Seireitsukai no Blade Dance

On his way to Areishia Spirit Academy, Kamito Kazehaya runs into a naked Claire Rouge, a student who had been bathing as part of a purification ceremony. She had been preparing to form a contract with a powerful spirit in order to acquire more power as an "elementalist." Her efforts are wasted, however, when Kamito ends up with the spirit despite the fact that only shrine maidens can become elementalists. Yet to be discouraged, Claire then announces that Kamito must become her contracted spirit instead!

After reaching the school grounds, Kamito escapes from Claire and meets Heaster Greyworth Ciel Mais, who invites him to enroll at the academy. Although his life at Areishia will be far from easy as the only male student among the shrine princesses-in-training, he begrudgingly accepts in exchange for information about his former contracted spirit, Restia Ashdoll. Adding on to that, he also must fulfill Greyworth's main request: to win in the Blade Dance, a battle festival occurring in two months, where he will face the strongest elementalist rumored to be contracted with a darkness spirit.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Est, Terminus Main

Kakuma, Ai Japanese

Kazehaya, Kamito Main

Furukawa, Makoto Japanese

Rouge, Claire Main

Kido, Ibuki Japanese

Fahrengart, Ellis Main

Ishigami, Shizuka Japanese

Ray Ordesia, Fianna Main

Oonishi, Saori Japanese

Laurenfrost, Rinslet Main

Yuuki, Kana Japanese

Ashdoll, Restia ing

Hikasa, Youko Japanese

Inzagi, Jio ing

Matsuoka, Yoshitsugu Japanese

Eva Fahrengart, Velsaria ing

Sakura, Ayane Japanese

Nastassja, Carol ing

Tanaka, Manami Japanese

Tanaka, Shou Producer

Hayashi, Youhei Producer

Usui, Hisato Producer

Hatakeyama, Takurou Producer

Reviews

Aug 15, 2020

hexashadow13

Recommended

tl;dr: A battle school anime with tried and true tropes that while not particularly unique is very solidly made.

This anime is a pretty standard battle school, but its a pretty solid one. The main character isn't that unique, but he's competent and has enough of a personality and backstory to be interesting. The rest of the main cast too aren't that unique, but they have a decently varied set of personalities that work well together, and all of them except Rinslet have solid introductions in that they reveal interesting backgrounds and get a decent amount of character development in them. The story of this season ... itself is incredibly simple, being focused on assembling a team and getting into the Blade Dance. This is handled pretty well, and the season ends at point that they accomplish this goal, which I thought was a really good stopping point as it very much felt like a finale even though it clearly built up to a lot more. It should also be noted however, that the anime brings up a lot of interesting other plot threads that are tied to various characters that help make the story and world quite a bit larger and complex than what was shown so far. I would also like to note that though there are a few times that it feels a bit slow, mainly during the last arc, the pacing overall is very good. The action was also pretty solid, in that it doesn't have that much depth yet but it feels like its starting to during the last arc, and it certainly is flashy and exciting. The comedy was also solid and there was a decent amount of it that helped contribute to a mostly lighthearted tone that worked well.

The art and animation were solid. The only major use of CG was a mech and as is generally the case with CG mechs these days, the CG looked decent enough. I would like to note I liked the art style with how bright everything felt and I also really liked the main character designs. The OP is decent in of audio and pretty solid in of visuals. The ED is great in of both audio and visuals. The soundtrack was surprisingly good, with a lot of tracks with the whole 'epic' feel that worked quite well.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

What did you think of this review?

Nice 0

Love it 0

Funny 0

Confusing 0

Informative 0

Well-written 0

Creative 0

More reviews by hexashadow13 (805)

Show all

Read more

Show less

Open

Gift

Report

Mar 6, 2024

Rian_Rahmat

Mixed Feelings

anime with a pretty good opening to watch At the beginning of the story I was presented with a good character and presentation To be honest I like it.

The cute character design makes me smile to myself when I see it and when I saw the studio that made it was TNK I really commend him for creating this cute and beautiful character.

But unfortunately that was the first time I saw it, when it reached episode 7 I started to feel bored, the storyline that is not clear is said to be a sword duel competition between groups but as if it just ed by ... and suddenly is in another storyline and after that suddenly back to the competition, here I'm a little disappointed because of the lack of information between stories, so where do you want to focus on this anime?

