Spiritpact Series Review – When The Phrase ‘It Gets Better’ is Actually Accurate

Posted on by Karandi
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Spiritpact Overview:

After living a fairly nothing life at the beginning of Spiritpact, Keika dies quite unceremoniously when he’s hit by a truck. However that isn’t the end as Tanmoku shows up and asks Keika to become his spirit shadow. After a series of narratively convenient events a contract is made and the two are joined but there’s still a whole lot of mystery going on.

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Spiritpact Review:

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Let’s get this part of the review out of the way. The first episode of this is a nearly unwatchable mess. It has the hallmarks of an absolute train wreck and the only reason I didn’t chuck this show then and there and actually am now able to review the series is because of my slight intrigue about this whole spirit shadow thing.

In fact, this series along with Hand Shakers is kind of the reason I started wondering just how some anime got made or continued for a whole season when really it seems like it would make more sense just to toss them aside. However, I’m a sucker for ghost stories so despite thinking very little of it I moved on to episode two.

Episode two isn’t much better, but…

You knew there had to be a ‘but’ coming.

…what this show does incredibly well is each episode reveals something. Not much and at first it isn’t overly coherent (or it is just a massive information dump with little context) but it does reveal something. And even though there are points in pretty much every episode where you could pause the screen and just ask ‘Why am I watching this?’ the answer is pretty clear. Despite everything wrong with this show from a production and writing point of view it is telling a really compelling story (it just isn’t doing it well).

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And then you get to the second half of the series (this ended up only being 10 episodes so second half isn’t that far in). The biggest problems from early in the show are finally starting to sort themselves and you are getting less of the poor comedy and more of the straight up drama. By episode 9 you don’t know when it happened but you are completely caught up with these characters and the story and episode 10 delivers a satisfying conclusion.

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Does any of the emotional investment make this a better show?

Not really. It is a travesty at times. The comedy is truly hideous (and unhelped because it is accompanied by truly hideous visuals). Transitions between scenes are awkward. Characters come and go from the series around our protagonists but sometimes they’ve had so little to do early of consequence later when they return you don’t even know who they are. One character doesn’t appear early on, nor are they mentioned, but they play a fairly critical role in the second half. You spend a lot of the first three episodes asking ‘what?’ and you spend some of the time in the middle of the series wondering if they just forgot what was meant to happen next.

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I still had a great deal of fun watching this. Early on it was just to see if this could be my worst of the season. The premise was interesting enough that I’d be entertained and it would give me something to talk about. By the end I was genuinely waiting the week out just to get the next episode to find out what happened to the characters next.

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Keika is probably the character success story of the 2017 winter season really. I hated him in episode 1. I genuinely wanted his soul to disappear. By the end I was nearly in tears when his soul was in danger. I do not know why I started liking his character or caring about his fate but I know that somewhere along the line he became someone I genuinely wanted to see survive and find some happiness.

spiritpact - close moments between the main pair.

Despite that, I won’t recommend this. If the premise intrigues you, check it out and stick it out (it’s only ten episodes). You’ll probably wind up enjoying it even if you want to howl with frustration early on. If the premise isn’t really your thing and you’ve got a watch list that continues to grow forever, the fact that it ends well probably isn’t enough incentive to sit through this.

That said, season 2 improves in everyway on this story and wow I’m kind of hoping it eventually continues.

Images from: Spiritpact. Dir. Haoling Li. Haoliners Animation League. 2016.

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Karandi James

Spiritpact – Bond of the Underworld Series Review: An Improvement In Every Way on Season 1

Posted on by Karandi
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After season one’s fairly atrocious start, Spiritpact slowly grew into a semi-decent story. Then season two came onto the scene and it is almost as if this story has finally found its place.

Review:

I really didn’t think much of the delivery of this story back in season one. In fact, my review of it pretty much points out that most of season 1 is pretty tragic:

Despite everything wrong with this show from a production and writing point of view it is telling a really compelling story (it just isn’t doing it well).

