Monday 2 May 2016

ANIME REVIEW: BLADE DANCE OF THE ELEMENTALERS

Blade Dance Of The Elementalers Complete Season 1 Collection DVD
Blade Dance of the Elementalers
Released By: Animatsu
Rating: 15
Running Time: 300 Mins
Audio: English DD 5.1 & Jap DD 2.0 with English subs
Release Date: 2/5/2016
Reviewed By: Sandra Scholes 

Kamito Kazehaya spots a girl taking a bath in a nearby pool - the mere fact she sees him spying on her doesn't trouble him until she sets her magical whip on him, nearly killing him. What he discovers is she is a Princess Maiden of Areisha Spirit Academy, one of many who are all women, and all powerful and aren't used to being around men!

After she has whipped him into shape and given him a good telling-to, she tends to accuse him of being a dirty peeping Tom most of the way through the anime, but as it's so funny, it doesn't annoy. Instead, it makes you feel sorry for him as he keeps on getting the same sort of abuse from Claire, who ties him up on more than one occasion. She isn't mad at him for long when he tells her he has a letter for her from old Lady Greyworth at the academy, and takes him with her to find out why she sent a man to do a woman's job. You might have guessed that there is a lot of reverse sexism in this anime where men are seen as lesser beings even though Kamito is strong and can hold his own in a decent fight.

Not only is Claire a Princess Maiden, she can also make a pact with an elemental to be able to bind it to her so she can use its power. Claire plans to go back to the academy, but on the way she sees a seal on a doorway that contains the Demonslayer who had previously felled the demon king Suraiman. So far, no Princess Maiden has successfully made a pact with him for years. As Kamito points out, making pacts with elementals can be very dangerous.

Claire is powerful, but Kamito isn't sure she can take on the spirit when she gets to it as it's a decorative sword encased in a stone, like King Arthur's, she has to pull it from the stone altar before her. What Claire doesn't know is that Kamito can make pacts too and when he sees her attempt to subdue the spirit go wrong, he steps in ans surprises her as men aren't supposed to be able to make pacts. Instead of giving him a nice, big "thank you", she binds him and hauls him off to the academy as a prisoner when old Lady Greyworth tells him he must enrol there as a student - the only male there. This is true, but Ellis is certain she will never accept a male Spirit User at the academy.

Grayworth secretly wants Kamito to enter the Blade Dancer tournament as she thinks he can beat the strongest one there, Ren, but he has other reasons not to be there; he's already competed before and doesn't want to go through it again! As all the academies students are female and Spirit Users, having a man around will only cause trouble, and in this case, it does. Kamito's introduction to the pupils starts out disastrously as they all want him to sit next to them, so, for their sake, he has been taken to a separate house where he can live there out of the way.

I loved Blade of the Elementalers as soon as I saw the first episode as it has great animation, characters and fun situations to put them in. This is sword and sorcery at its best and doesn't overdo it.

Bonus Material:Clean Opening Animation, Clean Closing Animation & also available from Sentai Filmworks : Trailer for Samurai Jam: Bakumatsu Rock, Shirobako, Invaders of the Rokujioma!? and Monokyun Sword.

Summary: Naughty, fun and perfect for D & D players -- get Blade Dance of the Elementalers