English Dub Review: Takt Op.Destiny “Takt -Hope-”

Overview

“Destiny is terribly cruel. But no matter how much misfortune the gods torment me with, I will face my destiny. Because of that, I fought, and I fought, and I fought some more… And then, I finally found my answer. There truly was joy beyond the pain. Now, it is time for the performance to begin. I shall now wring destiny’s neck.”


Our Take

The battle between Musicarts felt like quite a spectacle to behold, but predictably, it was more of a distraction that Destiny needed to do while Takt confronted Sagan. It almost felt like a Boss battle to a videogame given how upper-tier Orpheus seems to be. Also, the insight regarding how the synphonica brought hope to the various battlefields across the world as the D2 creatures arrived and seeing the cost in repelling them both in the lives of both soldiers and civilians really sold the heartbreak & drama as well. This is further conveyed properly in the Dub as you hear the voices of so many as they tried their best to fight and survive. In a plethora of ways, Sagan’s solution and methods were morally wrong, but In both a pragmatic and logistical way, he’s also sort of right. However, I’m left with so many questions…

For starters, what were the details behind Sagan’s twisted plan? He meticulously planned this thing out for 4 years to seal all the D2s away in North America, but how? He’s summoning them all to New York at the doorstep of their very own Symphonica Headquarters yet there’s no indication of what comes next. Encasing them in crystal maybe? Who knows, it’s too damn vague. Besides, why did it have to be in New York? Why couldn’t he have summoned them all to some less populated location like the Mojave desert or an empty forest in Canada? What was his plan to deal with the flying D2s we’ve clearly been shown? Why did he even need to do this plan when we’ve been told in past episodes that the D2s were being pushed back, killed off, and going into hibernation? The sad part is that we get none of those answers. While the story ends on sort of a bittersweet note, the post-credits ending reveals that this whole anime was essentially a prequel to the mobile game this show is tied with.

Overall, while not perfect, it ended on quite an interesting note given what’s shown in the post-credits. It had everything. Action-packed with girls throwing punches at each other with quality animation that only proved to be one hell of a battle between Musicarts which is to be expected from two respectable Japanese Animation studios such as Madhouse and Mappa. It left enough room for fans to speculate further and possibly bait its target audience into buying the game this anime is supposedly based on because at the end of the day, the anime’s role is to promote the game. By playing, I believe we will get the complete narrative this plot was going for. Whether or not a Season 2 happens depends on the popularity of this particular franchise within Japan.