CherryHawk

It's been a long six months, and I must say that this anime was one of the shows I most looked forward to every week through spring and summer. I have a lot of good things to say about this anime so lets get started! STORY 7/10- The best way to define the story is "not bad". It's a fairly interesting story about friendship and vengeance, and had it's fair share of comedy and touchy moments which are the kind of things I personally like in an anime. Even though I watched the show from the first day of broadcast (which I mentionedbefore was roughly six months ago) it didn't seem like that long ago that I started. I believe the sole reason to be the fact that 95% of the story took place in one geographical area. I wouldn't say this is good or bad, but definitely interesting. ART 10/10- Amazing. State of the art animation, taken to it's full potential. The most notable example would be right when the opening credits start after the preview where there's a beautiful aerial shot of the church with a glaring sun in the background. Absolutely breathtaking. SOUND 11/10- That's right... 11 (for the sake of the review since I can't actually select the number 11 for this category) I speak mostly for the music. Great songs for the OP/ED credits. What gives this category an 11 is the amazing orchestral background music throughout the anime and the beautiful insert in the end. The sound fx were great, very fitting with all the magic and the like going on. CHARACTER 8/10- The characters were very like-able, though we never really find out too much about them save for the main character and one other character. Personally I thought they were all "cool", even the bad guy was pretty "cool" and their powers were "cool". One interesting thing to note was that there weren't any important female characters. Just a cute trio of nuns we see from time to time and a mermaid. As a guy I do enjoy having cute and attractive girl characters play a role in the main plot, but I will give this anime a plus for being enjoyable without me even actually noticing the lack of a strong female character. (I noticed only after finishing the anime, in which I read a few explicit comments from the other reviews) ENJOYMENT 9/10- I truly truly enjoyed this anime. Very pleasing to the eyes and ears, touchy moments and a "not bad" story. As I said before I looked forward to it every week and I also look forward to a second season. Overall I give it a 9, deducting 1 point for the lack of that masterpiece story-line. For those who haven't watched it and those who may have only watched 1 or 2 episodes, I will admit that it takes a little while to "get good". Hang in there and you won't regret it : )

Moe_

Art: The art was very good for the characters. The bad part is that the explosions, the attacks and the Zaiphons were a bit overdone and looks really out of placed, like a live action movie using computer graphics. It would of been better if it was more natural. There was also very little amounts of blood, and they censored most of the killings. The Kor's are also very computer graphic like. It's like those discovery channel where they try to recreate a dinosaur, that kind of look. Sound: The sound was probably what I liked the most. It had a good opening and ending themesong, especially how they executed it. However, some of the voicing was bad, like the girl who was possessed by a Kor. Also, when a sword or sythe slashes someone, they block the sound of the slash or something. It reminds me of Hitman Reborn of them punching someone without the punching noises. Character: The characters were mostly good. I love the art for most of them. I must say the three bishops, Castor, Labrador and Frau were the best and most interesting characters. They were well drawn, and kept a cool character image. Teito was an average character. He didn't really pique my interest in as a character. Just a below average main character, like Sawada from Hitman Reborn (This series reminds me a lot of Hitman Reborn). Although I must admit he does grow as a character, but it took him a long time that it makes me angry sometimes. This whole story is basically based on his growth, and it was really just him basically getting rid of his hatred and turning it into the will to protect. They made the antagonists look really badass too, which is a good redeemable feature. Story: The story, was awfully slow. They kept repeating the same concept over and the episode would only move forward by an inch. There was no climax to anything. Teito is just so indecisive that it makes the story not go forward. I mean they spent like an episode of him trying to figure out if he should trust the church or not. He should read Bloody Monday and that'll show him that he's got it nice with the trusting. Then there is all these flashbacks. Some were really repetitive and really out of placed. Not to mention the locked memories part. Then there is the whole point of throwing out a lot of questions out, and receiving very little to no answers at all. I can kind of piece things together, but nothing is ever made explicit. This whole story seems to be only focused on Teito's development, and it wasn't very interesting to see. He keeps asking stupid questions like, "do you remember the 7 light" to Hakuren. OF COURSE HE DOES, he's a priest, trying to be a bishop. Instead of wasting your time asking stupid stuff, why not you just go and move on. Also, most of his actions are contradictory. One second he wants to seek revenge, the other he tells he shouldn't because Mikage told him not to. Enjoyment Factor: Enjoyment was pretty nice, but also made me frustrated with Teito. It was a good series, actually, it had the potential to be. Maybe showing more of the 7 ghosts would be good. I gave it such a low rank because there was just so many fails in this series that I can't give it a good score. I came in with high hopes, and came out with a disappointment. What really pisses me off is the action scenes. They were horrible. This series is more of a story type, but that fails, so while looking for something to make up for it, I looked at their actions. I looked at the wrong place because they were horrid. They were as bad as the play the three nuns did during the bazaar. Although I must admit, I like the way they ended the series. Left out a big open to season 2. Hopefully they'll do much better. Note: This was a shoujo series, so I guess I shouldn't expect much about the action, although they should of done a much better job in the plot.