Heion Sedai no Idaten-tachi

[neflight86]

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* Based on an action fantasy seinen manga written by Amahara and drawn by Cool Kyoushinja.

Gods appeared when humanity was on the verge of destruction due to the work of demons. Deities called "Idaten" fought and sealed away the demons 800 years ago. Nowadays, the Idaten have no fighting experience and they live peaceful lives. But now the demons are reviving, and the battle between gods, humans, and demons is about to begin.

Source: ANN

Genre(s): Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Mystery, Seinen

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1,2
This had a bit of a late start (aired a couple weeks late), but boy it sure is unusual. I like that. The texture of this show is something else. If I can drop some more names, this feels kind of like a cross between FLCL and Lucilfer and the Biscuit Hammer in tone. I don't know what everyone's actual relationships are, and the world building is handled at the same time as character revelations (they feed into each other). Mappa put some of their good team on this one, it seems, and the action is above average. That aside, the story itself is what I'm sticking around for. The characters could use some more filling out, but there is the rest of the season for that. I hate being vague in these intro posts, but spoilers aren't fun for anyone. Don't miss out on this.

[neflight86]

3,4

This is turning out to be a pretty good watch. I'm pretty excited for the revela of who/what the doctor is I suspected the other student, but it thankfully wasn't), and now we get some 'training' fights.

Too bad elemental 'magics' don't seem to work on the demons, but I prefer hand-to-hand combat anyway.

[neflight86]

5

I didn't expect this to have more sexually charged scenes compared to Kanojo X Kanojo airing this season, but here we are...

The overall mystery of who the doctor is remains interesting (please don't be clown shoes), though the suspects are dwindling, and the demon cast is given plenty of personality and intelligence/resourcefulness to remain a true wild card. Casual lobotomy and rape/grooming are uncomfortable, as is the point, I suspect- these aren't humans, but supernatural beings that look like humans, missing some of the pieces and perspectives that create morality.

[neflight86]

6

Thank goodness it wasn't clown shoes. That felt a bit too obvious. The idea of a demon idaten seems odd though, given that demons supposedly have a cognitive ability similar to insects, who don't have emotion like "save me", or "I'm starving". If they actually died of starvation after a year in the seal and the previous idaten could have doomed them with a simple rotation for a couple years, that does make them great idiots, as that should be pretty obvious to anyone who observed them in the flesh for any amount of time.

I'm told there are 11 episodes to this, and now is a curious time to be introducing new characters (royal children told to flee), and their new characters. I suppose demon characters with human emotions could develop human apathy as well, which is a neat angle.

Funny that Ysley is the only idaten who seems to care much about how their actions affect the humans at all. Demon's, theoretically, would care about their sustainability as a food source, at the minimum, while Rin is content to destroy a whole country to weed less than 400 demons out.

Also, the demon idaten doesn't explain how the doctor knows Rin's name, so I remain suspicious of clown shoes a bit.

[neflight86]

10

Quite a strange game of cat and mouse this has become. Hunting down demons who are on the run, and pretty much nobody seems like a pure good guy at this point. I hope more interesting things are done with the time skips since the Idaten are immortal. I can't remember if the demons age to death when fused with humans, but I assume so if they can get naturally stronger as their bodies age.

[neflight86]

11

And the cats became mice. Allegedly, this is all the Idaten we're getting, and this story, without its conclusion, is not something I can recommend. The elements there worked really well (even the weird sexual stuff), and it remained interesting throughout, but just stopping in the middle of the story like that is bad- even by anime standards this is a painful cliffhanger.