Isuca

"At my signal, unleash Hell." ~ Russel Crowe as Maximus, Gladiator (2000)

Isuca (2015) 

Studio: Arms

Licensed By (NA): No North America license at present, licensed in Australia by Madman Entertainment.

Director: Akira Iwanaga

Genre: Supernatural, Action, Ecchi

Main Cast:

Sakuya Shimazu - voiced by Ibuki Kido

Shinichirou Asano - voiced by Keisuke Koumoto

Tamako - voiced by Kaori Sadohara

Suseri Shimazu - voiced by Mao Ichimichi

Nadeshiko Souma - voiced by Saeko Zougou

Isuca - voiced by Ayumi Fujimura

Based on the manga by Osamu Takahashi

Shinichiro Asano is your typical harem anime protagonist by many metrics. He's a well meaning lad who is perpetually broke, and somehow able to stumble his way into a supernatural war involving a rich family who make the Kardashians look like good, wholesome people by comparison. Our boy enters the employ of the powerful Shimazu family; one of Japan's most respected clans of mystics and priestesses. Shinichiro's duties mainly involve caring for Sakuya: the oh-so-cliché-tsundere figurehead of the family, but he soon thrusts himself into combat when he discovers that he has the ability to find out the true identity of any being simply by touching it. In the case of the monsters the Shimazu clan fight, this allows said creatures with be exiled with relative ease. Despite his lack of training, Asano surprisingly holds his own in combat, often coming to the rescue of Sakuya. This in turn causes Sakuya to begin to develop some sort of feelings for him... She can't be full blown, balls to the wall in love; she's a cliché used in way too many series these days tsundere, after all. Through his sheer determination, the likes of which could earn him a spot on Team Dai Gurren, Shinichirou somehow survives each supernatural encounter and starts to win the affection of his entire female supporting cast. Yep; true to form for anime like this, our boy gets a harem which includes Tamako: a cat girl he spared from banishment at the hands of Sakuya in the first episode, as well as Sakuya's cousin and chief rival for the position of family matriarch, Thundercuntus Maximus Suseri...

Together; more or less, our heroes (again; more or less) battle and exorcise a plethora of monsters let loose by the evil sorceress Isuca SPOILER:  A clone of Sakuya's exiled sister. I know it sounds awesome, but don't get your hopes up too much or reading my critique will hurt...

I do like the concept, but everything about the plot just seems to have been half-assed and hastily thrown together. Also, adaptation distillation hit the script like a ton of bricks. There is so much missing from the manga that I'm sure would fill in the blanks left by the anime, but I highly doubt that there will be a second season in which it can do so.

Then again, why the hell am I expecting any profoundly awesome or even mediocre screenwriting from an anime which overly relies on such forced fanservice?

The ONLY thing keeping me from giving this a zero is the character Isuca herself. She strikes me as the love child of Legato Bluesummers from Trigun and Yuno Gasai from Mirai Nikki and is a very decent villain in her own right. However, the rest of the cast are either the epitome of their assorted cliché* archetypes or Princess Ankle¹, aka Suseri. Trust me, if you watch the series long enough, you'll see what I mean.

While the character designs and most of the animation itself is simply "good, but nothing to write home about", nothing about the animation really seems to "flow" just right for me. This is apparent when the main characters are in a combat situation, or moving to investigate something. Here is a small sample of thoughts that may or may not have been going through the minds of characters during many different scenes:

Shinichiro: "Oh yeah, our friends are in clear and present danger, but we should just casually stroll through the school on our way to rescue them from the monster that is currently sucking the life out of them... That sounds like a great idea!"

Sakuya: "OK, I'll just stand here idly and charge up an arrow with magic while the monster I'm fighting also stands there idly like this is an old school RPG. Sailor Moon-senpai would be proud!"Suseri: "Have I been enough of a raving bitch-twat-whoreface this episode?"

Tamako: "Well, time to justify the character designer's paycheck, nya!"

D.K.: "AND HOW!"

Not a whole lot to say here. The voice acting was solid and featured a decent cast with plenty of recent experience; but like the few bright spots of this series, nothing about it really stood out to me. The same goes for the soundtrack as a whole.

As I said, I really liked the concept of this series. I liked it so much that I was willing to both spare a score of zero in this category and give it a chance to improve; which it did...

SEVEN EPISODES IN.


Then again, I was ready to drop Isuca after only two episodes; I'm genuinely surprised that I forced myself to finish this series. Hey, Arms... You do know you're supposed to make a story somewhat decent before your anime is seven weeks into broadcasting, right? By the way, this is easily your worst work since Kite: Liberator. 

The Final Word

Every other Anime Revue writer asks themselves several questions when scoring and reviewing an anime. However, the biggest question we ask ourselves is this...

"Can I, in good faith, recommend this anime to another human being?"

Very rarely is my answer "no." It would take something the likes of Eiken or the first episode of Sidonia no Kishi To make me tell someone that there isn't enough going for a series to recommend it to them.

Unfortunately for Isuca, this is one of those occasions where my answer is unequivocally, undoubtedly, unquestionably... 

"No, I can't."

*I keep saying that word, but I know it means what I think it means.

¹If you don't get it, your mind isn't corrupted enough for this blog.