The thing that bored me when watching this anime was the conflict that always happened between Claire and Kamito as if stuck in the same circulation a scene like this is always repeated with the same words "Wait you misunderstood, let me explain" said Kamito and Claire replied with almost the same answer which was to give Kamito 2 choices, after that it screamed and started an explosion. And that's the circulation that I see in this anime which if you often see and hear it will become boring.

I'm not saying this anime is bad, it's just boring to watch, I watched it for about 2017 and rewatch in the year 2023, when I rewatch it I get that boring point, so in my opinion a good anime is an anime that can be watched no matter how many times it won't be boring instead you will get more information about the storyline that you watch, that's according to my experience, which has re-watched anime quite a lot.

As another addition, I'm rewatching this anime in 2024, I'm really bored of listening to the sighing sound of Rouge Claire's character, who almost every time she keeps sighing with the same sound.
Therefore, I only held off until episode 2, because there wasn't anything else interesting to see.

I'm not going to say this is a recommendation or not a recommendation either, because everyone has their own taste So if you like cute characters and spoil your eyes, please watch anime.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

What did you think of this review?

Nice 0

Love it 0

Funny 0

Confusing 0

Informative 0

Well-written 0

Creative 0

More reviews by Rian_Rahmat (180)

Show all

Read more

Show less

Open

Gift

Report

Feb 14, 2019

Notshane

Not Recommended

Here, we face your typical harem anime. Normally, I put them down the moment I notice it's barely going very far from the genre, but I had faith. The first episode of this anime opened alright, with our male lead being pretty confident through the typical "accidental" situations you're used to in these anime. Take those quotations strongly, because every veteran harem fan knows why I put them there. Nothing is ever an accident in harems to the females.

Because of how rough this anime is to me, I don't even want to talk about it very much, because it barely does anything different from another ... harem, but I am a bit upset it has such a high score on this website, so I want to make sure it gets a strong amount of negativity somewhere for the more innocent anime viewer who will believe it is good. Normally, I want to start with positives since that's the part you are curious about, but sadly, they will be spaced as I go on. Most of this will be negative and I have no way to really make a separate positive section.

Lastly, I will only really go over all of the "harem" aspects, not the story. I feel sad to say, the story barely interested me because of how overshadowed it was by the genre it is in. If you want a review that covers it more, read one of the more positive ones. Then after you're done, come back here to read why the comedy rarely funny.

With all due respect, I know a lot of people enjoy abuse humor, but I do not know why you do. It's funny to me whenever there's a cause for it. Despite ironically enjoying random comedy a lot, where absurd things happen to even the most innocent characters, I never can bring myself to smile whenever an innocent character gets punished, though due to how often it happens to male characters, I actually do, darkly enough, laugh at innocent female characters getting punished. They deserve it way more in my book, so even if they're innocent, I usually get a laugh out of it since I'm not used to them being in trouble. I have special exceptions, though, if it's a female character with a very good personality.

So, let us begin. If you are a fan of the anime already reading more reviews to see how other people feel, please avoid mine. You will only get mad at me after you read it.

(SPOILER WARNING)

The first episode opens very abruptly. Out of nowhere, we are immediately treated to a generic harem scene without any context. I am excluding the pre-opening part showcasing the battle since it's so subtle it's not worth mentioning at this point. But, anyway, you are thrown immediately into a standard harem scene, where the male happened to walk by a female bathing. I am fully aware I'm a broken record at this point, so I try to keep any discussion about these scenes brief, so I will get to the point. He stares, clearly not his fault, she gets angry and tries to punish him. Hahahah- not really.

What is the standout for this particular scene, however, that made me feel the need to talk about it fairly long? Well she is trying to punish him, she accidentally breaks a tree behind her, which would have literally flattened her. After finishing this whole anime, I wish that tree killed her. But sadly, our male lead decided to save her. So, now you're expecting me to bring up how she's suddenly "appreciative" of him, right? No, it was apparently his fault for pouncing on her well she was naked and he is still punished. Yeah.

earlier, I said I had high expectations because the male lead was confident, which starts around here. He mentions she is wearing panties of a particular color (became a brief running gag during early episodes) and she corrects him, only to feel bashful. From there, he got a bit cockier and provoked her in adequately funny ways. It gave me hope this would be a harem more toward KonoSuba where the male lead has a bit of a backbone. Sadly, it dries out pretty quickly going forward.

