DATE A LIVE IV- Tumbling Tumbling Down

Back when the season first started, I was actually really intent on wanting to talk about this on a weekly basis just because I was so surprised at the change in artstyles being seemingly for the better. If you go back to my weekly updates, you can see my enthusiasm die down for the series at the appropriate moments when it really dawned on me that this adaptation was going to be as flawed as the other seasons after the first.

Date A Live S3: An Odd Place To Be

Date A Live used to be one of those series I actually enjoyed, I’ve said it multiple times in the past where it’s “that” series for me where I looked past its shortcomings and kept up with its releases. At this time there are 20 volumes of the light novel out and I’ve only really read up until volume 16 before all of the translations went up on some Facebook group with a bunch of people who can barely speak english, which is strange to think about when you take a minute and read it over. Nonetheless, I stopped at the point where all of the spirits were revealed and the true “antagonist” or rather perpretrator of the series is revealed, to nobody’s surprise” and haven’t really kept up with it since. It’s around the time Kurumi finally gets sealed and the end-game began.

But that doesn’t have to do too much with this post since we’re only going to be talking about the volumes Season 3 covered, specifically volumes 8-12 and part of me strongly feels that we won’t get a Season 4, let that clue you in on what may or not be a quick overview of the rest of this post. Then again, that’s what everyone thought about Season 3’s existence after the mishap of Season 2. It’s definitely been a while since that hasn’t it? Back then my defense for Season 2 was that the volumes covered weren’t the best and the prioritization of the twin’s arc was to the detriment of the more serious and action oriented Miku/Tohka arc. Season 3 suffers right from the get-go to my opinion but I was surprised here and there.

Date A Live II Review: Buy the Blu-Ray Edition

Note: I will not count Episode 1 as part of this series. Ever.

While I said that I would talk about Episode 10 and then do a series recap, I just decided to tackle the entire thing in one package.

Date A Live to me is a guilty pleasure. Scratch that, I just love it. I learned of this series through the artist and I can’t help myself in loving this series even with its shortcomings. Everyone has that one series they can forgive and this happens to be mine. That being said, some people were understandably disappointed with Season 2 since it chugged through the light novel material and left little time for any sort of “dates” to dote on the pretty girls.

Coming from a guy who read the light novels, I was forgiving on the series since I knew exactly what to expect. So while I am biased toward the series in general, that still doesn’t excuse the 2nd season for some flaws here and there.

Date A Live II Episode 9- So Much Ellen

Got Metal Gear Rising and absolutely loving every second of it…until Armstrong’s Blade mode portion that wrecks my shit everytime. Feels bad man, a boss hasn’t given me this much trouble since Darklurker. Hell it ain’t even his regular attacks that get me, it’s that damn blade mode portion that takes 100 damage. And as I say that, I end up beating him after a good 2 hours.

Back on track though, time for the penultimate episode of Date A Live II episode where not too many things happen until they very end. We get Miku’s extremely short backstory on why she acts like she does and a small scene outside of the DEM building with Ellen and Origami who ends up being useless. Speaking of Ellen, there were so many good shots of her this episode.

Date A Live II Episode 8- Lab Shutdown

Things finally begin to heat up. That’s a really good thing. I realize that I really like Kurumi’s character compared to everyone else. She stays out of the harem yet is the most aggressive in teasing the hell out of Shido. I guess I like her mostly because she refuses to join the harem to seek out her own goal and purpose, something that characters like these usually lack. I gotta say that the shadows would make for some lewd se-.

The end is nigh but I will enjoy the height of the series (so far in the anime) for what it is.

Shit’s exploding everywhere and so many Kurumi’s die. Poor little clones.

Date A Live II Episode 7- Guess what Time it is

I think I might pick up Hitsugi no Chaika. Before I knew it, there happen to be more little girls named Chaika’s. Different colors, different personalities, and apparently different chest sizes. It’s like a doll collection. Ahem. Anyway, the fan-favorite girl returns and we plow through the ending scenes and beginning scenes of Volume 6 and 7 respectively. Get onboard folks, the “high point” of the series is getting started.

Well that is of course you aren’t keeping up with the novels since Volume 10 turned stuff real serious again. On a much more serious note too, I won’t spoil it but I’m pretty sure you would be if you saw the cover for Volume 10.

Anyways, guess who’s back.

Date A Live II Episode 5&6- It’s Genderbend Time

With Jojo out of the way, we got in order: DAL, Nisekoi, Black Bullet

So let’s not waste any time here folks.

DAL II has now covered the fanservice volume known as Volume 5 (Episodes 2-4) and now moves on to the Miku and DEM arc that goes from Volume 6-7. Since DAL II has 10 episodes in total, episodes 5-10 will be all about covering that. Not a lot of people like Miku or the events in Volume 6 all that well since 6 serves as a buffer to Volume 7 where the real action begins. That being said, when I got into the series I never really went in with expecting anything groundbreaking from a premise that involves dating girls to save the world. That being said, let’s get to it.

I won’t mention it anywhere else but the Fraxinus crew is really getting some love. Kannazuki and Shiizaki got some extra scenes and now its Nakatsugawa with the idol worship.