It was a long grinding slog, but finally, mercifully, thankfully TAMNI is done! At least season 1 that is. The final episode wasn’t bad, but was pretty much a microcosm of everything good and bad with the show.
The good
- Biri-biri and Kuroko. These two irresistable, spin-off featured lolis. While I may not have liked TAMNI very much, I’m really looking forward to the Railgun spinoff… I think.
- The cast of characters. They were all generally likeable, albeit often introduced then forgotten for long stretches of time (including Index), and prone to incredible stupidity at inconvenient moments. Even Touma wasn’t a bad character – when he was keeping his mouth shut. Otherwise, you’re apt to hear him get all self-righteous about a cheese sandwich. I still can’t get his 10 minute speeches to Kanzaki and Stiyl out of my memory. ARGH.
- The humor. TAMNI would be much more watchable if it dropped its false-seriousness and just embraced itself as a supernatural slice of life, because that’s when it’s most enjoyable.
- Animation and design. The show looked sharp and the characters looked great from the beginning and the quality was pretty consistent all season long
The meh
- The action. Pretty solid when they let it rip, but that never really happened, because fights would often get bogged down by long, stupid speeches.
The bad
- The dialogue. Take a look at the screenshots above. WTF are they even saying? Then imagine 10-15 minutes an episode of this garbage.
- The story. 24 episodes in and I still don’t know what the hell is going on. I have a vague recollection of some major plot centered around Index, but that arc ended like 20 episodes ago.
- The pacing. Like I mentioned above, potentially exciting scenes would be sucked of all life and vitality once some self-righteous jackass started going on some soliloquy. And it wasn’t always Touma either. Kanzaki and Stiyl were pretty egregious offenders too. And most major villains as well. Higurashi had less torture than what the TAMNI writing/directing team put us through.
- A second season. Are you KIDDING ME!? Yeah, I do want to know what the story is supposed to be about. No, I’m not sure I can put up with another season of Touma’s caterwauling.
Final verdict?
Somewhere between a 5-6 out of 10. Rounding up, let’s say it’s a 6. Characters and light-hearted moments kept me engaged. Story and dialogue made me put my head through a window every week. Admittedly, I either got used to the atrocity or the pacing actually improved slightly, towards the end of the show, thus the bump up to 6.
Railgun? Yes, please!
Season 2? Uh, let me get back to you on that.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Haha, I’m probably the only one who really liked Touma. >.>
You know, despite his self-righteous speeches. :p
He’d make a perfect kind of self-righteous villian like Light if he tried.
.-= Jubbz´s last blog ..Reborn Chapter 260 =-.
Ha, Touma would get stuck making a speech to the preface and never actually make it to the actual notebook part of thhe Death Note.
I like this show, but I’ve been prefering A Certain Scientific Railgun a bit more. Railgun is all the fun of Index, but with lesbians!
i don’t know what to say