I started this series months ago. Promptly hit episode three, yawned, and stopped watching it. Something compelled me to continue a month or so later. I mean it was just sitting there on my hard drive. About a week ago, I picked back up where I left off. Here is my account of this series.
Tsuchimi Rin is the average clueless anime male. One day he finds out he’s a marriage candidate for the princesses of the God and Demon world (Lisianthius, otherwise known as Sia, and Nerine respecitively). See the world of God, Demon, and Human just kind of hang together in this alternate reality. Good for Rin, because he’s not only going to get to marry a hot chick, but also will have power over the realm he chooses to marry into. Good for him!
Not good for us. What happens next is clichéd, boring, and downright lame at times. Maybe I’m being too harsh, possibly because I did find some redemption in this pile to actually sit through 24 episodes of it. Ask almost anyone who watched this, and they’ll tell you the show gets rolling at around episode 18. This is a long wait, and is full of what I like to call a huge distraction.
During the show, a girl named Primula Rim comes to hang out with Rin, and his live in sla…housemate Kaede. She proceeds to say nothing for about seven episodes, then gets sick, and is taken back to the demon realm to be contained. Basically, she’s an artificial being bursting at the seams with magic. After a protracted sequence where Rin goes back to get her and convince the powers that be, that she’ll be fine living with him, she gets to come back home to just sit around and say a word or two an episode.
After that Rin is at the point of choosing a mate for himself. This is after all an H-game adaption. This is where episode 18 starts. He basically woos a girl named Shigure Asa. During this time, Kaede loses it and just goes nuts; Psycho Kaede, as she has been called on various *chan’s. The story goes into soap opera mode here and gets sort of decent. I guess I’m a sucker for these things. Sia and Nerine relegate themselves to background characters and Kaede and Asa come to the fore, Primula just continues to sit in the background mumbling. Asa and Rin get closer, Kaede comes closer to killing Asa and Rin, and the fun begins. A few speeches later, Rin decides to move out on his own, and Kaede just calms down.
Rin declares his love for Asa, she accepts, and then almost dies. Plot devices ensue and she lives, and the story goes into maintenance mode, i.e.: ends.
There were several things that bothered me about this show. The largest thing was the whole Primula Rim thing. I know her story was simply a plot device for the ending of the show, but still, if you’re going to pump up the melodrama with getting her back, and risk your life and limb to do so, should things be business as usual, and relegate her to the background after the incident? I’m not one to like to be manipulated, and that’s what it was. Not to mention the annoying fanservice in the scene where they try to gain entry to the compound where Primula is being held. (The boob bounce when Nerine pleads with her father to let them in, is legendary in the bad fanservice department, or at least ill-timed)
Aside from that I actually enjoyed the final paring in the series. I actually liked Asa unlike any of the other characters. A lot of times I can go for any of the heroines, but aside from Asa no one had any redeeming quality worth speaking of. I think it’s because of the selfishness and open competition of the characters.
As clichéd as the show was, It redeemed itself in a couple of ways. I like it when the choices are made clear in the beginning of the show. Intentions were clearly established. It was also good that Rin decided on someone other than the two that were betrothed to him. The fact that Rin made his decision in episode 21 was also nice, since it gave the series some time with the new happy couple. Granted Asa almost died, it gave us time with their decision.
I seem really optimistic here, and I guess the show wasn’t that bad. The designs were good, but mostly this was a mediocre effort that could have been pared down to maybe 13 episodes vs. 24.
