The problem I have with Daybreak Illusion (or its infinity harder to remember title—il sole penetra le illusioni) is that the best thing I can say about it is simultaneously the worst thing I can say about it: it's okay. There's no iceberg ready to drag it to its watery grave, but then there's nothing to elevate it to be a titanic title in the first place.
Daybreak Illusion starts out by introducing us to our main character Akari, whom works as a tarot card fortune teller. Not wishing to spoil, Akari is thrust into a battle between the forces of the Tarot Card association and the Daemonia; the former being a magical girl organization and the latter being a group of humans-turned demons through trickery and deceit. From there she is paired up with an ice-wielding stoic, a genki-girl magical girl whom wields money as a weapon and kenomimi who can manipulate plants.
While the premise is standard at best and generic at worst, effort it put into trying to create a world that isn't as black and white as it seems on paper. The unfortunate part is that it fails. The problem is that there is no moral dilemma where the anime wants you to think there is. Regardless of the situations that drove humans into becoming Daemonia, they have no control of their actions anymore and are, in effect, the same as rabid dogs.
The characters likewise feel so very samey. We have the stoic girl who has a dark past and eventually opens up the main character. We have the kenomimi whose sole character trait is that she loves the main character and is jealous, but won't speak up about it. Then there's the genki girl—an archetype I still haven't gotten tired of. Finally Akari, who is a mary-sue, but not so much that she's fun. Tatsuya Shiba, for me, was a fun Mary Sue because there was nothing that even came close to being a credible threat to him. The anime was less creating situations where he was in real trouble but would prevail through sheer deus ex machina, and more creating situations to convince us as the audience that he was in danger when he was nothing of the sort.
Akari: saves all her friends, earns their undying respect, gains massive inexplicable power-ups, is unconditionally loved by everyone but one or two, and has boundless generosity. She feels like one of those blank slates that the audience can project themselves onto, but the dark nature of the show really prevents me from doing that.
The plot is alright. It's fairly straightforward and the twists are either weak or predictable. Half of the series is spent doing monster of the week, mini character arcs. The rest I won't spoil for those interested, but suffice it to say it's nothing new.
The two things the show does well are the soundtrack, courtesy of Tatsuya Kato (Mirai Nikki, Free!, Shokugeki no Soma) and the animation. The soundtrack does well to provide a dramatic flair to the fights and the animation has a surprising amount of frames and color. The problem is that neither of the two these are so good that I could recommend watching it for them alone. Kato's soundtrack here is great, but it's been better and the animation, while stylized, isn't near the quality of other grade A studios.
Is Daybreak Illusion worth watching? I don't know. It depends on how okay you are with watching archetypes you've seen before perform similar roles. Like I said it does nothing wrong, but it doesn't do much right either.
Thanks for reading, sorry for the delay last week. For some reason I had a serious case of writer's block when it came to this particular anime, but with any luck I'll be back on track next week.
Daybreak Illusion starts out by introducing us to our main character Akari, whom works as a tarot card fortune teller. Not wishing to spoil, Akari is thrust into a battle between the forces of the Tarot Card association and the Daemonia; the former being a magical girl organization and the latter being a group of humans-turned demons through trickery and deceit. From there she is paired up with an ice-wielding stoic, a genki-girl magical girl whom wields money as a weapon and kenomimi who can manipulate plants.
While the premise is standard at best and generic at worst, effort it put into trying to create a world that isn't as black and white as it seems on paper. The unfortunate part is that it fails. The problem is that there is no moral dilemma where the anime wants you to think there is. Regardless of the situations that drove humans into becoming Daemonia, they have no control of their actions anymore and are, in effect, the same as rabid dogs.
The characters likewise feel so very samey. We have the stoic girl who has a dark past and eventually opens up the main character. We have the kenomimi whose sole character trait is that she loves the main character and is jealous, but won't speak up about it. Then there's the genki girl—an archetype I still haven't gotten tired of. Finally Akari, who is a mary-sue, but not so much that she's fun. Tatsuya Shiba, for me, was a fun Mary Sue because there was nothing that even came close to being a credible threat to him. The anime was less creating situations where he was in real trouble but would prevail through sheer deus ex machina, and more creating situations to convince us as the audience that he was in danger when he was nothing of the sort.
Akari: saves all her friends, earns their undying respect, gains massive inexplicable power-ups, is unconditionally loved by everyone but one or two, and has boundless generosity. She feels like one of those blank slates that the audience can project themselves onto, but the dark nature of the show really prevents me from doing that.
The plot is alright. It's fairly straightforward and the twists are either weak or predictable. Half of the series is spent doing monster of the week, mini character arcs. The rest I won't spoil for those interested, but suffice it to say it's nothing new.
The two things the show does well are the soundtrack, courtesy of Tatsuya Kato (Mirai Nikki, Free!, Shokugeki no Soma) and the animation. The soundtrack does well to provide a dramatic flair to the fights and the animation has a surprising amount of frames and color. The problem is that neither of the two these are so good that I could recommend watching it for them alone. Kato's soundtrack here is great, but it's been better and the animation, while stylized, isn't near the quality of other grade A studios.
Is Daybreak Illusion worth watching? I don't know. It depends on how okay you are with watching archetypes you've seen before perform similar roles. Like I said it does nothing wrong, but it doesn't do much right either.
Thanks for reading, sorry for the delay last week. For some reason I had a serious case of writer's block when it came to this particular anime, but with any luck I'll be back on track next week.
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