Reviews for Takt Op. Destiny

Takt opt Destiny is a derivative greedy waifu bait that emerges from an intent of making a mixed-media project for a gacha game, how fitting by its nature. By using the collaboration of two extremely hyped studios that have an enormous catalogue of quality animation, be it MAPPA, and be it Madhouse, almost like the old school collaborating with the new school, like the Conrad Tokyo of the industry, the anime invited us to watch a visually appealing anime, but while it does so in one way or another because the animation is pleasing to look at, the whole anime sucks nevertheless, being one ofthe tackiest that I’ve seen this year.

There is a formula that will not fail in anime, or well, it hardly fails. The equation is “Music+Anime=Success”, you could make the most stupid, pandering or bait plot, but if you include music it could hit anyways, just watch how Your Lie in April succeeded while being a predictable and obviously manipulating anime with inhuman characters. To fail at such formula seems like something so out of reach that it dumbfounds me how the music aspect of this anime feels as forced as the research of an antivaxxer. It is terrible. There is a guy, that plays piano, but cant play it, because plot, and there are characters that are supposed to fight with the orders of the music conductors… but they fight with weapons anyways so the music is just background. That is, that is the music aspect, and don’t get me started about how this guy can only think about playing piano for the whole first 3 episodes, and how apparently his play should evoke something on us, how can it provoke something when this character is nothing more than an excuse to play piano and manipulate a waifu like a pokemon trainer. Yeah, I will just go to youtube and hear someone playing piano, it would be the same as this anime, or maybe it would be better, because I wouldn’t hear any of that annoying dialogue that has less deepness than the research of Valkyrae cream. Honestly, the only point of using music in this anime as a source of power is because they will eventually create a climax through music, like Vivy but replacing the annoying robot with an annoying blonde girl

Then the next problem is that the characters are completely out of the concept of creativity, well, apart from their designs which are kind of attractive. Just let me explain it like this; the main trio is composed by an obsessive guy that wants to be free (To play music) and eliminate the D2, while also holding a special power given from the gods of plot that nobody knows how it works, it also has a girl that is extremely badass, edgy to the core, and fights extremely well, and a girl that serves as a bridge between them both and acts as a straight woman but would be better off dead because who cares about her. Now, which anime did this before? Maybe my brain is foggy, I would let you stick the pieces, I won’t attack that here, but I’m not saying that this titanic derivation is originated from there either, just telling how uninspired this is. And I’m not even going to start telling how every other single character is a mess, like seriously, a gay character that sexually harass the main character? a quirky loli character? What will they include next, a terminally ill musician that wants to hear music for the last time?

Anyways, I have to be sincere, most of us didn’t really watch this abomination for the plot, just read the fucking premise, we all watched this because it was a MAPPA x Madhouse project, and the fact that this sucks hard is not because the plot and the characters are completely terrible and out of any conception of originality, this sucks hard because it is just a soulless attempt to sell us a product. The anime is not trying to tell us anything, it is just exposing over and over again an edgy waifu doing edgy shit in an edgy environment because that is what sells today, that is why this anime lacks creativity, because it is using proven formulas and concepts from the latest best-seller anime that have been going hard. If for some reason fighting with swimwear while riding a sausage was successful as a concept take it for granted that this anime would do it, and the main guy would be wearing a speedo

I have seen a lot of hate for this anime in most of social media platform that I use,usually it goes like “waifu bait” or “fanservice anime” or “the detective is already dead 2.0” and more but let just be realistic here,from any point of way you saw it,you know it’s not even that bad to get so much hate. Let’s take a look of a few aspect. The story : Well I can’t say that it’s not really the most ‘’original’’,but back to me,originality doesn’t really matter to me,as long as it good at what it’s trying to be and this anime done quite good,it hasa fantasy and music genre.

is it a good fantasy anime ? judging by the concept,yes

is it a good music anime ? ABSOLUTELY,im not really familiar with classic music but even I know that the music is good.

The animation : MAPPA X Madhouse,do I even need to explain ?,the animation is gorgeus and detailed at every frame,the battle animation is awesome.no doubt it has the best animation from all of the anime in this season,outclassing tsuki to laika and mushoku tensei.

The music : Like I said before,it’s a good music anime,the BGs in every scene is on point,the OP song is a total banger and the ED is my favorite type of music it just *chef kiss* perfect.

The character : Destiny and Cossete is the MC but I think everyone would agree that Anna is the real deal here ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) .

