I’ve been watching Blade Dance of Elementers lately. This is the sort of anime I talk about when I want to show how far I’ve fallen, because it’s YET ANOTHER harem anime set in a fantasy world where Only Girls Can Do <special thing> but the main character is a GUY who can do <special thing> so naturally the thing to do is to send him to the super prestigious academy full of hot girls wearing extremely short skirts.

Oh my god. This is the premise of the Wheel of Time series, if you come right down to it. I’m imagining a terrifying alternate universe where those books get an anime adaptation in which Rand is sent to Magical High School.

It’s kind of like a fantasy Infinite Stratos, when I think about it, though the fortunate thing is that Blade Dance never got a second season so it can’t have the same incredible drop-off in quality from season 1 to season 2 that Infinite Stratos had.

Oh, right. Blade Dance got 12 episodes. It’s based on a 20 volume light novel series. The light novels have not been translated, and presumably never will be. I’m on episode 9 of the series and it really feels like maybe by episode 12 we will have gotten to the point where all of the characters have decided to team up, at which point it will end without them actually doing anything as a team.

Before I get to the point of this post, let me give you some more details so you can never ever watch this show.

This is Claire. Claire is a red-haired fire-element-using pettanko violent tsundere who CAN’T COOK LOL OMG seriously everything she cooks turns to charcoal, it’s hilarious right.

Right now, think of three shows with red haired pettanko violent tsunderes who can’t cook. If it took you more than five seconds, I assume it was just because you were trying to decide whether Louise from Zero no Tsukaima has red hair or pink hair.

The rest of the cast is pretty much the same character-design-by-checklist. You’ve got your ice user, who has a bigger chest than Claire and is also a tsundere, you’ve got a princess character who is even more endowed and who is super sweet and nice but has a little bit of a evil side, there’s the faithful maid who points out when the other girls are being dumb, and then there’s Est, who is a thousand year old sword spirit that manifests in the form of a loli because it makes the main character nervous and also because she can turn on THESE EYES when she wants parfaits:

Officers, she is ONE THOUSAND YEARS OLD and there is nothing wrong with watching this show.

OK, you know what, I’ll just come along quietly. No need to make a scene.

On the topic of knee socks, the only way this differentiates itself from the thousand other harem fantasy anime shows based on light novels is that it’s basically Zettai Ryouiki: The Animation. There is a ridiculous amount of dialog delivered with the camera at this viewing angle:

I am almost certain that this anime exists because someone in the studio had a thigh fetish and wanted to get it made into a show. I guess you have to give them a certain degree of respect for that?

That said, even though everything this show has to offer is something I’ve seen many times before, and usually done better, it’s still making me laugh. That’s about all I want from my entertainment these days.