Discover Top Posts Tagged with #blade dance

Seireitsukai no Blade Dance 1

Official English Title: Blade Dance of the Elementalers

Author: Yuu Shimizu

Illustrator: Hanpen Sakura

Label: MF Bunko J

Release Date: 21 December 2010

Art Notes: This series went through 3 different illustrators throughout it’s life and I’ll be talking about each of them as we get to them. Hanpen Sakura was the original artist and covered the series for 13 volumes before having to step down due to health issues. Their art is definitely done in the moe style and, while it’s not really to my taste, I do like the character designs (Restia’s especially) and I think that it suits the series. I do remember Sakura’s art does get better as the series continues so I look forward to seeing that improvement.

Ecchi warning: aside from the cover, there’s also a colour illustration of a nude Claire getting attacked by a slimy water spirit.

So, first off, I have read part of this series before. It was years ago though, back in the day when fan translations reigned supreme, J-Novel Club wasn’t a thing yet, Yen-Press wasn’t licensing many light novels and I hadn’t begun to learnt Japanese yet. While my memories are a bit fuzzy, I do remember quite a bit about it so, while I don’t intend to spoil anything, there’s a possibility that I may do so on accident to please keep that in mind.

Anyway, I enjoyed this, though there were a few scenes that frustrated me a little bit. I especially enjoyed the fight scenes and found the protagonist to be charming. I definitely recommend it if you are into magic battle school series and don’t mind harem and ecchi elements.

Story:

Genre: Ecchi, Harem, Action, Fantasy, Magic school, Comedy

Elementalers - people who are able to make contracts with elemental spirits and use their powers for battle. The power usually only appears in pure maidens but it appears that Kamito is an exception. Having lost some of his memories three years ago, Kamito is on a search to find someone. His search takes him to a prestigious academy for young elementalers and the headmaster forces him to enrol there, telling him to compete in the blade dance, a competition in which elementalers compete in order to have their wish granted. Seeing as the blade dance may lead Kamito to find who he is looking for, he complies. But, this year, the blade dance is a group battle and Kamito must find 4 teammates in order to compete...

Content warnings: the ecchi here isn’t very hardcore (I mean, in comparison to modern ecchi light novels, anyway) but it is still there so I don’t recommend reading this series if you’re bad with that kind of thing. Also, there are violent tsundere characters and a character who has the form of a child but is actually hundreds of years old so, again, if you have issues with these character types then I don’t recommend it.

Yes, this is one of those series with a power that’s only meant to be used by girls except for the male protagonist who can use it because reasons, a bunch of tsundere, ecchi “comedic” scenes, misunderstandings and a magic battle school. I know that a lot people hate these types of series but I’ve always thought that they have a certain charm to them and I found myself enjoying this volume despite all of it’s cliches. The magic system is interesting and the battle scenes are exciting and the characters are likeable and that’s all I really want out of a series like this. There were some scenes that annoyed me like the misunderstanding scenes where Kamito ends up in a situation that looks bad and the girls are quick to jump to conclusions and accuse him of doing something that he didn’t actually do. It gets tiresome after a while but I did manage to look past it, in the end.

One of the main things that is set up in this volume is teamwork. The characters are very strong but they are really terrible at teamwork, especially Rinslet, and I look forward to seeing them get better at it. The other major plot points that are introduced here have to do with Kamito’s and Claire’s past as they’re both searching for someone. I’m really looking forward to unraveling the mysteries behind Kamito’s memory loss.

Character:

Kamito is an interesting and likeable protagonist. He has a mysterious past and slowly more facts about it get revealed over the course of this volume but we still don’t know everything and I look forward to learning more. I also find his personality charming with how he tends to tease the tsundere ojou-sama around him when they yell at him but is willing to apologise when he realises that he’s crossed a line. As you can tell from the cover, Claire, the fiery red-haired tsundere, is our main heroine for this volume. Her catchphrase is “I’ll burn you to cinders”, she weilds a whip that she often uses to wrap around Kamito’s neck and her first meeting with Kamito ends with her declaring that he needs to take responsibility and become her slave. The series has a few tsundere characters but she’s probably the most violent of them so she’s definitely one of those characters that is easy to hate. I think her tsun is made more bearable thanks to Kamito’s personality and his willingness to tease her when she gets violent and I found myself able to like her despite all of her flaws. I think there’s a lot of potential for good development with her and I hope to see her become less abusive as the series goes on.

As for the other heroines, 4 are introduced in this volumes and one’s a spoiler so I’ll just talk about the other 3 for now. Ellis is the captain of the school knights and she initially hates Kamito upon discovering his existence but she comes around to him by the end of the volume. She’s not as violent as Claire is but she is still a tsundere and often threatens to turn Kamito into *insert food of any type here* which I found amusing. Of the girls, Rinslet fits the archetype of “tsundere ojou-sama” the best but she’s less tsun than Claire and Ellis and is probably the least prone to violence of the three. I really enjoy her rivalry with Claire and I love her way of speaking. Est is a spirit that Kamito makes a contract with at the start of the volume. She doesn’t do a whole lot here but readers who enjoy the kuudere loli archetype should enjoy her. The supporting characters in this volume are memorable enough.

Adaptation Notes:

The manga adaptation is complete at 6 volumes and features art by Issei Hyouju (provided the art for the manga adaptations of Slayers Revolution, MM!, Slayers Evolution-R and the ongoing Isekai Meikyuu de Harem wo). It’s pretty good so far and has some great action panels and adorable chibi art. Some stuff is cut or moved but a lot of it improves the story as some of the more silly misundersting scenes are taken out and the moved scenes improve the pacing. It’s worth a mention that the scene in the light novel where Claire gets attacked by the water spirit is changed in the manga so that Claire and Rinslet get attacked by it while clothed. Anyway, I enjoyed the manga and I recommend it as a substitute for the light novel.

Apparently, there is another manga adaptation with art by Zenzai Yoshihira but it was cancelled after a few chapters due to health problems and a volume was never released so I can’t talk about it at all.

The anime adaptation is 12 episodes in length and this volume is adapted in the first 4 episodes. This is one of those cases where I wish that the anime staff had been more willing to cut stuff and change things. This is a short volume and it does not need 4 episodes to adapt it. The mediocre adaptation for this series is why I have to defend adaptations like Saijaku Muhai no Bahamut and Danmachi whose creators knew that volume 3 would not be a good enough stopping point to make an impression and saw opportunities to cut things out and I wish that Blade Dance had received a similar treatment. It’s also really low budgeted and you can tell. As for what I do like about the anime, I do enjoy the character designs and I like that the majority of the voice actors selected for the anime did not have much experience at the time, like Kana Yuuki, Shizuka Ishigami, Makoto Furukawa and Saori Oonishi. And they all nail their performances and are perfectly cast in their roles. There are some well-known voice actors cast as well, like Youko Hikasa, but most of the actors were not expeirenced when the anime was produced and I like that the anime gave the opportunity for these newer actors to shine.

Recommended for:

If you’re into battle school fantasy series and don’t mind harem and ecchi elements, read this. If you’re currently trying to learn Japanese through reading light novels and want to read a fantasy series, I found this easy to read. There is a bit of fantasy jargon but not too much and it’s quite short at around 250 pages.

I’ll be reading volume 2 fairly soon.

#blade dance

Trending Tags

Recently Viewed Tags

#blade dance