takt op.Destiny First Impressions (Episode 1-3)
Anime original from MADHOUSE and MAPPA. I have come to the recent realization that animation studios are not the best indicator for how a show will turn out in the current landscape. Generally knowing the studio will give the viewer a vague idea on the kind of staffing and their network connections we can expect on the project. Big names such as MADHOUSE and MAPPA have a wealth of connections to bring in a wide range of outside talents into a project. Only a few studios are left that actually do in-house productions. That is why I try to temper hype and expectations based solely on the studio name alone.
First time hearing a brief synopsis of takt op.Destiny just reminded me of Symphogear. Music is important and fighting monsters, yup sounds like Symphogear to me. Probably the only reason why I decided to give this a show a shot.
Episode 1
All my expectations laid out let us jump into the first episode. As expected from the pilot episode, the episode sets up the basic gist of the world and gives out some eye candy. Humanity found some pretty rocks with unknown powers. The world is then under threat from monsters called D2 that came from a meteorite. The D2 for some reason really dislikes human music and will attack the source creating music. It appears D2 has taken a chunk out of America and we are unaware of the rest of the world.
We follow the main cast Takt, Cosette, and Anna. Their goals so far seem straightforward. Takt seems to be the low energy character that just wants to play music. Cosette is the air headed glutton
that is dragging Takt around so she can fight D2. Anna is the person trying to get the group to stay on track of the longer term goal. There are some comedic dynamics mainly with Cosette moving at her own pace and Anna being troubled by the other two.
The scene where Cosette fails the fight and Anna is lamenting
gets a good chuckle from me.
The follow up fight scene with the style change
was nicely done as both cost saving measure and well put together. The main fighting force of this team is Cosette with Takt as support. The fight against D2 involves Cosette changing into a vivid red dress and getting a weapon that can switch between a sword and laser gun. The main highlights of the episode are definitely these fight sequences, plenty for the sakuga nerds. Some D2
from what I can tell is CG when I frame by frame. Either I am wrong or the compositing team did an excellent job. All of Cosette’s
cuts are amazing.
I love the stretchy
smears
during the opening of the night battle. The red dress
adds a really nice contrast to the cool blue backgrounds. The bright red also helps us follow the crazy movements
in some of these cuts. The weapon transformation sequence
was well done with the nonsensical cubes clicking into place
. Takt
gets some pretty good cuts
as well. Visuals are definitely the selling point of the series.
Now the other big marketing point is sound or music. The sound department has some interesting choices. I find Cosette’s weapon creates a faux instrument kind of sound which is a nice touch. The piano pieces Takt plays are mainly classical, so I am hoping to get more variety in later episodes. According to ANN, Marasy is the “key pianist.” I like to listen to piano covers and so I was following marasy8 back during the height of the Touhou boom so it is nice to see another artist breaking into the industry.
I was a little let down as most of the fight music is non-diegetic. The first scene with Cosette entrance is what I was initially expecting or a Macross concert. Hopefully, I can still hold out for at least an opera-esque fight sequence in the future. Instead, fights have an orchestral track that follows the action on screen. I am trying so hard not to make a comparative analysis to Symphogear but we are in the same realm of music with much sakuga fighting. Macross, Symphogear, and Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight are at the top of my mind when I hear this kind of premise. Right now, the sound and music is above average with nothing that stands out.
Episode 2
We get the opening for this episode. It has a couple of nice character acting
cuts similar to some of Anna’s cuts from the first episode. The fighting cuts
are pretty fun as well. I had quite a bit of fun
going frame
by frame
with some of these.
I lack the ability to tell the difference between animator styles, I mainly rely on sakugabooru for that kind of information. I just know some basic animation techniques and when someone is having fun with a cut.
The next episode dials it back a bit to explore our characters in the near past. We also get a bit more world building. Essentially, we have an organization called Symphonica that can instate some kind of martial law and ban music in general. They are also free to give permissions to run these festival events and allow music to be played. If the opening is anything to go by, maybe this organization is either a government or private military group that has similar conductor and musicart forces. Judging by the reaction from normal diner folks from the first episode, it would seem conductors and musicarts are sometimes dispatched for jobs.