Overall : I totally recommend this anime if you like music,especially if you into music.I may not have a great taste but you can trust me that Takt.OP IS NOT A BAD ANIME and it definitely doesn’t deserve all the hate that it gets.

Takt Op. Destiny may rival Fate/Apocrypha and Fate/Grand Order as the single most kludgy, embarrassing, confused mishmash of otaku-culture stew that the Japanese anime industry as ever attempted to pour down my throat. You have to be confident when you recognize vapidness to say, “This is vapid. There is nothing of value here. I cast it aside. I’m moving on with my life.” And this show desperately calls for that kind of an axe-grinding. If you can watch even the first episode of this gacha game commercial and see anything other than lifeless, artless, cynical trash appealing to the absolute lowest common denominator of theanime community, then I imagine you'll be fine with anything it does or anywhere it goes so long as it continues to have waifubait and vaguely cool-looking, lopsidedly produced action scenes to keep you horny and awake. I beg you, please don’t take this the wrong way. I’m not trying to condescend. This is my genuine recommendation. Watch Takt Op. Destiny if you legitimately do not care about the quality of the anime you watch.

Anime adaptations of manga, light novels, and even anime-original concepts have a story at their core and something they are trying to portray or convey while also attempting to expand the audience of the original work, but shows like this have nothing at their core except shitty mobile games designed to drain money from gullible pay pigs. This is a business model you should feel insulted to have aimed at you. It's why there's absolutely no creativity or originality in any of its story beats. As with all generalizations, exceptions exist—projects like Shingeki no Bahamut exist—projects rooted in gacha games where the producers gave the studio creative freedom and money to guarantee their audience be treated to high-quality TV anime they wouldn't have had otherwise, but Takt Op. Destiny is no such example. You can tell when a corporation just dumps money on a committee of burnt out writers and borderline enslaved animators, and they just vomit out whatever they last ate onto the animation frames. They are in it for the paycheck, as they frankly should be, and all you get is sterile, soulless mediocrity.

The pitch meeting for this was just one executive going, “Guys…GUYS! What if we just…COMBINED Vivy and Fate?” While the rest of the board room proceeded to desperately try and mark their bank accounts while simultaneously suffering from violent orgasms. Every central element this series features is a shameless, boldfaced rip-off. Master/servant relationship; autistic kuudere waifu heroine; loudmouth ponytail tsundere who gives exposition dumps and advises the master/servant duo; self-insert MC on the ground looking up at the blonde, stoic, female warrior backed by the moonlit night sky. I mean, they literally got Takahiro Miura himself to storyboard that exact same shot from Fate/Stay Night into episode one of this shit. It’s like one producer went, “Shit! These otaku losers aren’t buying enough Saber merch anymore! How will I pay for my fourth yacht?!” And another one just said, “Dude, calm down. Just make her fourteen years old and stick her in a lolita road movie.” Then they had to make her an idol and add the music theme because POWER OF MUSIC GUYS MAKE SURE TO BUY OUR SOUNDTRACK!

It rips-off Guilty Crown as well, but I hesitate to even bring this up, because comparing that gorgeous Production IG original to this pile of rat shit just feels insulting. Everyone who criticizes this show insists on saying, “Basically everything about this show sucks, but at least it has good animation.” But it doesn’t. It looks atrocious, and this isn’t just another case of, “Oh, 90% of the show looks cheap, but the action scenes are flashy enough to get kids hyped about it, therefore no one cares about its usual quality.” This is different. The action scenes themselves look bad. This was a joint production between Madhouse and MAPPA, and while the Madhouse episodes humiliate the MAPPA episodes, the Madhouse fight scenes still look fucking terrible, and it’s not always the fault of the animation—it’s the compositing, the cinematography, and the utter lack of consistent in-between frames. It tries so pathetically hard to copy how ufotable does their action sequences, but since its 2D animation is so choppy and off-model, all it can muster up is that horrific, abrasive, epilepsy-inducing digital effect spam they do.

First of all, they use foreground focus to hide shitty digital background art. It’s like a bootlegged version the depth-of-field blur you see in KyoAni shows like Hibike! Euphonium or Violet Evergarden, only it's implemented in such a way you know is only done to hide bad compositing and hideous backgrounds. Next is the hazy cinematography. The Director of Photography was also DOP on Attack on Titan: The Final Season, and holy fucking shit, I could’ve told you that from a mile away. When it’s not assaulting your eyeballs with that ufotable digital effect spam, all the colors look so washed out and arid. It could very well be a stylistic choice, but it’s not stylized enough for that to be apparent. I don’t know if the compositing was done at Madhouse, MAPPA, or if it was outsourced, but if it was MAPPA, I wouldn’t be surprised, because while there was no laughably egregious shit like the characters in Jujutsu Kaisen running on air with CG backgrounds twirling around behind them, it’s not too far off. I invite you to go watch the first six or seven minutes of episode one so you can see everything I’m talking about.

