Date A Live Review In Few Words (Mini Review).
Spacequakes, a name called on the phenomena where an “explosion” wipes everything where it occurs. What many people don’t know is that these quakes are caused by spirits, or beautiful girls that came from another dimension.
Our protagonist, Shidou Itsuka, has the ability to seal the power of these spirits, so that they won’t hurt our world. And that’s done by making them fall in love with him. But in order for him to do that, Shidou has to date them so he could seal their powers.
Get a Crunchyroll Premium Membership!
#CommissionsEarned
#CommissionsEarned
See more anime from Amazon.
See more anime from Amazon.ca
See more anime from Amazon.co.uk
Quickly go to:-
Who Should Watch Date A Live?
Date A Live is one more anime that you can watch for the enjoyment, especially if you are not that critical about the anime you watch. As it is easy to spot out many problems in the main idea of the anime if you looked at it very closely.
Seeing how Date A Live is similar to “The World Only God Knows”, I recommend any fan of that anime to watch Date A Live, and vice versa.
Good Things About Date A Live
- The choices that Shidou has to choose from can be fun.
- Yoshino & Kurumi.
- Fun to watch.
Possibly Bad Things Date A Live
- None so far.
Story
30 years ago. an explosion happened that wiped a large area of land, and ended up killing about 150 million people, this kind of explosions is called spatial quake, or spacequake. Since that time, many counter-measures were applied to the cities infrastructure to make sure such casualties won’t occur again, including emergency sirens, and mechanism to place cars underground.
One day, one of these spacequake occur, and Shidou Itsuka, an ordinary high school student, happened to be there. At the centre of the spacequake, he finds a beautiful girl, who turns out to be the spirit responsible for the spacequake.
Shidou also finds out that his little sister, Kotori, is the commander of Ratatoskr, an organization that was founded for the sake of saving spirits. And that the only way to save a spirit & prevent her from harming our world is by sealing their power, and to be able to do that, Shidou has to make the girls/spirits fall in love with him, all for the sake of the world, and for our sake as well. ^^
Now, Itsuka Shido has to date the spirits he meets, one after the other. During the dates, and he gets some help from Ratatoskr. Every now and then, the crew of Fraxinus (the command center ship of Ratatoskr) would vote on what action Shido should take, and sometimes these options are fun to look at.
The story is not really trying to be serious or anything. And to a good degree, it is just an excuse for getting Shidou date the girls and make him fall for him, but in a way different than we mostly see in the harem genre.
The Art
Date A Live art is very beautiful, it is sharp & shiny, with all deep colors and all. I have totally nothing against the art here.
Some scenes shows you how detailed the artwork is, like how Yoshino The lovely blue-haired girl, look on the picture above.
Characters
Date A Live has all sort of characters, from the cute little girl, to the devil psychotic. Like I usually do, I didn’t talk about important characters like Yoshino & Kurumi for the sake of avoiding spoiling the anime for you. And focused only characters you see at the beginning of the anime.
Itsuka Shidou
A second year high school student, and the main protagonist of Date A Live, and the only one who can seal spirit, for him to do that, he has to make the spirits fall in love with him and then kiss him. Which is why he joined Ratatoskr at the beginning of the anime.
Itsuka Shidou is voiced by Shimazaki Nobunaga.
Yatogami Tohka (Tooka)
The first spirit Shidoi meets. She had no name at the time, and so she was given the name Tohka, which means the 10th, which is the date she & Shidou first met.
She has an emotionless personality at the beginning of the anime, but then she gets to have a childish & innocent once she gets sealed, which makes her an adorable character. I personally find it good that Date A Live tries to give us a reason why Tohka acts the way she does, which is another change for us who watched many harem. :D
Yatogami Tohka is voiced by Inoue Marina.
Itsuka Kotori
Shidou’s half-sister & the commander of Ratatoskr, something Shidou didn’t know about until he got to know the truth about spirits :O
Itsuka Kotori is voiced by Taketatsu Ayana.
Tobiichi Origami
A genius high school girl who attends the same school as Shidou. Besides being a student, she is also a member of AST, or Anti-Spirits Team, an organization that aims at fighting spirits & killing them, despite her calm personality, she losses herself when it comes to spirits.
Tobiichi Origami is voiced by Togashi Misuzu.