I am not even kidding, this anime feels the need to add a ton of these "accidental" scenes way more than it should, given the "elaborate" nature of its story. You can't take most of it seriously because it truly doesn't feel like there's any character development that is worthwhile besides the male lead's struggles. Most of the females introduced almost always find some way to "have enough" with the male character the moment they're even remotely confused. Please, don't think I'm exaggerating here, I do try to see the best in every anime I watch, but I could not with this one and its female characters.

I will try to bring out the positives one first before I really get into this. Yes, positive "one, you did read that as singular. Ellis Fahrengart, a female character who still fell victim to the "I do not want to hear it" harem trope of punishing the male lead, almost always apologized every time she did it, and whenever she did walk in, the situations actually were fairly worthy of being judged negatively. I mildly enjoyed her development, going off what this anime calls "development" that is, and I really wanted her to be the one to kiss Kamito. Er, more on that later. But, overall, she was the best female out of the entire cast. Her voice actor is talented at changing her tone though, as she has two unique tones in the anime for being serious and bashful. Had Est had more development, I would have talked about her as well, but she is probably the only other tolerable female character due to her stubbornness being more adorable than aggravating.

The other female characters aren't very lovable, but not horrible. Rinslet is just your typical pompous aristocrat who feels the need to talk down on everyone and gloat at how superior she is. Occasionally, she has pretty good lines of dialogue, such as when she was talking down on other nobles at one point, but overall, she's average. You can't like her very much, but also can't hate her.

Fianna is the female character designed to tease Kamito, and as you can expect, that means she has blackmail on him. She is the only one who knows of his former identity, "Ren Ashbell" which is the character seen fighting an unknown female combatant from the first scene of the anime and winning that takes place before the "comical" harem shenanigans began later. That was actually just Kamito in disguise. He met Fianna as a child, defeating an enemy that was about to kill her, but Fianna recognized the swordplay at work and figured out that Ren Ashbell was the alias for Kamito Kazehaya. So, they both made a promise that he would see her again in a few years. Needless to say, he never did that and also forgot about her, so she held it against him and decided to pick on him for the rest of the anime. Naturally, meaning anytime Kamito wanted to backtalk her, she threatened his identity. Claire never finds out he is Ren Ashbell, so yeah, you can just assume the worst in that she holds him on a leash for the rest of the series whenever there's "comedy" with her.

Here we go, I can finally let loose with the female lead. Claire Rouge sucks. I really dislike this character and have no sympathy for her at all, no matter how "tragic" it is that she wants to find her sister. She is picked on a lot by other students of the school, but I enjoy these scenes because of how obnoxious her character is. The whole point of a "warn down, depressed" character is they get bullied, they feel sad and our male lead is here to comfort them. You feel for them when they don't have the strength to fight back anymore, but not when they let out their anger on other people. Now, I do know this is how some people handle this, but it bothers me when she gets mad at the people who do care for her. So, let's bring up that other scene I mentioned earlier.

The most positive scene I know of from this anime with Claire is when she is fighting Restia's creature from the netherworld. Kamito, the male lead, feels anxious to fight the creature due to facing negativity over seeing Restia again, his former contracted spirit. Claire, amazingly, felt bad for him during this and noticed that he was sad. Not knowing him very well, she only thought of one way to raise his spirits, though definitely in a way that I didn't expect. I assumed it was just going to be some positive reinforcement, or her apologizing for calling him a slave so often, but instead she just makes out with him for a bit. This is the only action Kamito gets in the whole anime and I actually ired how quickly she was to do this, as I expected her to be far more bashful about it due to the way she treated any "intentional" moment he shared with another female character. I expected a hug, if anything, when she approached him, but instead it was a full on kiss. It raised his spirits, and he was ready to fight. From here, I was a bit more optimistic about Claire and assumed she was now dating Kamito going forward.