We get some character motivations squared away here. Takt seems to obsess with the piano and a major factor is his respect for his late father. Takt wants to keep music alive in a world that has abandoned music. Cosette is not the emotionless murder doll we see in Episode 1. The Cosette here looks up to Takt’s talent in piano and wants to share it with the world. We get some thematic threads of using music to reach the hearts of people from both Takt and Cosette.
The four hands piano duet invokes a festive mood and unites the audience in the festivities. Cosette’s stone starts to glow as the song is being played with an audience listening. Maybe there will be some aspect of phonic gain or the need to unite the hearts of the people. The rendition was nice but the whole time I am thinking D2 attack incoming any minute now. I mean everything is set up so it would happen. Playing music attracts D2, the organization that can fight D2 is leaving, and the start of the hero’s journey.
As expected, the attack occurs after Takt and Cosette finishes playing. Cosette’s stone activates somehow and a pact is formed between Conductor and Musicart.
The ending theme is nice and fitting. Standard stills images show the road trip nature of the gang in the present.
Overall, this episode is pretty straightforward. The episode was fine and it works as a character episode. I expected a character episode so I was not disappointed in the lack of action. It has some nice interaction with Cosette giving Takt the necessary push. Takt is now set up to care for Cosette aside from solely being music obsessed.
Episode 3
The episode opens with some more great action cuts.
Under the first minute alone, there are some very
impressive
cuts.
It is nice to know Takt gets some sort of boost in abilities when having the baton. Lenny and Titan show up as another set of conductor and musicart. We see snippets of another person and a purple tuning fork to increase the mystery surrounding this attack.
The now kuudere Cosette introduces herself as Symphony No. 5 Destiny. The cast gets more information on musicart from the more experienced party Lenny. According to Lenny, the person is no longer Cosette and Destiny is a being with no prior memories. Lenny points out that Destiny is an anomaly. Normal musicart does not drain the conductor’s life, can stably keep the armor on, and Destiny did not awaken per Symphonica known procedures.
The anomaly of Destiny is the spark that causes our main party to journey to Symphoinca headquarters in New York. Anna’s other sister in New York is some kind of researcher that can take a look at Destiny anomalies.
We get another fight sequence demonstrating how Destiny is just brute forcing her way through the fight. Titan with the shotgun had good cuts. This episode’s fight background tracks have been a let down compared to the first episode. The tracks are mostly forgettable and do not add much flair or highlight the action. The first episode had orchestral pieces tailored specifically to the scene. Now it is understandable not all these fights should have some sort of custom made piece.
The setup could have been different if the world building allowed for Takt to manifest a keyboard and be a support bard rather than just waving a baton. There is already magical craziness in the fighting sequences. The suspension of disbelief can easily be pushed further to fit a floating holographic keyboard. Destiny would have to defend Takt or the keyboard would deploy some sort of power. Give each maestro some stock songs they can play diegetically and each musicart pairing may need to be more tactical depending on the instrument and song.
The other way would be some kind recital similar to Macross concerts. Throw in sync ratios to tie into character development. Different ways to use music while fighting yet this episode does not use any to great effect. I am only this critical because of the initial premise going in that music is a power source using operas and musical scores. I mean that could be what the end game will look like but right now the only hint is an out of the media synopsis. Hey, at least we get pretty sakuga.
This episode was an okay episode. Everything appears to be competently put together but there is not much really keeping me interested story or character wise. I was hoping for some kind of drama or conflict between the known characters. At most, Symphonica policies and Takt’s dreams are in opposition but that conflict is against some faceless organization for Takt. Takt and Destiny relationship still has potential to be interesting on how Takt views Cosette’s replacement. We get a bit of the Cosette and Destiny replacement turmoil through Anna but that fizzles out by the end of the episode. The anime has quite a bit of work to build some more character investments. I will mainly just be watching this show for the sakuga while hoping the musical fights get more hype or the characters get more interesting developments.