The only other projects this director has ever had any significant involvement with is a forgettable Nanoha continuation and Granblue Fantasy (another hollow, lifeless advertisement for some video game I have no interest in buying), and you can tell. Random monsters appear with no rhyme or reason outside of a few bare-bones mechanics necessary to facilitate tensionless fight sequences and ambiguous anime superpowers for our special chunni heroes to fight them with. No matter how much they try to gild it with recognizable studios, it's still just your everyday soulless gachashit. The MC has zero personality to better facilitate self-insertion by the gachabrain, his harem only grows as the show goes on, and every girl is cut from the exact same sheet of cardboard. As if idols fighting aliens through the power of music didn’t sound fucking retarded enough already, the scriptwriter’s god-awful track record stood strong, and everything about the screenwriting is a heap of trash fire. The dialogue is cringe inducing at times, and the character development is so incredibly surface level it hurts.

Takt Op. Destiny is more corporate filth taken straight off the assembly line. Its main gist is to market some potentially profitable anime girl, so when they start pulling out the hamfisted dramatic backstories, I rolled my fucking eyes. I don't mind watching some tongue-in-cheek Fate rip-off if I have enough alcohol in my system, but slogging through paper-thin backstories for these non-characters who no one will ever remember or give a fuck about two days after the show’s finale just shows how the creators responsible for this garbage have no idea what the tone of their show is supposed to be. It’s the definition of lacking self-awareness. The ambient animation looks awful enough even without factoring in the blurry cinematography, the plot was nearly nonexistent, and where they did actually try to advance something it was terribly paced. Last but not least, the setting was criminally wasted. It was extremely jarring to see these people who were supposed to be saving the American countryside happily destroy people's homes and businesses and just laugh about it like callous, detached psychopaths.

It’s a music themed anime where the BGM is completely lackluster. It felt like a series that needed someone like Hiroyuki Sawano but instead got music that is pretty generic. Yoshihiro Ike composed the soundtrack with ryo as the music producer, but the soundtrack never felt particularly outstanding. Sawano’s work may sound a little samey after a while, but his standout tracks are simply fantastic, and I don’t know anyone who wasn’t blow away by his output from 2009 to 2017. But ultimately, this show’s attempt to sell itself with music and classic orchestra just falls flat. Everything about it is totally insipid and lacking in any substance. When I first called this show a rip-off, I had to lure you in with big, famous names like Fate, Vivy, and Guilty Crown, but now that you’ve stuck around, I can finally reveal the series which Takt Op. Destiny rips-off the most. It’s called Shinkyouku Soukai Polyphonica. What’s that? You’ve never heard of it? Well, that’s good. The plagiarist hacks responsible for Takt Op. Destiny were counting on it. Fuck this show and everything it stands for. If Beethoven were still alive to see his work used in this way, he’d tear his eyes out so he could be deaf AND fucking blind.

Thank you for reading.

At first, I must say that I want to examine this work logically. I don't know about the next episodes, just I'll write my views only up to ep4. I follow this anime myself, but until episode 4, the story and characterization did not seem to reach a satisfactory level. Before examining the other strengths and weaknesses of the anime, I must say that this anime is at a very high level in terms of graphics, and if you are only looking for an anime with attractive graphic fights, see this work without reading other views. But if storytelling and characterization are important to you, I don'tthink this anime can satisfy you much.

As I said, I follow the anime myself, but I think this work is unable to progress in the story because it is original, and it may be boring and repetitive.

Other weaknesses of the characterization that can be mentioned, the main character of this story and also the two girls next to him. For example, the main character's goals and feelings are very superficial and destiny's feelings are not understandable at all. The supporting characters of the story can not help the story as their place at all and look weak. The story may seem mysterious, but it leaves the viewer in only an aura of ambiguity, and the viewer cannot understand deeper into the ideals and goals of the main character. And the other thing that bothered me the most was the story villains. The story has not been able to address the D2s in any way. At least he could create creatures in these four episodes that would delight the viewer or create different types of these creatures, each of which has certain tangible abilities.