So, they do fight the creature, and another surprising development occurred immediately. The characters have contracted spirits and Claire's is Scarlet, a "fire-cat" that can turn into a whip as a weapon for her, or "elemental waffe" as the anime calls it. The fire-cat is capable of fighting outside weapon form and attempted to save Claire from dying, only to be eaten alive by the demon in front of Claire's eyes. From here, well you know, I'm not completely heartless. Now, Claire has gone through hell by the school, wants to know the origin of her hated sister and has now lost her closest companion. I felt sad here for the first time in the whole anime, though also the only time. I was ready to believe her character would finally have some notable development right here, as Kamito now had a reason to be a spirit for her. Oh, but of course, it was wiped way not that long after as we found out Scarlet was still alive, albeit drained of power. And just like that, my old thoughts of Claire immediately came back.

Despite the "bonding" moment she had with Kamito, she was very quick to go back to their old ways after that fight, as she once again wants to "burn him to cinders" whenever she misinterprets a situation. I told you before about Est briefly, how I considered her my second favorite female character as far as development goes. Earlier in the anime, she always sleeps in Kamito's bed with him. Kamito acquired her as a contracted spirit after saving Claire (yes, saves her twice in the same episode, many more times too, but she never respects him enough to not assume the worst of an accidental situation), but her non-elemental waffe form debuted a bit later. She is the youngest of the female characters, as far as appearance goes anyway, and is introduced being fully nude in Kamito's bed. She insists that her "thighs" are the most lewd part about her body and gets offended whenever Kamito brings up why she still wears thigh-highs, saying it is not as lewd as her being entirely naked above them. Mildly comical.

So, yeah, Claire walks in when this first happens, misinterprets "I am going to burn you to cinders" whatever. This same sequence happens a bit more than I wanted it to, with the only comical one being when Kamito wakes up and immediately opens his blanket to see Est is not there and sighs in relief. I actually mildly enjoyed this scene. I brought up the entire story of him meeting Est as the main point of the "harem" humor, usually being whenever a girl walks in on him in the bedroom and Claire, every single time, misinterprets it and punishes him with her power.

Honestly, I knew this was standard already, but what really bothered me was one particular scene. Sadly, Ellis, despite the positive marks I gave her, has the worst one in the anime, even worse than all of Claire's combined, and that is why she is still not really a character I "like" a lot in the anime, but just appreciated she had some development. At one point, she invites Kamito over to her house, easily her worst scene in the whole anime. And the scene with her in the maid outfit really, really, really bothered me more than any other harem scene has in a while. She tells him that her friends told her men like maid outfits. He says that not all of them do, so...ugh. I really hate having to this again, give me a moment here before I type the rest of it. But, she actually manages to turn this into a negative scene. Without him saying anything else, she immediately judges him and assumes he wants her to wear something even worse, and is quick to put a sword to his neck for it and forces him to accept her maid outfit. Unlike the other scenes in the anime with threatened sword violence, she was not too slow to put the blade directly on his neck, implying he was literally going to die for this. This alone is why I can say I do not like her as a character. She did apologize for misinterpreting situations he was in, but keep in mind she still did the whole "punishment" thing every time, and this one was just the worst. Despite how much I hate it, however, I can't bring myself to give Claire a higher rank than her. Claire did this garbage the whole series, well Ellis did it a few times, I believe. I do say "quality over quantity" though, but most of what Claire did still barely outranks what Ellis did.

Whoever wrote the humor in this anime, I want them fired for this scene alone, or at the very least, thrown into an anime where the goal is to displease the viewer, because they could easily write some dark humor. I try to see the best in a lot of people and respect their tastes, but if you enjoyed this scene, do not ever tell me. I will judge you for it subconsciously for a very long time, but at the same time, would be all the more curious as to how you could laugh at it. I don't want to sound antagonizing here, so if your really did enjoy this scene and want to tell me why, don't be afraid to approach me, despite what I said, with a PM explaining why. I am not completely heartless, I just had some rage venting right there well I was talking about it.

