Itsuka Tenma no Kuro-Usagi, (which translates to A Dark Rabbit has Seven Lives) quickly destroyed and hopped all over my expectations. I mean, it started off nicely; the first episode had a lot of promise and it gave me a nostalgic feel towards older magical girl related series (namely the opening). Plus I loved the deep pinks, oranges, and blues that were used throughout the series, but that’s pretty much all I can say about this series that won’t make me sound rude. When I think back to watching it, this is all I have to say: what the hell am I watching.
The story revealed in the first episode/synopsis tells of a boy named Taito, who keeps having a reoccurring dream; this dream goes back to when he’s younger and he has made a contract with a “young” vampire. He pretty much has to protect her, and in exchange for his service, she grants him the ability to respawn six times (which gives him seven lives). Well, one day he just happens to get himself into an accident which kills him. Meanwhile, we meet Himea, who looks awfully similar to the vampire girl in Taito’s dream. Surprise! That’s her and he’s not dreaming her up. She’s been locked up somewhere for nine years waiting for him, telling herself over and over “Five more minutes and he’ll be here to save me”. Well…about that. Taito is still alive, he used up one of his lives in the wreck, and his memories of Himea return, which frees her, and so she rushes to his side.
Sounds cutesy and sweet, ya’? Well I hate to tell you this, but the character development begins to go downhill after this. From the first episode, we see Himea as a strong girl who can fend for herself, which somewhat stays true, but she becomes that clingy girlfriend that no one wants to invite anywhere. As for Taito…every time he gets into battle, he gets down to his last life, despite any training he’s ever done. They become flat and boring as the 12 episodes spanned out, and we pick up a few more main characters who are just as flat and boring, like Mirai and Gekkou; I won’t go too much into detail about what role they play, but they’re part of the student council and protect the school from supernatural things. Mirai is that annoying, happy-go-lucky, childish, little catgirl (after a transformation) who constantly gets put down by Gekkou, who pretty much abuses her. Gekkou actually reminds me of Sasuke (yes, the one from Naruto). He doesn’t like helping people and prefers to be on his own
because he rivals his brother, and he’s in a love/hate relationshipwith the main male character. They’re all pretty generic, and nothing really stood out to me about them. Although I do like Himea’s hair and her “magical girl” outfit…(it would be too hard to attempt to cosplay her because of her hair…)
A few things are made unclear about Himea; the synopsis makes her out to be a vampire, she appears to be a magical girl in the anime, and she’s referred to as a time witch at one point in the anime. On that note, this series seems to be all over the place. One episode talks about Taito’s past and the girls after him, the next is about Gekkou and Mirai and all their shenanigans, then there’s stuff about Himea being a threat. Honestly, I don’t even understand the plot to this anime, it wasn’t made clear. It felt as if they just tried too hard to make it interesting. There were also quite a few fanservice-y episodes, but again, generic: a beach episode and one of those famous public bath-based episode. Yup. The ending wasn’t even very clear since they added a bunch of random scenes/episodes to the end, and I think there was a random crossover episode thrown in that didn’t relate to the ending at all.
Needless to say, I was very disappoint. I had no clue what I was watching, it wasn’t organised, and it seems the creator just tried too hard to make it like everything that’s popular, but alas,nothing stood out.
