such scenes until the main characters go to the respective world where they reside to fight them. Overview: + Decent artstyle - Reuses WAY too many frames Sound: The sound is generic and not all that exciting. Voice acting is average. There's nothing worth noting here. So we're moving on. Personal Enjoyment: I have no idea what I was thinking. When I started this series, I thought that this was going to be a semi-interesting piece of work from Silver Link that I would have some kind of vague interest in. The art looked decent, the premise could be mildly entertaining, what could possibly go wrong? Turns out, EVERYTHING. EVERYTHING COULD GO WRONG. Ange Vierge is an anime equivalent of actual torture because of how painfully lazy and generic the entire series is as Silver Link basically threw in as many tropes as they could and mushed them together to see if they could stick. They based this sh*t off of a card game. A goddamn card game! This ain't Yu-Gi-Oh! Did I enjoy this series? No. What didn't I like about this series? Everything. Except maybe Nya. Would I recommend this series? My recommendation? Avoid it like the plague. Unless you like terrible series only about the power of friendship and how powerful plot armor/of a plot device it really is, then be my guest. Or maybe if you need to dare someone to watch something terrible. You can use this.

Shingster

Unlike most animes that are either based off manga or light novels Ange Vierge is actually based off a card game. This is unusual to say the least. The main story revolves around a force of female warriors and soldiers who are drawn from the different worlds that are connected to the blue world that they live in fighting a war against an alien race called the Ouroboro's. As settings go this is actually pretty unique. Saya is the main character of the show and the main protagonist. A relatively new member of the exceed division that is tasked with defending the worldsagainst the enemy attackers known as Ouroboros Saya starts the series as an inexperienced member that aspires to get to the top. This stems for her wish to be accepted by others because before she did not have much of a presence as well. Saya's dominant trait is that of determination in that she fights hard for her dreams and aspirations in order to be recognized by others. Something that we can all relate too. However, this first personality puts her at odds with others as she often rushes into things without thinking it through or waiting for backup. After what happened to Amane however and the regrets from that Saya's personality changes being more trusting of others and being true to them and to Amane. The scene where Saya finally told Amane her true feelings though was a great scene and was well done. Saya is easily one of my fav characters on the show. Amane is one of the main characters of the series and acts as the team’s main controller providing them with intel and special abilities via their links. Amane is positive and upbeat by nature and generally happy to have around however, her true self which forms a vital part of the second half of the series is anything but. One aspect of her character that I liked was he attempt to improve herself in that she can be of better use to the team despite suffering pain in the attempt. Yukari Tamura who is the seiyuu for Amane deserves no small amount of praise for her portrayal of Amane in which she did a great job. Almaria who I call Alma is a main character and a vampire from the black world. A capable fighter that fights with weapons created with blood Alma is the mother like character that holds the team together. Unlike most vampires who suck blood Alma sees this as embarrassing and refuses to do so but after a desperate action forced her to she has since accepted it. Her interactions with Saya afar that were especially funny. Elel is a main character and an angel from the red world. Energetic and friendly and a bit overactive Elel usually acts as comic relief for the series. Due to here friendly nature she can make friends with just about anyone. Elel is one of my fav characters on the show due to he being able to remain positive in even the direst situations and her realization that she has hurt the feelings of some of her friends and subsequent apology was heartfelt. Stella is a main character and an android from the white world. Stella has a thing for speed and humorously enough when she does speed up she sounds like a motorcycle. Being an android Stella has a limited personality that I felt could be expanded upon. Nya is a main character and a soldier from the militarized green world. Lazy and slothful by nature Nya nonetheless is a capable soldier that always speaks her mind. Nya to me is the foundation upon the team anchors on. Hinata is the student council president of the academy and the strongest fighter in the academy. Beautiful, Elegant and skilled Hinata is everything Saya aspires to be. Hinata is kind, considerate to others and always willing to listen to others. As the strongest fighter in the academy and with a keen mind her duals with the main cast in the end was particularly entertaining. Her seiyuu Yuka Aisaka deserves no small amount of praise for portraying her character so well. Ramiel is an angel from the red world like Elel is and was her first true friend. Unfortunately, a misunderstanding caused her to feel that Elel has lied to her causing a story event. Ramiel served as the boss for Elels arc and despite a long road Elel was able to talk to her and tell her true feelings and from there rekindle their friendship. Ramiel was played by one of my fav seiyuu’s Aoi Yuki who gave a particularly strong performance here as Ramiel to which im glad. Aurora voiced by my fourth fav seiyuu Saori Hayami is a support character that serves as a field commander for the exceed. Although not given much of a role Saori still managed to portray her character reasonably well as expected of her. A support character and a member of the EXR class like Aurora and Ramiel. While certainly a powerful character she isn't given much of a role. Yet her byplay with Clara was pretty funny. The arts style I found to be pretty good and the environments were nicely drawn. The animation especially the combat scenes was pretty well done. For the character designs I felt that the characters were well designed. The series had particularly good music as I loved the opening and ending themes that were used for the show. Konomi Suzuki is an amazing singer and her song love is my rail which served as the opening was amazing. A great anime that had a great story, setting, cast of characters and voice acting. The series though had an unusual amount of bath scenes which i found unusual.