Anime Review - Date A Live

So once again I'm temporarily done with my uni stuffs and here I am stuck at home with nothing better to do than watching anime. Fortunately for me, I had recently went to an anime event and came back home with a stash of new anime DVD's. I started with the one anime I anticipated the most since it is a hot topic on Facebook - Date A Live.

Title: Date A Live

What is it about: How do date an alien with more-powerful-than-nuclear powers that could destroy the world.

Review: When I watch Date A Live, the first thing that comes to my mind is that it is comparable to The World God Only Knows (henceforth shall be known as TWGOK), but surprisingly Date A Live is slightly different. Let me explain. TWGOK involves a guy with no interest in the real world and real-life girls is forced to date many of them in order to so-called 'save' them. True enough, Date A Live is similar in that manner, dating girls to save them. However, in Date A Live, we are dealing with girls from another planet, literally, that has the power to annihilate Earth. This is a story of a contradicting approach to prevent such disaster - One organization tries to kill them while the other tries to appease them by having a guy date them (and make us laugh in the process :P).

TWGOK ends with a girl falling in love with the main character (Katsuragi Keima) after several episodes before Keima moves on to another target. Date A Live however, has a more complicated storyline which involves loads fight scenes. In fact, things get more complicated when two of the girls are the main character, Itsuka Shidou's sister. Other girls include two who always compete for Shidou's attention, and one who merely tries to eat him - as in yandere, which brings me to my next point.

The one thing I noticed is the creative introduction to the characters' personality according to the "dere" categories. I discovered that in this anime there is at least a character with tsundere, yandere, kuudere, dandere and deredere characteristic each. You should know what they mean if you're an otaku. Otherwise, i think Google will provide a good explanation. Generally, I hate yandere. But I liked this one in particular, not for the fact that she's a psychotic murderer, but for some reason I find her quite attractive one, which is kinda weird... Everyone else does too. That said, she is not my favorite character in this anime.

In conclusion, this anime is not the typical dating-sim anime where characters date one another and it ends there. Also, unlike most other anime, this one does contain heavy fanservice, but the ecchi-ness is under control. Last but not least, be warned that this anime ends in a cliffhanger. But don't worry, a second season is on the way.

Rating: 9/10

Nanoha: Gears Of Destiny

Hello again. I realized I haven't been blogging consistently for a while. You have to forgive me though because now I am a university student, and everyone have to go through that part of life where you have to set aside your passion for the greater good. Regardless, I am still a big fan of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha.

One particular thing I really enjoy is playing its PSP game called Gears of Destiny, abbreviated as GOD. Yes, this game is as godly as it sounds. Every character's a badass and in particular the final boss System U-D (later given the name Yuri). In case you didn't know, U-D stands for Unbreakable Dark. But this game being a Nanoha game, U-D is really a loli. Then again, lolies are not meant to be underestimated as I had learned the hard way throughout my gaming experience.

This game has kept me going for quite some time and every time I play it, I still find this game really challenging. Fighting U-D is fun but it can also be a real pain especially having lost to her many times over. The best part, or perhaps the worst, unlike many fighting games I've tried, the opponent memorizes your moves and strategies and tries to counter them. In other words, the AI is really intelligent.

Recently I've just found out that two characters in particular namely Fate Testarossa and Levi, can change their form from normal to Sonic form. In Sonic form, their speed and combo counts increase tremendously, so fast I sometimes can hardly tell the location of my Fate/Levi. However, Sonic form is a double-edged sword as you greatly sacrifice your defense. Worry not however because if you are skillful enough, you can dodge pretty much every of your opponents' attacks, and this is proven to work well even on U-D.

System U-D. Cute isn't she?

That's all for today. I'm still in the process of figuring the most effective way to defeat U-D, but no matter what I can guarantee it won't be easy.