Murasame Reine
The head analyst on Fraxinus. She has an obvious lack of sleep, which can easily be seen from the dark circles under her eyes.
Murasame Reine is voiced by Endou Aya.
Kannazuki Kyouhei
Vice commander of Fraxinus, who often acts like idiot. ^^
Kannazuki Kyouhei is voiced by Koyasu Takehito.
Other Characters
Some of the other characters in Date A Live are Tokisaki Kurumi, the first antagonist spirit Shidou faces, and Yoshino, the ice spirit.
Pacing & Enjoyment
Date A Live has a good pacing, the anime follows the story for the most part. When it comes to the enjoyment. It has a good enjoyment, from the nice-looking & interesting characters, to the choices Shuidou has to take while he is dating the spirits. As far as I have seen from the first season (and the second season as well), the story is not the main focus in the anime, but there seen to be tons of developments that happened in the novels but not in the anime.
Extra Few Things
The Opening Song
The first part of it explains the space quake phenomenal, which kinda sucks for anyone who likes to listen to the opening while watching their anime, like me. Besides that, the opening itself is decent though.
The opening song itself, “Date A Live” by sweet ARMs, is good, I personally like their singing style?
The Ending Songs
There are 4 ending songs for Date A Live, which are:-
- Hatsukoi Winding Road.
- SAVE THE WORLD.
- SAVE MY HEART.
- Strawberry Rain.
Date A Live Blu-Ray/DVD Combo
The Blu-ray/DVD combo comes with the original Japanese voices, as well as the English dubs & subtitles.
Second Season.
Second season of Date A Live is out, which introduces 3 spirits that are divided into two arcs. While the second season was certainly short (10 episodes), it was a nice watch, especially with the excellent opening song in it. So if you liked the first season, you are likely the second :D
I didn’t review the second season of Date A Live yet, but I will post a link here once I do that.
Date A Live Movie
After the second season, a Date A Live movie was aired in 22 August 2015 to be specific. I honestly didn’t watch the movie yet, but I plan to do so very soon, and I will add a thought about it here once I do that.
Anime To Watch If You Liked Date A Live
There are two anime that are strongly similar to Date A Live, and I picked both two for recommendations here.
#CommissionsEarned
Keima Katsuragi, an excellent gamer who is known on the Internet as “The God Of Conquests”, as he is able to make any 2D girl fall in love with him in the games he plays. Due to some circumstances, he has to capture the souls that escaped from hell, these souls happened to be inside a real girl, and the only way to capture the girls is to make them fall in love with him and then kiss them.
Even though he dislikes 3D girls, Keima shows a good skill at making them fall in love with him and retrieve the souls, thanks to his knowledge in dating games.
I am yet to review The World Only God Knows, but I will post a link to the review here once I do that.
#CommissionsEarned
Kami Nomi Zo Shiru Sekai
This anime with the super long name, or Noucome, as it was somehow shortened, is about Kanade Amakusa, a high school student who suffers from “Absolute Choice”, a curse that forces him to select between many choices that appear in front of him, these choices can range from weird to pervert ones. Which severely affected his reputation in his school.
Until someday, he get contacted by god, who have him complete some missions, which will eventually result in the curse to be lifted, with the help of Chocolat, a girl that fell on him from the sky.
While Kanade is not saving the world as Shidou from Date A Live is doing, the similarity to Date A Live is easy to spot between the two.
I am yet to review Noucome in this blog, but I plan to review it soon, and I will post a link to the review on this page once I do that^^
And Finally
Date A Live is a fun watch if you didn’t take its story seriously, as it is a pretext for making Shidou make the girls fall in love with him. The notion of making a girl fall in love with you for whatever reason is not new, but it is one that is always welcome to see in anime.
Date A Live deserves some points for the good arts it has, which is an additional reason to watch it in case you like anime art that is eye candy to you.
I hope you liked my Date A Live review, and see you again in another review. ^^
Get a Crunchyroll Premium Membership!#CommissionsEarned
#CommissionsEarned
See more anime from Amazon.
See more anime from Amazon.ca
See more anime from Amazon.co.uk
Date A Live Quotes
- “You were there for me, you saved me, much like how today, you asked me out on a date and showed me how nice this world is” – Yatogami Tohka.
- “What’s a date?” – Yatogami Tohka.
Review Credits & Sources
The description of Noucome was written with the help of Noucome Wikipedia page.