Finally, I must say that it is possible to develop the anime in terms of story, but what is characteristic is that this anime is still a work that has powerful graphics but is empty from the inside, and this work is famous only because of destiny's face and clothes and the graphics.

**This review is spoiler free** My Opinion Well, I was expecting a huge deal out of Takt Op. Destiny. And It gave me just what I was looking for. The anime was fairly good enough according to me. It had some pretty new things to it too. Story 8 Well, the story is quite cliche I won't argue on it. But, the way this anime presents the story is kind of fun and amazing. Some points in the story were also quite new. So I think 8 is best suited for this anime in terms of story. Art 10 Mappa and Madhouse did a great job in the art for theanime. It was flawless. From the action scenes to normal chit-chats everything was stunning. The character designs were also amazing. No complains so yeah 10 in art.

Sound 8

Now, if the whole plot of the anime is based around music then of course the music were good in the anime. I personally really enjoyed all the ost played in the anime. And the opening as well as ending were also good. So I would give it an 8.

Character 8

The character development was fairly decent. We get introduced to new things about all the characters as the story progresses. And this anime also give decent enough screen time to side characters while maintaining the screen time for mains. So 8 is best in terms of character in Takt Op. Destiny.

Conclusion

Overall this anime was quite good for me considering we have some trashy shows too. This anime had some of the best animations & OST's I heard in anime. Also, the whole show was fairy decent. I think an overall 8 is the best this anime can get.

Over 10 years ago, studio MAPPA was founded on the grounds to make a show called 'Kids on the Slope'. Madhouse has an even more extensive history tracing all the way back to the 1970s. Fash forward to 2021 and the rest is history. When you put these two studios together to producer a quality show, what can go wrong? Well, let me tell you. A lot. Since the announcement in March this year, the franchise didn't really spark much hype at the time. After it was revealed that studio MAPPA and Madhouse would handle the production, the show got boosted interest. The previews and promotionalmaterial speaks for itself, at least on a technical level. With a mixture of 2D and 3D artwork, Takt Op. Destiny did on some levels, take the world by storm. That doesn't make it an anime of the year contender but does bring in more eyeballs. But yet, somehow, they couldn't completely capitalize and became a shell of its technical accomplishment.

Watching Takt Op. Destiny first felt like seeing a cinematic movie, at least for the first few episodes. The flashy fights, cinematic sequences, and overall chereography makes an impressive debut on the screen. Then, there's the plot dealing with a fictional enemy to humanity known as the D2. The show makes it clear that music plays a prominent role against them, and hence, we have two type of resistance: Conductor and Musicart. The story follows two prominent characters who play this role known to us as Takt Asahina and Cosette Schneider (aka Destiny.)Joining them also includes a girl named Anna, who plays a valuable role as an ally. Together, these three try to make a difference in the world as evidenced by their actions.

At a fundamental level, Takt and Cosette shares a somewhat personal and professional relationship. Both characters get the job done when it calls for it but it's also clear that the duo has some interpersonal issues. For instance, Takt takes music perhaps too seriously and is generally considered anti-social with an indifferent attitude towards almost everything but music. Cosette can be brutally honest although she appears to be more friendlier than Takt when dealing with people. While the two are compatible, they form a peculiar character chemistry that I find to be confusing. It's hard to get emotionally attached to the pair when everything seems like clockwork. Almost every episode have them fight the D2 and the story rarely evolves from its base premise. There's some occasional background storytelling for them but ultimately, the show suffers from an engaging plot. Character development is limited as well when the majority of the show focuses them on taking missions. They work like robots day and night and even during off-time, following their adventures quickly grows into a chore. You may get entertained by Cosette's sharp tongue, witty humor, and sensational appetite towards sweets at times. But is that all the anime has to offer?

Looking deeper into the anime, it feels like the show has little personal connection towards the main characters when they are doing their work. Every episode falls short in developing our cast. One somewhat unique element I do want to mention is the realistic settings of the modern world. Takt Op. Destiny almost feels like a futuristic dystopia at times but retains mostly a real feeling of familiarity. Settings such as Las Vegas are what we are familiar with while New York has its metropolis vibe. There's not too many places our characters journey across the world but it's safe to say that the anime has a degree of realism, despite all the otherworldly shenanigans.

