Date A Live Review

Thirty years before a strange phenomena called a "spacequake" devastated the center of Eurasia, claiming the lives of at least 150 million people. Since then, smaller spacequakes plague the world on a irregular basis. Shidō Itsuka, a seemingly ordinary high schooler comes across a mysterious girl at the ground zero of a spacequake and learns from his sister Kotori she is one of the "Spirits" who are the real cause of the spacequakes that occur when they manifest themselves in the world. He also learns that Kotori is the captain of the airship Ratatoskr and recruits him to make use of his mysterious ability to seal the Spirits' powers and stop them from being a threat to mankind. However, there is a catch: to seal a Spirit, he must make her fall in love with him.

Ah, yes. The harem anime. You'd be hard-pressed to find any genre of anime that's as painfully formulaic as the typical harem anime. Main character who's dumb as a board and has half the personality? Check. Childhood friend with hidden feelings? Check. Tsundere? Check. Typically, you can bet on these aspects being in most(every) harem anime. That brings us to Date A Live.

In its defense, Date A Live does try to do something different with its material. Whenever Itsuka goes on a date, the crew of the Ratatoskr are on standby to give him pointers based on the dialogue options you would find in a typical dating sim. It can be really amusing considering the crew aren't the type you'd want to take dating tips from (One of them has been through 5 separate marriages.). Aside from that, there's not much variety to be found here. They go on dates, fall in love with him, then become members of his harem who are prone to jealousy and respond to any and every misunderstanding with intense violence.

What's worse about this series is that there could potentially have been something good here. The origin of the spacequakes and the nature of the spirits themselves could have made for some pretty decent material. The intrigue is set aside for more WACKY DATING HIJINKS!

Verdict: PASS

Nothing about this show makes it anything more than a waste of time. Its harem has been done numerous times before and has been done better. Skip it.