Seirei Tsukai no Blade Dance - S1EP1

Name: Seirei Tsukai no Blade Dance (Spirit Elementalist's Blade Dance)
Genres: Action, Comedy, Ecchi, Fantasy, Romance, Harem, Supernatural
Type: Seinen


After working on my article on Endless Legend for a few hours, I decided I wanted to watch a bit of anime to change things up. So, I began browsing on one of my favorite anime sites and noticed Seirei Tsukai no Blade Dance and thought, "What the hell" and decided to give it a try. It's based on a series of Light Novels of the same name, and a manga was produced based on the story as well.

Usually, I absolutely cannot stand harem anime - especially when it's combined with the "comedy" and "ecchi" tags. The story always seems to be second in these series and every episode seems to be nothing but filler. I honestly have no high hopes for this series and I'm sure I will end up dropping it after the first few episodes. But, I'm bored and don't want to work on my review of Aldnoah.Zero just yet.

I think I've figured out the format I want to use for these review now, so I'll be using what I consider the "standard format" from now on - including in this review.


Description

Only a pure maiden can have the privilege to contract with a spirit. In here, Areishia Spirit Academy, trained maidens of noble families are gathered and given an elite's education to become spirit contractors. A boy, Kamito, peeped by accident at a girl, Clair, while she was taking a bath and he ended up making a contract with the spirit she wanted. Yes, Kamito is an irregular boy spirit contractor whose existence was thought impossible until now. "You stole...my spirit...you have to take responsibility for it!" "Huh?" "You have to become my contracted spirit!" What will Kamito's destiny lead to?

Fairly standard harem story. A boy comes across a cute girl and somehow becomes connected with her, and then is thrown into a female-heavy school setting. The only thing about this description that captures my interest is the mention of "Spirit contractors" as that's a theme that I often enjoy in fiction - semi-regular humans being attached to spirits in some form or another. I loved the theme in Bartimaeus Triology (however, in that story it's wizards summoning and contracting demons), and I'm hoping the spirit contracting in this series will be similar in nature.



Artwork & Sound
The first episode opened up with a battle scene that seemed to be severely lacking. I felt that the music, while exciting and certainly "epic," did not fit well with the scene. The artwork in the scene honestly was not that good, either. While there was some good parts, there was a lot of staring and floating in place. This should be the place where the animators are showing off their stuff and it should have been movie quality, in my opinion. But, they fell short and while I can tell they were trying, it failed to leave a good impression. If this is the best they've got, the battle scenes in this anime are sure to be sub-par.

For example, here she just floats in air for a moment before zooming down to stab the suit of armor and float for another few seconds and somehow winning the fight. 

The character designs seem to be fairly simple. Simple shading, lots of simple colors, and very plain faces. Heck, most of the time the characters don't have their noses drawn on (though I admit that's a valid art style for anime/manga... I mean noses just look weird most of the time). While there are some moments where the artists go above and beyond, a large majority of the first episode was nothing but simple suggestions of cute, rather than anything substantial.

I am pleased that a lot of the backgrounds seem to have had some thought put into them. A lot of the time in anime and manga, it seems like the background is forgotten and you're lucky to have something even remotely interesting put in. Most of the time, at least in this first episode, there's some interesting background designs thrown in to give you something nice to look at besides the fan-service.



Protagonist
Kamito seems to be a bit more capable than your typical harem protagonist. He's intelligent and isn't afraid to play with Claire's naive feelings a bit. You learn early on that he's pretty strong when it comes to his abilities as a spirit contractor, as well as in the strength and reflexes department. He seems to be a decent guy at his core, but there are hints at a dark past of some sort. He also seems to be the only sane person in the anime.


Other Characters
Claire Rouge is your typical klutzy, self-important Tsundere-type female lead. She gets in a slightly awkward or embarrasing situation, and she reacts with violence that ends up putting her own life in danger. And, when she gets saved, she gets even more pissed off and backstabs the person that helped her by further attacking them when they're in a vulnerable state (from helping here). That's my initial impressions, at least. I'm hoping she matures fast, because I don't think I can take twenty-three minutes of her stupidity each episode.

Seconds later she cuts a massive tree in half and it almost crushes her.

Story
The story begins with Kamito journeying to the famous Spirit Academy at the summons of the Academy's headmaster. On his way there, he happens across a bathing Claire. After a bit of fighting, Claire learns Kamito's true reason for being at the lake, and begins leading him to the school. Or so you think. Turns out she is leading him to some cave with some super-powerful spirit she wants to contract. She even asks why he is following her, but I would think the obvious answer is, "Because you have my damn letter in your hand. The real question is, why the hell are you leading me here and why haven't you given me back my letter?"

Here, let me have your letter and follow me.

Maybe it's just me, but it seems like an extremely weak plot point to have Claire holding his letter in his hand while leading him around, and then suddenly leading him into this cave. Oh yeah, Claire needs power for some sort of revenge, I guess. And in the process of her stupidly planned grab for power, she (seemingly at least) gets her primary spirit, called Scarlet - which takes the form of a flaming cat, killed. She also almost gets herself killed (again) and Kamitor (again) when he tries to save her (again). If you haven't noticed yet, I'm starting to hate Claire.

Where's your "I'm a badass and need more power" attitude now? 

Kamito proves himself to be the true badass and forms a contract with the spirit in the sword while saving Claire. Yet, dumbass Claire somehow figures that she should be upset that she was saved and demands that Kamito "take responsibility" for capturing the spirit and become her slave - I mean Contract Spirit. Which I'm not sure how that works (and I don't think Kamito gets it either).

After getting away from Claire's incompetent attempt at capturing him, Kamito makes his way to the Headmasters office. However, he is confronted by yet another angry, self-important girl whose first response is violence. However, after realizing it's a man she's kicking in the stomach and about to stab in the throat, she gets embarrassed and jumps up... only to try and kill him. This brilliant chick is called "Ellis Fahrengart." 

After learning that the Headmaster is a former acquaintance of Kamito's who has a bit of information he wants, Kamito becomes a student at the academy. He's given a sub-par dwelling and told to use the toilet with the horses (so I guess that means shitting out in the field or in a stall in the stable?), and is put into "Raven Class" which is apparently made-up of problem children. Of course, Claire is in the class (and I honestly think Ellis should be, too). 

After some class-room shenanigans, the episode comes to a close. The last couple of scenes are of Kamito thinking back on the day while he's in bed. We learn that he is to participate in the Dance of Blades, which I'm guessing in the competition in the arena we saw in the opening scenes of the anime. We also learn that he's apparently participate in the Blade Dance in the past.

Conclusion
I'm kinda mixed about this anime. On the one hand, the female leads all seem like arrogant, dumb bitches. On the other hand, I kinda like the way the story (the actual story, not the harem shit), is going. I think, like I said, I will end up continuing on for another few episodes but will end up dropping it. Only time will tell. Thanks for reading.