But that compelling story that was hidden under the mess that was season one’s delivery was enough to make me go back to season two when so many other shows (The Silver Guardian and Hitori no Shita I’ve just left on hold to binge at some point when I get really bored). Because underneath everything wrong with season one, the characters really won me over and I wanted to see their story.

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And that is where season two – Bond of the Underworld – has excelled. It cut out so much of the clutter and the unnecessary. The comedy elements that were almost a complete failure on every occasion barely appear at all. The focus is narrowed down to three central characters and their interactions and while the background of the complex inter-relationships between these families and their roles are still there, it really doesn’t matter. Not to the main characters and not to the audience. The fact that two of the characters we’re focusing on are actually already dead doesn’t seem to make a lot of difference to how well crafted these characters have become (and believe me, I didn’t see myself claiming You Keika was a well crafted character in any capacity during season 1).

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This focus is expressed clearly through the OP. While the music isn’t great (not bad just not particularly good), the connections between these characters are made clear and this is the focus of what is explored in these 12 episodes with an antagonist in the form of the brother of one of the dead characters who at times seems to want revenge, at others power, and at the core just seems really ticked off about his brother’s fate.

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For those who like a little bit of shounen ai, this season will deliver a fantastic relationship driven drama as You Keika attempts to understand Tanmoku who in turn is trying to come to grips with the death of a former body-guard/friend/potential love interest. These characters interact in the present world as well as walk through the memories they have of the past and learn to see each other in a different light and also learn more about themselves.

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What that means is not a lot actually happens given we spend multiple episodes just memory walking, but those memories are integral to how these characters have been forged into the people we met in season one and facing these memories helps these characters to find who they are going to be and to reaffirm their place and purpose.

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Visually this season has stepped it up a lot. While there are still the very occasional chibi moments, with the vast majority of the stupid comedy cut out and the focus on character driven drama, there seems to be far more effort in making these characters actually look like characters. There are also a lot of close ups of faces in this season. Still, fight sequences and spiritual powers are quite adequately done. They have been better portrayed in other series, but compared to season 1, there’s a massive improvement here.

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Basically, if you endured season one but decided not to go back to season two, I’d urge you to reconsider. This season is superior to the first in so many ways and the story it tells is moving and sweet. I really hope there is a season 3 of this at some point as I’d love to know what the story has in store for these characters next.

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Karandi James

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Special A Series Review: Rivals, Friends, More Than Friends?

Posted on by Karandi
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At a school that for some reason there is a special class with the top seven students in it who hang out in a green house drinking tea all day and here Hikari and Kei challenge each other continuously, but Hikari just can’t seem to beat Kei and it drives her absolutely angry.

Review:

I’ve often wondered when anime are set at schools with ridiculous set ups such as a class with seven students that don’t actually need to go to class, why? Is there some reason why these characters need that kind of flimsy excuse to hang out together? They couldn’t just be some sort of after school study club and do more or less the exact same things without the absurdity of that premise?

Admittedly, there is some tension during one episode in the series when a normal student challenges one of the seven to take his place in the class. But really what does this set up accomplish? The students in the class are either admired or looked at enviously by the other students, the students in the class are either oblivious to others or genuinely look down on them, and essentially it fosters a sense of elitism that makes it hard to really connect with any member of the cast.

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However, if we put that to the side and look at the rest of the anime, we end up with a fairly run of the mill story told with massive exaggeration. Hikari was the best at everything and then she met Kei. She cannot beat Kei but he takes great delight in taunting her and getting her riled up (it must be love). They aren’t children anymore but their basic relationship hasn’t changed even a little bit partly because Kei, who seems aware that a change needs to occur doesn’t ever actually say anything, and Hikari is the standard oblivious protagonist who at the first hint of anything resembling a romantic relationship either blushed ridiculously or gets angry.

Again, it makes it hard to really care about the cast when they are acting out poor stereotypes and doing them in a grossly exaggerated manner.

