Date A Live Episode 2-The Animated Critic #5

"The world where visual novels rule!!!"

Show-Date A Live

Episode Title-Close Re-encounter
Air Date-April 7th 2013 (Niconico Streaming Air Date), April 13th 2013 (TV release)
Season 1
Episode 2

Hello my name is Evan A.K.A. The Animated Critic. We're back with another episode of Date A Live. I promise we'll cover more anime eventually, I just think since my series is so young doing a couple episodes focusing on just this anime will be a nice ice breaker for more anime in the future. So without further ado let's dig into Date A Live Episode 2.

The episode starts with Shido doing his "training."

Training that just so happens to involve visual novels with extremely cute astronauts. 

I don't mean to burst anyone's bubble, but I'm pretty sure she's at least 10 years too young to go into space or date Shido.

No! We are not doing that joke again. 

Shido wins the game by making Interplanet Janet here fall for him, and then we get to see the amazing theme song. Like a lot of other anime the first episode didn't have the theme song, but this one does so I'm gonna give my very in depth review on it.

It's good. 

............

After the theme song we cut to Origami, who if you remember was the white haired creep and a member of the AST, the group dedicated to destroying Spirits which are the things that cause the spatial quakes which if you don't remember or know what that is then I suggest reading the review of episode 1 or you could just watch the show cause it's really good. *Gasp* Anyway.

We see Origami running through the carnage of a recent spatial quake. 

She's looking for her parents, and eventually finds them in safe condition holding hands. Well thats great news. I'm glad everything worked...

Origami, we don't feel so good.

Oh.

They end up getting completely vaporized by the spatial quake right in front of Origami's eyes.Harsh. Origami wakes up, revealing it was a nightmare flashback, in cold sweat.

And of course she's completely naked. Look anime you can't give me a traumatic emotional scene and then immediately try to turn me on. That's not how this works. Kills the emotion and my sex drive.

We cut back to the Ratatoskr air ship, which is called the Fraxinus. Ratatoskr is not only a very hard word to remember and spell, but the group dedicated to saving Spirits as opposed to killing them like the AST. 
We see Shido is getting checked out for some reason by the best character in the show so far, Reine, who you should all remember has an O blood type.

She gets up close to Shido's face (for some sort of medical exam, it's never really mentioned what this is) and then turns around to grab something.

Ha, he thinks he's slick.
Yeah, I think all those visual novels are getting to his head.
Eventually Kotori comes into the room. For those who don't remember Kotori is the leader of the Ratatouille and Shido's 14 year old sister. Despite her age she still proves to be a competent leader and also just as much of a contender for fanservice as every other female character.

Yeah, watch out for anyone who has this body pillow lying around their house. 

Anyway, Kotori is there to recap the plot. The goal of Rattata is to not kill the Spirits causing the spatial quakes, but to seal their powers by making them fall in love with someone. That someone being Shido. To be fair I added in a few of the details that I had to find out later as the anime doesn't really do a good job of explaining it's plot line in the first couple episodes. Like for example it doesn't really explain why they need to fall in love with Shido to stop the spatial quakes. I had to look it up and find out it seals their powers. To be even more fair my memory is hazy on weather or not they cover this in later episodes, but it's best to at least get your basic plot out there in the first or even second episode that way viewers who come into this completely blind don't get lost and confused. Which they don't really do. They get some big stuff, but still miss a lot of things. Of course you also got to focus on creating fun and enticing episodes and so far the episodes have been entertaining so I can understand. It's not like a whole lot of major information is missing. It's not enough to completely leave you wondering what's going on and distract from the fun, but still the little information they missed out explaining would have gone a long way in making it a more cohesive and even more enjoyable story. 

I'm sure they explain this stuff in later episodes, but like I said it's better to get this very basic stuff out of the way early.  

Now, you're probably wondering how the power of love can seal something so powerful like the power of spirits. Well....because anime?

Yeah, I don't know. It's nothing bad though as they develop it as part of the world in such a natural way you just kinda don't think about it unless you're an overly critical shut in nerd like me.

So, enough of that. Shido is assigned his first test. He has to make a normal human fall for him because if he can't even do that there's no way he's ever gonna get a supernatural creature to fall for him. So who do they chose as Shido's target? Why the most logical choice of course.
His teacher....

Uh-huh, I feel the same way Shido. Shido reluctantly sweet talks her. The teacher is flattered at first, but seems to not pay much mind to it. That is until Shido says he'd love to marry her and that he really loves her. Then she goes full on yandere on him.

OH SWEET JESUS!
OK, WE CAN USE THE JOKE NOW!

RUN SHIDO RUN!

So after emotionally manipulating a lonely middle aged woman Shido runs into Origami. And I mean like literally runs into her. She falls to the ground, and if you know anything about anime you know where this is going.

Classy. Origami doesn't seem too phased though.

