ViVid Strike!

Title:ViVid Strike!
Overall:Unevaluated
Keywords: , , , , , ,
Notables: Animation - Seven Arcs Pictures
MINASE Inori
OGURA Yui
An impoverished girl finds that her skill at fighting to survive on the streets of sleazy neighborhoods may be a gift which can lift her out of trouble.

12 episodes
OverallArtAnimationCharacter Design MusicSeries StoryEpisode StoryReviewer
Unevaluated Stretch [series:3256#628]
(Part of one episode watched):

At a stroke, character designs tell us a lot about what to expect in a new anime. A serious drama will give it's characters fairly detailed ones, so that they can display convincing facial expressions. The fact that the characters in Vivid Strike have pretty simple faces was a giveaway that the show would not attempt to be emotionally moving. Perhaps the way it began, with a scene of desperate children being bullied, yet the characters had generic faces, told me pretty much everything I needed to know. If the faces are simple, chances are that the plot will be as well. There seems to be some sort of martial arts superpower which this homeless girl has, and which she will no doubt employ to attain fame and glory. The premise isn't necessarily hopeless: what if this was an embittered, cynical girl, who sees her fists as a tool to stay alive, becoming friends with a pampered, wealthy girl who sees hers as simply part of a hobby? But there's no sign of any such finesse here; much like the character designs, what the characters say and do quickly reveals just how deep and sophisticated they are. For instance, will a character say anything which isn't absolutely necessary to carry the basic story forward? If not, you can be pretty sure that the character will be pretty shallow and the makers of the anime have set their sights low. The message I got from Vivid Strike was 'generic' through and through. The black and white, good versus evil, attitude of the show turned me off as well, since few things are more generic than that. I guess I start watching a new anime expecting it to be mediocre, because most are, and it has to do something unusual and special to pique my interest. Nothing particularly unusual or special was forthcoming from this show, and I fast-forwarded through most of the episode. There was a hint at the end that a childhood friend would come looking for the protagonist, which was slightly interesting, but I doubt if it could invigorate the remainder of the show.

Last updated Friday, October 07 2016. Created Thursday, October 06 2016.

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