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Despite everything standing against this anime though, it does actually have quite a bit of heart to it and the interactions between the students within the class are sometimes quite sweet. So while watching this I kept moving back and forth between being annoyed at it and genuinely wanting to like it.

Where did I end up? Mostly in the camp of realising that for people who like high school comedies, this one works well enough, but also realising that I probably won’t watch this one again.

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That said, visually it is looking dated and it’s only ten years old. But the character designs and animation look a little older than that and I can’t see it having a lot more longevity as it is going to look seriously aged fairly soon. The soundtrack is passable but nothing all that remarkable, though I probably could have done with less shouting from Hikari at times.

Still, if you are looking for a high school comedy, you could do far worse than this. As I said, it has quite a bit of heart in it so even the poorer aspects of the show seem slightly better and if you like the cast a bit more than I did you will probably have a great time with it.

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Karandi James

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Spiritpact – Bond of the Underworld Episode 12: A True Pact

Posted on by Karandi
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Why did this have to end? Are we going to get a third season?

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There is one major advantage of this show running at a slightly different time to Japanese seasonal anime. The season final occurred when most other anime are in a mid-season slump or still getting their momentum, so a final right now stands out and has even more impact than it might have had if it had to go up against a plethora of other season finals.

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That isn’t to say that this isn’t a really great final episode in its own right, but with so many loose ends screaming for a season 3, it isn’t the most satisfying either. Essentially the Tanmoku family turn things on their head fro the Shinryuu family and Tanmoku Ki and You Keika make a real pact which apparently gives them some amazing powers but we’re not actually going to get to see them use it right now.

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The confrontation itself ended in a fairly ordinary fashion and it is the emotional connections between the characters that are the real heroes of this episode and fortunately the show delivers. Whether it is the Keika and Tanmoku’s ongoing relationship, Jiun finally coming to terms with her jealousy and finding a new path to walk or the relationship between the brothers in the Shinryuu family, everything comes to a head and it does so in a glorious, if creepy in the case of the last one, fashion.

I’ll be doing a full series review of this shortly.

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Karandi James

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Spiritpact – Bond of the Underworld Episode 11: Confrontation

Posted on by Karandi
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Time for final revelations and the show-down. Things are coming to a fairly exciting conclusion.

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On the one hand, I kind of get where Shouken’s brother is coming from. The Tanmoku family did keep his brother’s body and bind his soul and really that’s kind of wrong and distasteful. On the other hand, Shouken was in fact betraying the family by sending out information and ultimately Shouken took his own life. He wasn’t killed by the family. He made his own choice. So it is a little hard to be overly sympathetic to the brother as he binds a whole bunch of spirits and tries to drive Tanmoku Ki to his death.

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Fortunately, Keika is showing the amount he has grown over two seasons of this show and is finally stepping up as a spirit-shadow. While it probably isn’t going to be enough, he’s managed to keep things together long enough for the sister to show up and maybe that will be enough to turn the tide of the fight.

All things considered, this has been a pretty dramatic second season and the conclusion seems to be doing a good job of bringing things to a satisfactory close.

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Karandi James

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Spiritpact – Bond of the Underworld Episode 10: Clarity

Posted on by Karandi
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Finishing Shouken’s memory walk and it seems things are about to get very intense in the present. This show continues to get better and better.

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I really appreciate that this anime managed to show us Tanmoku’s past from his perspective with Keika looking in, and then showed us nearly the same sequence from Shouken’s perspective with Keika and Tanmoku looking in, and at no point did it feel repetitive, unnecessary or dull. It feels like every scene has added to our understanding of these characters and their relationships both then and now and realistically it has really helped to make me love them.

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Admittedly, it kind of looks like we’re going for a spiritual smack-down type ending between families and meanwhile Tanmoku’s heart is just a little bit broken and Keika is probably still being manipulated, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was really having fun watching the drama play out. Looking forward to next week and what happens next.

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Karandi James

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Spiritpact – Bond of the Underworld Episode 9: Shouken’s Reasons

Posted on by Karandi
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Another flashback episode for this anime, this time showing us Shouken’s perspective on past events.