Which is nice as most other anime at this point would have a long drawn out scene where the main character gets attacked by the female and called a stupid pervert. This deviation is much preferred, but I still would rather this cliche would just stop popping up altogether.
Kotori decides that Shido isn't done playing with the emotions of helpless girls and makes Shido ask Origami on a date, which Origami happily accepts. She even gives Shido a nice picture.

Of....herself?
Ok then.
You do have to love how weird Origami can be sometimes. She's kinda starting to grow on me.
Before anything else can happen though a Spatial Quake alarm gets set off. Origami runs off to her duties with the AST.

Meanwhile the town gets their barricades up.

Ok, I still can't get over how stupid the AST outfits look.

Listen, when fighting off supernatural beings you might want to cover most of your skin. Not really the time to flaunt your assets. 

After the quake goes off Shido heads to the school where the most destruction took place.

It's time to find the spirit from the previous episode, which they nicknamed Princess.

Shido remembers the saddened look she had on her face when they were face to face.

And this idiot still can't come to the conclusion that the reason she looked so sad is because being chased and shot at by a militia of hot anime waifus is not exactly what one would consider an ideal evening. We cut to The Fraxinus and meet the crew who'll be helping Shido.

Such romantic experts like the gut nicknamed "Bad Marriage"

All his marriages were bad....It's pretty self explanatory why they call him that.
But he's apparently been in over 30 marriages so he must be doing something right....maybe?
Ok, one bad apple, but hey there's also uh....

....A Channeler from Pokémon?

And last and potentially least a woman who's love will never falter. A woman who can't be kept away from her true love. No matter how many restraining orders she gets. 

Yeah, probably best to not listen to these guys Shido.

So Shido enters the classroom where Princess in secluding herself in and is treated to an exceptional greeting.

After attacking Shido Princess asks what his name is and why he's there. So now it's time for the Fraxinus to come in and give Shido the best advice on what to say to woo this lady.

And they do it in the form of a visual novel.
Ok, I can buy the visual novel thing working, even though this is the real world where visual novel logic will never work. They should be way more realistic in this very real world where hot alien girls cause explosions from space and constantly have to fight for their life against chicks in robot suits.
I will however question why Shido had to do any training in the first place if they're just planning on making all the choices of what he does for him.
Either way they got 3 options, and of course they go with the one that makes Shido look like the biggest jerk.

It doesn't go will. Shido decides he's almost been killed enough times and decides to screw what the Fraxinus says and say what he wants to.

He explains he was a student at this school and says his name is Shido.
He notices Princess looks sad again.

He asks why Princess always looks that way.
Hmmm, I don't know. Maybe she's just feeling a little glum. It really can't have anything to do with how crappy it feels to have your life at risk constantly just for existing. No no no no no no.
Princess asks what exactly he is doing there.

Fraxinus actually gives Shido a sensible answer this time. Shido says he wanted to meet her.

She's one stubborn girl.
Princess says she's not in the mood to joke around, and Shido says he's not either. He gives a long speech about how he really did wanted to meet her and to help her. Kotori tells him to wait for the commands from Fraxinus, but considering they almost got him killed twice it's probably best if Shido just keeps doing what he's doing.
Also isn't this what YOU specifically trained him for. So he could handle himself in these situations.
Princess is moved by the things Shido has to say.

I love how they zoom into this face and the sound effect they play is a cartoony gun shot sound. I'm not even joking. It kinda distracts from the mood.
Though it could've been a clever transition to a more comedic and lighthearted scene.
Despite being moved by Shido's words Princess doesn't know how to handle her feelings and so resorts to calling Shido an idiot and dummy.

Seems even aliens can't avoid the age old Tsundere cliche.
Though Princess is a bit of a different Tsundere.
If you don't know what a tsundere is it's the name given to characters who are usually one of the love interests to the main character. They like the main character, but they act cold and harsh towards him at the same time constantly beating up on him and belittling him with insults. Bonus points for unoriginality if they're the main character's childhood friend. Princess is different than most Tsunderes though. She's a little cold at first to Shido, but she kinda has an excuse to be unlike most others due to her lack in trust of humans as a whole. You know....because they tried to kill her. Plus after she gets to know Shido a bit she gets better about this and whenever she does do something tsundere-esque they play it off as her mostly teasing. Tsundere is a combination of "cute" and "cold." Most Tsundere's problem is that they focus to much on the awful cold part while Princess' focus is more centered towards the cute. It makes for a much more enjoyable character. Princess says she'll trust Shido as he could make a good ally in finding out why humans are so terrible. Shido asks for her real name, but she says she doesn't have one. She asks Shido to come up with a name.
The ratsbanes help him by coming up with their own names, and reaching out to others by using an app they created.

Yeah, that app that Shido's friend was playing in the first episode is a tool used by them. That's pretty fun and clever.
So Shido's friend gives his virtual lady a name that gets sent to the Fraxinus for them to choose from.
Oh, and guess who's back.

