Anime Analyze: Sacred Seven (Anime)

Alright, so the next anime that I will be looking as is Sacred Seven.  Made by Sunrise in 2011, the show is short, only having 12 episodes in it and while that being that short can prevent an anime from being good, I think that mindset has left me especially after having seen [C] and Black Rock Shooter which are both shorter than this series.  Now after watching this series I can say that having a short series does not make it bad at any rate and sometimes can be a good thing when you think about how shows could be if they were longer and you wonder if they could hold themselves up or not.  In any case, this show had one opening and one ending, and halfway through the series they flipped them and played the ending as the opening and the opening as the ending which was pretty cool.  The first opening was "Stone Cold" by FictionJunction, and the ending was "Kiseki" by Yuuki Nanri.  So lets take a look into the short but good series of Sacred Seven.

Opening 1

Opening 2

So, the show tells of a world, mainly in Japan, where seventeen years ago, alien minerals (called Sacred Seven) fell from space and, when interacted with humans, it mutated DNA and gave people special powers.  A teenage boy named Alma Tandoji with lots of social issues has inherited this power from his mother and when he happens to use it (which it not often, right now they are activated mainly through strong emotion or the presence of a dark stone), he usually goes berserk on anything and anyone around him.  That is until he met up with a girl by the name of Ruri Aiba, a rich teenager who is the CEO of the Aiba Corporation.  The main purpose for the business now is to protect the world from Dark Stones which are kind of like the Sacred Seven except they are purely evil and bent on destruction of all that they can.  Aiba also has a power like sacred seven but her's is less about power and more about support, as she can bring out the sacred seven in Alma without his going berserk in order to fight against the dark stones.  Through his adventures he meets others who have similar powers to him as well as a questionable research organization who uses their time and focus to study and learn more about the Sacred Seven.  While fighting the Dark Stones, Alma gains more knowledge about what his powers can do, learning more techniques and skills including the ability to move through walls, fly, and move faster than a bullet.

The story and plot for this show do have something going for it.  It provides that air of mystery wen it comes to who is making these Dark Stones and also how each one is going to be beaten since they are all so individualized from each other.  Also the organization run by a rich teenager thing was kind of cool although kind of not, mainly because it was entirely made up of this giant group of maids who apparently have combat training which was just weird.  But the thought of powers that are caused by the manipulation of DNA was a very intriguing subject.  When it came to how the plot progressed though, it didn't quite live up to what it could have been, having most of the first few episodes pretty much the same thing but a different enemy ever time.

The animation of this show was really good.  All of the scenes, even the ones at night were made with so much color that it just looked awesome.  The animation of the different powers was pretty cool too and while the fighting was pretty simple, because the fights weren't all that complex, mainly running away and defending until they find the weak spot, and when it is found, they exploit it and defeat the enemy quickly.
I also love how the creature that gives them advice constantly can't move his face, so instead of using that to display emotions, he materializes emoticons above his head for a few seconds to describe what he is saying and it gets pretty entertaining.

The character development was just ok.  The main character grew with his newly found powers yes, but other than that, they really didn't try to build up the other characters as much, and while one could argue that the relationship between Alma and Aiba got stronger, it never went anywhere and it mainly consisted of him constantly saving her so it didn't make a difference.  The other characters were all but ignored when it came to their development maybe with the exception of the other guy who is going crazy with his powers, but then it was almost through a fluke that he was able to realize what he was and what he could do, so once again, it really wasn't that important.

Overall this show is pretty good, and while the characters are not really looked into very deeply, the show was still funny and had some creative looking enemies to fight.  The concept was good, but they could have probably gone farther into the plot than where they did.  I could see this show going the full 24 episodes instead of the only 12 that they did.  So I am giving this show an 8.5 because while they didn't have that character development that they needed, the show was good.  If you like the action-y type of show, and it doesn't take long to watch, then check it out, but if not then its not something that is going to be regretted if you miss. That's all I have for today and I am sorry that I did not get this out sooner, I got very busy over the past couple weeks.  See you next time for the next Anime Analyze.

Final Rating: 8.5/10
                                              Plot: 8
                                        Premise: 9
                                    Animation: 10
                               Character Dev: 6
Episodes: 12
RWF: Japanese Dub
MRS: www.nwanime.com