Outside of Takt and Cosette, the rest of the cast are ambigiously underdeveloped. I say this because it's difficult to feel invested about the characters. Even though they have their reasons for fighting (Lenny being a noticable example), they are often overshadowed by the plot's purpose or Takt and Cosette. That is to say, they are still somewhat important to the overall story but it's obvious from day one that the anime is mainly about Takt and Cosette. And for for better or worse, Anna feels more like a main supporting character than the middle girl of the trio. Acting as a big sister type for Cosette, the anime does go into some depth to show her kindness. The overall character chemistry is unfortunately, meek at best. Oh and before you ask, this anime does not have any real romance. You may get a surprise at how Anna responds to Takt near the end of the story, but overall, don't expect any sort of love to bloom between the main characters. Takt and Cosette aren't in this show to start a relationship. No way.

Even though it's been mentioned already, Takt Op. Destiny's most outstanding feature is its technical accomplishment. It's one of the few CGI/2D art mixed anime that I've been impressed by in recent years. The colorful visuals sometimes reminds me of ufotable for their high level production. This is especially true in the first few episodes that looks and feels like a movie. Character designs are also highly decorated for the Musicarts with Cosette/Destiny being the poster girl. Even the D2 in this anime inspires a sense of fear with their monstrous look and impact of their actions. And overall, the road-trip like story adventure takes us to realistic places around the world. Take some notes, Tesla Note.

Takt Op. Destiny is the type of show that had a fantastic start but began to degrade over time, with each episode, to the point where it never managed to truly recover itself. Maybe some people set higher expectations than me after watching the promotional material. However, I stand firm and say that the anime is average at best, being that it's not breakout anime of this year yet also watchable and on some levels, recommendable to those seeking for some popcorn entertainment.

Takt OP. is the perfect example of “style over substance”. Whilst I admittedly enjoyed watching the anime, I would be remised to not speak on the lack of any real cohesive story. We’re essentially thrown into a beautifully rendered world brought to life by MAPPA and Madhouse, told there’s a war between humans and aliens who hate music, and made to fend for ourselves. In fairness, the backstory is fleshed Outstanding a bit more, but that doesn’t mean the writing gets much better. This show honestly felt like a tech demo for new animation and storyboarding techniques. Like imagine those Unreal Engine 5 play-tests, butin anime form. If that’s what the creators were going for, they certainly succeeded. From the very first episode’s first few minutes I was blown away by the attention to the detail of the artists who worked on the show. It’s not exaggerating to say that Takt OP. has some of the best animation ever in the medium. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have the story to back it up.

That said, story is important, but it’s not everything. You can definitely enjoy an anime that has a weak story, that’s not a crime. I really did enjoy seeing Takt and Destiny grow together over the course of the anime. I found a lot of similarities between their relationship and Artoria and Emiya from the Fate series. In fact, the whole musicart/maestro dynamic seems like it’s taken straight from the Type-Moon universe. The ending was “ok” at best, but I still felt most of the characters got a decent conclusion to their arcs. The writing just wasn’t really good from the beginning for them to get much better. Even though this isn’t the strongest show out there, I did have a lot of fun with it. The fights, slice of life and overall artistic quality made it an enjoyable experience and I definitely think everyone should check the anime out, if only for the sakuga.

Takt Op. Destiny is somewhat of a preview of the future of anime. I think some time in the not too distant future, shows will consistently be made with this type of artistic quality. It also seems like collaborative efforts between studios are becoming more common. This means more staff working on a project, less stress on staff and a better product for consumers. A win win for everyone.

Takt gets 7 pianos out of 10.

So, mobile game a.k.a mobage adaptations, especially gacha ones. What are the most prominent features that comes to mind when Japan always has these type of mixed-media anime that just basically exists just to promote the numerous amout of mobile games at their disposal? Is it the concept that's derived from the setting basis of the mobage? Is it the characters that are meant to bait the viewer into purchasing them like DLC after watching the anime? Is it the "original" wack writing concept of the story, plot and characters? Is it the subpar animation that makes and/or breaks the experience? Is it the mediocre OST that more than skippingthe OP/ED, just didn't do enough for enticement?

Is it the actual mobage that it being influenced from the anime's promotion, tends to always suck, because you don't live in Japan and/or are thankful that Japan banks heavily on these subpar games and you wish to not have a hand on the game?

