The biggest disappointment for me for this season is an easy one: Sacred Seven. For starters, consider that my two favourite Sunrise series of the past decade are Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto and Zone of the Enders. This series had the director of the former and the main writer of the latter. Together they could have made another epic science fiction series that could even have dwarfed Tiger & Bunny when done well. Instead, they come with a dull school mecha show.
And don’t get me wrong, school mecha series aren’t necessarily bad: Star Driver was excellent. But when you do one, make sure that it stands out. The creators of Sacred Seven had trouble with that.
The big problem with this show is that the plot it has come up with is completely boring, unimaginative and doesn’t know what it wants to be. It spends the majority of its time building upon two stories: Ruri(the token female)’s quest for revenge on her family and Knight and Faye,two random people with superpowers who are fleeing from bad guys. Both just fail to hit any high note whatsoever, made even worse through bland acting and long strings where nothing just happens.
What’s more is that the story seems just poorly managed. This show jumps the shark quite a few times throughout the series, like it wanted to do stuff but actually forgot about it and hastily tries to include it anyway. Halfway through the series an incredibly forced romance pops up, and the final two episodes throw away any suspense of disbelief and build-up and just go with an over the top cheese ball of an ending. Then there is also the bizarre case of the OP of this series. The OP actually was one of the best parts of this series: well animated, great choreography and a kickass soundtrack. And the halfway through the series the creators turn the OP into a dull ED with just random stills in front of it and switch over to a generic pop OP that just feels like all of the others.
What also doesn’t really help is the bland cast of characters. Out of everyone in this series, the only one who doesn’t feel bland is the main character, Arama. He’s this awkward tall guy who is nice to watch. The rest of the cast completely lacks imagination, is a cliche fest and just badly acted all together. Its villains aren’t exactly pathetic, but they’re just way too stereotypically evil.
And the worst part? The creators don’t even seem to realize most of these flaws for most of the series. For the first 10 episodes, they really try to play their series straight, instead of just making this a fun action series. The drama is completely unsubstantial, and yet it fills the majority of this series. Only in the final two episodes they decide to just screw it and head into the “so bad it’s good”-territory. This isn’t wasted potential. This is wasted talent.
| Storytelling: | 6/10 – Suffers from being incredibly boring and not knowing what it wants to be. |
| Characters: | 6/10 – Bland and forgettable aside from perhaps the main character, but even he isn’t exactly good or well used. |
| Production-Values: | 8/10 – At least there are a few (emphasis on few) good action scenes. |
| Setting: | 6/10 – The same generic and overused high school action premise you see everywhere. |
Suggestions:
– Soukou no Strain
– Star Driver
– Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin
I never watched even one episode of this thing, nor do I ever intend to, but I do find it weird that, a setting which you describe as “The same generic and overused high school action premise you see everywhere.” gets a 6/10, which is more than half. Ditto for the storytelling and characters. A series which you describe as lacking as this one does not deserve 65/100, does it?
Yeah this was crap, I dropped it around ep 8, just wasnt worth my time… Really sad because I am a sunrise fan and usually love everything they make, including Kurokami which was also kinda crappy but still miles ahead of this
It just felt so uninspired, like they had no ambition at all…I couldnt find any reason to care about the characters, much less the plot
I guess Sunrise should just avoid doing 12 episode series… Now that I think of it, Im much more used to the typical 50 episode gundams etc
Perrin4869:
His scale for rating anime is lopsided quite a bit towards the top half. It’s just a preference; some people’s ‘6/10’ may be considered better than other people’s ‘8/10′, since not everyone follows the same standards on how to grade anime on a scale of 1 to 10.
For example, PSGels’ average score for completed anime on Myanimelist.net is 7.8. Mine on the other hand is 6.2. My ‘6/10’ rating is almost as high as his ‘8/10’ rating.
>For the first 10 episodes, they really try to play their series straight, instead of just making this a fun action series.
You’re telling me. I kept hoping they would realize that it was too cheesy to take seriously, but after 3 or 4 episodes I gave up hope. It’s a shame they didn’t get out of that rut.
@mezzoguitar: Yeah, I’ve been reading this blog long enough, it’s just that I think it’s a bad choice of a scale. In physics when plotting a graph you choose the scale as to get the most accurate line, so, I think that with his scale he just won’t get an accurate enough assessment of the anime he reviews, that’s all.
So it’s probably a bad idea to pick this up, then? I just got through Gundam Wing (beautiful), Gundam 00 (actually pretty awesome), and Code Geass (favorite anime ever). You can tell I’m a huge sunrise fan, as I’ve loved everything they’ve released (including Tiger & Bunny), however I’ve been hearing bad reviews about Sacred Seven. What exactly is so bad about it?
@Asch:
It’s short, predictable and boring.
I also like a fair amount of both new and old Sunrise shows myself, but Sacred Seven isn’t one of them. Unfortunately.
“And don’t get me wrong, school mecha series aren’t necessarily bad: Star Driver was excellent. ”
lol, Star Driver excellent???
Was I watching the same show that Psgels watched? Cause seriously, Driver was terrible. So does Sacred 7
I can’t even believe you finished this stupid series.
This anime was doomed to fail, the only reason why I made it to episode 7 was because of GG’s epic trolling. They made the series interesting!
You haven’t done your research well enough psgels…
Zone of The Enders is mainly a video game franchise, the setting as well as many other things were already predetermined by the plot of the games and the chance that the writer of the game’s plot had a great influence on the anime’s plot is very likely.
There’s no telling how much influence that main writer acutally had.
I don’t even know why I watched this to the end. I think 65/100 is being generous by about 40 points. I completely agree that it had no idea where it was going, too many genres: we had school life, slice of life, Mecha, romance (I think), supernatural. There was also a “nice boat” ending 🙂 I have rarely laughed at how bad an anime was, but this one had me rolling. The only redeeming quality was when GG trolled the OP in episode 5 – I may just delete the rest but keep that one.
I watched this because the animation design was the same as GunXsword but they are nothing alike. Psgels what did you think of that series?
Its funny how I fall asleep in every episode. Until I decided to drop this at 4th ep. Even the fighting scenes dont keep me awake.
I thought this series was wonderful, I hope they do end up making more episodes of it, I really enjoyed it. Don’t take everyone else’s opinion on the show, watch it for yourself, because personally I thought it was very enjoyable to watch.
Yup it was a wonderful series doesn’t care what other says