Hello everyone,
Today (-1 day to the start of the fall season 2011) we'll conclude the coverage of the promising anime series Dantalian no Shoka.
This series had lot of potential, but due to the episodic nature of the series and the "unique" style from Gainax it never picked up pace/quality ending up to be a mediocre production.
The ending we got is pretty much open-ended with plenty of possibilities to expand this series in the future even if I'm not sure how well this will perform in the BD/DVD sales after all the Gainax "quality" events we got in these 12 episodes...
These last three episodes focused a lot on the past of Huey, the mysterious girl in the library (that from the fragment of information we got seems to be part of Dalian at the moment) and his "relationship" with the last library named Rasiel and his keeper simply called "the professor".
With this last library introduction (especially with all the details given in the last episode) we have three libraries with very distinct objective to pursue in the world.
Dalian who want to keep the magical books away from normal people, Flamberge who want to burn all the magical books and Rasiel who want to spread the magical books to everyone and everywhere generating chaos.
As you can see, both Rasiel and Dalian are as cute as you can get. I wonder why they know each other already, probably they were "created" by the same guy in the past?
I am also deeply interested by the fragments of historical reference shown in this episode, like watching Dalian near Joan D'arc (maybe she was her keeper at the time?!).
I also identified the mysterious girl in the library to be Pandora from the greek mythology, who in the ancient past opened a box containing with all the evil of the world (leaving at the bottom of it the hope).
I loved Huey's final chant (that is the same as the one he chant in the full opening song) he used to destroy the zombie army of the Rasiel/Professor evil pair.
He, in the end, managed to do what his friend/instructor failed to do. He created a magical book by himself with his memories and strength of will to defend Dalian from harm!
We also got a glimpse of the happy future he will get together with the girl in the library as she is shown in a futuristic city free of the bounds of the library. (even if Huey is nowhere to be seen)
Concluding, Dantalian no Shoka has been, overally, an enjoyable experience composed of a series of simple short stories combined with an amiable cast!
I suggest this series to anyone looking for a simple series to watch without much commitment and without the need to follow an intricate plot over the span of multiple episodes.
Visual Points : 680/1000 (Gainax style ruined this series graphical style. Dalian was a lot cuter in the light novel.)
Audio Points : 810/1000 (Nice voices, I especially liked Daisuke Ono in Huey's role)
Story Points : 750/1000 (Pure mediocrity here, expect for some gem episodes)
Entertainment Points : 750/1000 (Watching Dalian with all her quirks (and her incredible "Yes") has been an enjoyable experience.)
Characters Points : 775/1000 (Both Huey and Dalian were amiable character, but due to the episodic nature we didn't have any other well developed character)
Final Points : 15.020/20.000
The series is ranked 114th over 165 series in my rankings (Updated to 30/09/2011 23:26)
See you soon,
feal87