Absolute Duo

"Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much." 

~ Helen Keller

Absolute Duo (2015)

Studio: 8-Bit 

Director: Atsushi Nakayama

Licensed By: Funimation (NA) Madman Entertainment (AUS)

Genres: Fantasy, Harem, Romance, Action

Main Cast:

Clockwise, from top left: Tor Kokonoe - voiced by Yoshitsugu Matsuoka (JP) and Ricco Fajardo (EN), Julie Sigtuna - voiced by Nozomi Yamamoto (JP) and Bryn Appril (EN), Miyabi Hotaka - voiced by Ayaka Imamura (JP) and Ashleigh Domangue (EN), Tomoe Tachibana - voiced by Ayaka Suwa (JP) and Whitney Rodgers (EN), Aoi "Tora" Torasaki - voiced by Natsuki Hanae (JP) and Anthony Bowling (EN)

Imari Nagakura - voiced by Haruka Tomatsu (JP) and Michelle Rojas (EN)

Lilith Bristol - voiced by Haruka Yamazaki (JP) and Caitlin Glass (EN)

Rito Tsukimi - voiced by Yukari Tamura (JP) and Jennifer McDaniel (EN)

Sakuya Tsukumo - voiced by Yui Horie (JP) and Felecia Angelle (EN)

K aka. your girlfriend's ABSOLUTE FAVORITE text reply...- voiced by Takahiro Sakurai (JP) and Robert McCollum (EN)

Based on the light novel series of the same name by Takumi Hiiragiboshi

Tor Kokonoe enrolls at Koryou Academy with the hopes of becoming strong enough to avenge the death of his sister. This elite private institution has been set up by who knows what for the sole purpose of training future peacekeepers for who knows what. Like most boot camps thinly disguised as elite private schools, this means that at this school, teachers don't stop fights; they grade them. 

Shout out to Real Bout High School.

Before the first day of the new school year, students are injected with some serum which grants the youngsters the ability to manifest "blazes" or weapons forged from a person's soul, as far as I can understand it. Awesome, I know; but what does the PTA have to say about that? 

Anywho, Tor is... Different. It's revealed during the school's entrance exam; which so happens to be a battle royale between all of the prospective students, that his blaze isn't a weapon at all, but a shield. Hmm, mysterious serum injected into some runt making him a badass with a shield... It's official: Tor is a complete Captain America knockoff. 

Marvel legal team, ASSEMBLE!

Also of note, because of the unusual nature of his blaze not being a melee weapon, Tor is quickly branded an "irregular", and at a magic high school, no less... When the dust settles, the survivors pair off into duos with the goal of a pair reaching the state of "Absolute Duo": a total synchronization of minds, bodies, and souls. Thus, our heroes begin their training in the ancient arts of combat and gratuitous fanservice. 

Top secret footage from an Absolute Duo production meeting.

Absolute Duo is a pretty standard "Combat High School" series. The tried and true, but slightly overused storyline, coupled with predictable plot development and a lack of given exposition (probably due to adaptation distillation and compression, check 'em out on TVTropes), keep this score out of the green area. However, the two on two fight scenes and interactions between the members of each duo are thought out and written well enough to save this score from being a 5; 4 if i'm a really foul mood.

Absolute Duo may as well be called The Julie Being Cute Show...

Severe cuteness aside, the characters are straight from the standard mix-and-choose grab bag of character personalities and not a whole lot of substantial development is given to ANYBODY. However, this lack of character development is slightly redeemed by how the characters don't overdo their allotted archetypes, thus making them slightly more relatable to the viewer than they could have been. Note that the key word there was slightly.

The animation is a very nice and respectable effort, but not as smooth and slick a production as some of the heavy hitters in recent memory. (Titles like Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso, Saekano, and Death Parade come to mind... Then again, we fans have been quite spoiled with incredible animation as of late.) I just couldn't shake the feeling that there was a sort of gap between individual animators or teams of animators at 8-Bit as I was watching this series, and some scenes seemed to differ in quality as a result.

The Jake: ...Really?

Of course you bring in Yoshitsugu Matsuoka to do the vocals of the male teenage lead whose nuts are wanted by all the girls. That's just one of the unspoken rules of anime in the twenty-teens, DUH!

Much like the characters themselves, the voice acting is about what you'd expect for a series like this: cliched, but true to form regarding each character's personality.

Despite my multiple gripes about the technical aspects of the series, it more than held my interest long enough for me to finish it. I also liked the duos doing battle together and how the animation highlighted their various stratagems.

Also, Julie.

SUCH AN ADORABLENESS SHOULD BE ILLEGAL.

The Final Word

I've honestly got nothing, so here's an encore from Chainsaw Flamethrower-Wielding Nazi Robot.