So, let's see. I brought up some of the worst negatives and, pretty much, the entire series' dynamic. As I said, didn't have much interest in the story itself. Restia showed up solely to laugh at everyone and never lifted a finger. Barely had enough deveopment for me to talk about her for longer than a few sentences. Oh yeah, there was another male character, Jio Inzagi. I like saying the name, but his role was just to be reminded that Kamito is the true demon lord, though Kamito himself doesn't defeat him, so this destroyed the whole context of that. Fianna did most of the work. I liked all of the abilities he had, though, and one of the strong moves hitting him had some of the best still frames in the anime, as I thought it looked pretty cool, and his scream was pretty exhilarating to listen to. The voice actor did a good job overall, but the anime itself is what made the character feel worthless. There was some other stuff too, like this elf-looking woman who was giving people curse seals near the end, but it was rushed. Greyworth was pretty attractive and had some comical banter with Kamito a few times. Yeah, I believe I ironed out most of my final thoughts. Ellis had an older sister, Velsaria, who was hyped up just to be disappointing at the end. I enjoyed her voice, though. She was the one fighting Ren Ashbell during the first scene of the anime. They actually bring this scene up quite a few times.

Oh, I almost forgot. Carol Nastassja is the best female in the anime. Her minor appearances made me scoff her because I had so much negativity welt up that I suppose it only made sense she wasn't in my mind earlier. She is the only one who did not negatively judge Kamito and was also the only one with the balls to mock the other females who were bashful toward him. There was one scene where the other females were upset over Est holding Kamito's arm, visibly glaring. Carol mentions his other arm is free, but then they tsundere-esquely say it's childish to do. She acknowledges it and immediately grabs his other arm, making them angrier, and I actually laughed at this. Not mildly, but almost loudly. It caught me off guard for an otherwise mediocre anime and I held very high respect for Carol ever since. The most notable scene she had in the anime besides this was when she accidentally fell on Kamito and his hands ended up in the wrong area. She felt a bit violated by it, but was simply scared and was actually apologizing for falling on him since she actually acknowledged it was her fault. She is a normal female character. A real shame that, at this time of writing, only one has favorited her on MAL. Whoever you are, thank you. You have good taste in anime women.

This review is all over the place. Was more of me talking about the characters again. Sorry if it wasn't informative, but I mainly wrote it to let out my frustrations about the anime and how, amazingly, a few characters could negatively kill the whole experience for me. It is the first anime I have given the second-to-lowest score on this site, since it managed to have barely just a bit of comedy in it to make me laugh a literal few times throughout the entire thing, meaning I didn't think it was one of the worst things I ever saw. If the manga really is a lot better than this, I am sure as hell curious to give it a read. Maybe Carol has more appearances in it.

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

What did you think of this review?

Nice 0

Love it 0

Funny 0

Confusing 0

Informative 0

Well-written 0

Creative 0

More reviews by Notshane (74)

Show all

Read more

Show less

Open

Gift

Report

The Most Interesting Animes of 2014 Pt.2

by K3ven

47 Entries · 2 Restacks

OP MC DESTROYS ENEMY SCRUBS (2006-2021)

by Quixotis

49 Entries · 79 Restacks

Emotionless and Kuudere Girls with Main Roles

by Archean-Return

36 Entries · 18 Restacks

North American Anime & Manga Releases for February

Here are the North American anime & manga releases for February Week 1: February 2 - 8 Anime Releases Blade Dance of the Elementalers Complete Collection DVD Bla...read more

Feb 1, 2016 4:37 PM by Discuss (16 comments)

Q4 2015 Anime & Manga Licenses [Update 12/19]

In this thread, you'll find a comprehensive list of anime and manga licensed in the fourth quarter (Oct-Dec) of 2015. Fall anime which were licensed before the ...read more

Sep 27, 2015 2:45 PM by Discuss (92 comments)

	Poll: Stark700 - Sep 29, 2014	170 replies	by »» Oct 11, 2024 2:20 PM
	Poll: Stark700 - Aug 4, 2014	86 replies	by »» Oct 7, 2024 6:51 AM
	Jio_Inzagi - Sep 6, 2022	12 replies	by »» Jun 4, 2024 11:39 AM
	Poll: Stark700 - Sep 15, 2014	90 replies	by »» Jun 23, 2023 8:20 PM
	Poll: Stark700 - Sep 1, 2014	67 replies	by »» Jun 23, 2023 6:10 PM