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This whole second season, the shadow of Shouken has been looming over everything. Three episodes we followed Keika as he wandered through Tanmoku’s memories of his former bodyguard and now, at last, we’ve found Shouken himself and entered his memories. While there’s a lot of the same events playing out, they are minimising the reused material and even dialogue we’ve heard before takes on a different meaning through a slightly different angle on the visual or through Shouken’s internal monologue outlining his motives at that time.

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While not the most exciting of episodes, it is one that makes the audience reconsider their assessment on a few situations and it does set up the conflict that is obviously about to happen with Shouken’s brother firmly in a position now to act. Definitely interesting and if you are caught up in this story, this was another solid step toward a resolution.

 

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Karandi James

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Spiritpact – Bond of the Underworld Episode 8: The Spirit, The Ceremony, and the Looming Disaster

Posted on by Karandi
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Tanmoku Ki holds the ceremony but between his emotional and physical turmoil things aren’t going to be easy. And yet, worse awaits these characters as the anime seems to be getting ready to go into its final episodes.

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Keika has definitely had a run of being very cool this season. Which given he was such a disaster of a character in early season 1, is kind of surprising. Yet now, we get these incredibly sweet moments between him and Tanmoku where Keika is exactly what Tanmoku needs to get through some incredibly emotionally taxing situations. Still, possibly forcibly holding Tanmoku down during the ceremony and kissing him (okay, exchanging spiritual energy) was not the brightest move, but it can’t be denied it was effective.

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Still, the ongoing drama with Tanmoku’s past continue and the manipulation Keika suffered earlier in the series comes back in a fairly decent manner to really escalate what is already a pretty tense situation. Unfortunately, that means we end the episode on a cliff-hanger. However, for those watching this anime for the relationship between the two main characters, this episode was definitely a delight. For everyone else, the plot is moving along at a nice clip at this point without feeling rushed and it definitely feels like it is heading somewhere.

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Karandi James

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Spiritpact – Bond of the Underworld Episode 7: Cutting the String

Posted on by Karandi
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Finally we get to the end of the flash back and now we know what happened with Shouken. Where to now?

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Three episodes of Keika wandering around in Tanmoku’s dreams and we finally see how Shouken met his ‘end’ and the impact this had on Tanmoku. These episodes have done an excellent job of humanising the regularly inhuman feeling Tanmoku and have also given Keika a chance to not play the ditz for awhile as for once he is pro-active and actually helpful to Tanmoku even though his is entirely without guidance.

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While not all of Shouken’s secrets have been revealed and clearly they are going to continue on with this particular plot point for a bit longer, this was a reasonably satisfying way to wrap up this sequence of dreams. Though part of me wonders what the ongoing impact will be on Tanmoku now that he knows Shouken isn’t really dead.

I’m looking forward to find out what happens at the ceremony and the preview looked kind of interesting.

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Karandi James

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Spiritpact – Bond of the Underworld Episode 6: Bound to the Past

Posted on by Karandi
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I really could start this review the same way as the previous episode, as in this episode Keika continues to float around in Tanmoku’s memory, though this time we see that perhaps he had some small influence over events back then leading to Shinryu actually being able to save Tanmoku. While some anime that spend two plus episodes walking around in the past might end up being a bit on the dull side (or you might at least wonder what the point is), here is is feeling incredibly rewarding to see the events that have shaped Tanmoku and ultimately the relationship he has with Keika.

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Meanwhile, Keika’s earnest desire to save Tanmoku from his nightmares is pretty adorable even if he doesn’t really have a clue how to do it. I also liked that while at first Keika was unreasonably jealous of Shinryu, he now sees just how much of an influence he had, and still has, over Tanmoku and realises how important he is to him. So while he is still definitely jealous, he’s starting to realise that the Tanmoku he knows would not exist without Shinryu.

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This continues to be a fairly rewarding viewing experience this season and hopefully this arc resolves in a satisfying manner given the time they’ve committed to it.

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Karandi James

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