They think he's sending dirty pics to Shido, and that's apparently soooo lame.
They're just jealous because they never get any dirty pics. Probably because when any guy sends them a pic of his Johnson they always reply with "That's so lame."

After shuffling through a couple of names the Fraxinus decides on Tome.

Princess does not like it.

She even tries to kill Shido again as she thinks he's making fun of her.

Maybe the Fraxinus should just stop.
Ok, so what's wrong with the name Tome? It sounds nice to me. Does it mean something I don't know about? I tried looking it up and I couldn't find anything. I don't get it.
 Shido once again proves the Fraxinus is full of hacks and comes up with a name himself. Tohka.

Princess really seems to like it. She even learns to writes it.

And she finally even smiles cause she so happy to have a name.

AWWW.
However the adorable conversation is cut short as the AST attacks.


Adding wings does make the outfit a little cooler looking, but.....Yeah it's still pretty dumb.
Tohka tells Shido to leave, but Shido insists he stays and they talk, saying he wants to get to know her more. He even does that weird anime thing where he makes his eyes disappear.

That's how you know he means serious business.
So they do talk. She puts up a force field and they just have a really nice conversation.

Shido asks about Tohka's origins in which she replies she doesn't know much herself. In her own memory she just sorta appeared and got suddenly attacked by the AST which she calls the Mecha-Mecha Squad.

She is unaware of why the people of Earth seem to hate her so much and wants to figure it out.
The people on board of the Fraxinus tell Shido that Tohka's affection is at max, still applying visual novel rules to this very real life alien seducing scenario. They tell Shido to ask her on a date, which after enough pressure he does. Tohka doesn't seem to be aware of what a date is.
Eventually the AST's attacks cause a chunk of the school wall to crumble revealing something they didn't see before...

Shido.
Seeing Shido with the spirit causes Origami to suddenly lash out towards Tohka despite her leading officer's commands to stay put until they get orders from HQ.

Tohka cuts a bi**h.


Origami survives though and gets lifted away on a medical copter.
I had to really hold in the urge to make a Predator reference.
The next day Shido is at the ruins of his school, thinking about the events of the previous day.

They really make this near death experience sound a lot more joyous than it actually is.
Shido even finds the remains of the chalkboard and reflects how happy he is to finally get a chance to speak with Tohka.

Speak of the devil, the little tsundere alien herself appears. When Shido asks how she did it without setting off a spatial quake, she replies that Shido invited her back for the date. Which we don't really learn how that works, but I guess it allows her to just strut her way back into earth.

Shido says she should change out of those clothes first and pulls out the picture Origami gave him as an example of more appropriate casual wear.

Ok, I'll admit I don't know everything about Japanese culture, but school wear still doesn't seem like the very casual wear that most anime make it out to be.
Tohka of course questions why he has this picture, and....yeah that's a good question? Why did he keep it?

If this was any other anime though Shido would get the crap beaten out of him so I'm down for that not happening. I'm kinda at the point in my anime watching career where I'm really getting sick of all the cliches, and I know I shouldn't specifically praise something just for not having a certain cliche, especially when it doesn't feel like they're going out of their way to subvert them, but it's gotten that bad.
Tohka undergoes another anime cliche though. The fanservicey magical girl esque transformation.

And thus our episode ends with the two going on their date. God's speed Shido. He's making such a sacrifice dating that beautiful woman for the sake of the world. 

Anyway this episode wasn't as fun as the first, but god dang it was it still great. I still had a lot of fun with it, even though it has some annoying things about it. The characters are still overall pretty good. Kotori is still fun, and Shido is still a little bland. We didn't see much of Reine, but at the same time we also didn't see too much of some of the more annoying characters from episode 1. This episode may not be as fun as the first but still trumps it in many ways. Characters just being one of them. It's also solid in comedy and with emotion, as we get a really nice scene with Tohka and Shido in the school. Speaking of which I love Tohka. I could go on about why I love her so much, but honestly you'll get a better picture of it when I review more episodes. Which I'm definitely doing. So for now I'll just say that I really like Tohka's character. Later we'll meet other spirits which I also love almost as much, if not more, than Tohka. 

But we'll get to those when we get to those. 

Overall I still say that if you haven't seen Date A Live then you should give it a try. 

With that said next time we'll be looking at a different anime that has a few things similar to Date A Live, but is on the complete other side of the quality spectrum. See you guys then.

Next Animated Critic-Seikon no Qwaser (The Qwaser of Stigmata) Episode 1

Next Evan Vs. Disney-Fantasia

Other Upcoming Reviews:

Peter Problems (Family Guy)

MLP: Friendship is Magic Episodes 1-2

Spirited Away by the Demon (Higurashi Episodes 1-4)

So wait, do a portion of my taxes get sent to the Ratta-whatever to deal with spirits? Is it government of independently funded? I need answers.