This season, look no further than the over-hyped and under-delivered Takt Op. Destiny, a show that's meant to promote Bandai Namco and DeNA's brand new {tákt: op.} musical sci-fi action mobage in Japan, and that the only thing that will catch people's eyes is the collab between two well-established studios for such a mixed-media project that's the "best of the best" of mobage adaptations ever seen yet. Be VERY honest, a MAPPA x Madhouse project we will all not shun our attention from, but it's the same tried-and-true formula to sell a product that only Japan will enjoy, and we the audience living elsewhere just couldn't give two flying effs about the mobage, our critique is only based on the anime which is just the same wash, rinse and repeat marketing ploy.

This marketing ploy consists of a story where "The Music is Already Dead" because of monsters called "D2", produced by a black meteorite containing Black Night Siderites which fell from the sky, hating humanly-produced music and drawn to the music source to attempt destruction, as it's the only thing that can ensure their decimation. To the defense, the New York Symphonica created "Musicarts," young girls drawn and inspired from classical music sheets that are directed by human "Conductors". Should be easy to digest, but given the usual fanfare of mobage adaptations, this is very basic.

The marketing ploy is supported by its main characters: Takt Asahina, Destiny and Anna Schneider. A music geek and a piano genius, Takt comes off as being an aloof, inert and misanthropic, compared to his father Kenji, who was a famous conductor before the situational pipeline of the D2s took a toll on his life. The Musicart to the Conductor is Destiny, or otherwise known as Cosette, the younger sister of the Schneider sisters that's borne from Beethoven's Symphony No. 5. Cosette used to be an easy-going, happy-go-lucky girl living with her older sister Anna, before the freak accident with encountering the D2s while playing classical music with Takt on the streets caused her to lose her memories and rebirth as the Musicart Destiny. But this chain reaction wasn't a clean process, and if at any time that Destiny is called forth, Takt transforms his right arm into a conductor's baton, while corruption seeps slowly through his entire being. The more the unstable Destiny is utilized, the worse the corruption spread. Anna on the other hand, acts as an in-between parental guide between Takt and Destiny, while searching for a way to turn the latter back to the younger sister that she knows.

With bits and pieces of character development, these somewhat decent characters can be likable, especially for the Musicarts which are bait-and-switch waifus due to their unique designs done by the one and only LAM. One such example lies from yet another Musicart-Conductor pairing: Leonard "Lenny" Flyheart and Titan. The former is a former Symphonica conductor whose existence is thanks to Takt's father Kenji, whom influenced him to take the music route until his unfortunate death from the D2s, and the latter borne from Mahler's Symphony No. 1 is a carefree soul whom speaks with onomatopoeic behaviour , and is a serious fighter. Arguably the only pair of characters that truly fits the adage of "action speaks more than words", it's easy to get invested into both characters, from being tutors to both Takt and Destiny to the occasional downtime.

The New York Symphonica on the other hand, I'm not the only one who feels that the villain plot is so wasted on these guys whom have such a reputation of an organization behind their backs. The opportunity to correct the tides of time became its utmost failure, because the Symphonica are nothing more than your stereotypical coporate dogs meant to serve for the greater good while easily hiding true intentions behind the face of the organization. The CEO of the Symphonica, Sagan, does at least feel like a decent villain with that much backing and power on his hand. Felix Schindler on the other hand, he's the worst offender of the "lot" commanding the unassigned Musicart Valkyrie/Walküre that's borne from Wagner's Die Walküre for his own gain. Yep, talk about dull, uninspired, and "trying" to insert more hype musical waifus to promote their character worth playing for the mobage.

This is all pinned to series composer Kiyoko Yoshimura, of which her writing skills really aren't all that spectacular to begin with. Her recent works of the Cardfight!! Vanguard G series and being the in-house series composer to many more recent MAPPA works (Granblue Fantasy S2, God of High School, Koi to Producer: EVOL×LOVE) just proves time and time again that she only keeps getting worse at her scriptwriting and composing craft, of which it all culminates to affect this show in its rear-headed ugliness.

The only advantage (that comes back to bite all involved) of Takt Op. Destiny being in the visuals and animation, even that is a misnomer in and of itself. I'd already expect that this mobage adaptation is a rather high-profile one because of the collaboration between MAPPA and Madhouse, but don't let that ever sway your overall expectations of the entire show as a whole. Being another show part of the endless sweatshop schedule of MAPPA announced at their 10th Anniversary Stage event, I'd not be surprised that the studio is firing all guns at whatever they have, it does not take away the fact that MAPPA has turned from a quality studio to a desperate corporate shill of quantity that there's no more substantial evidence enough to shield them. It's good that Madhouse is back to showcase the quality that we've come to expect from the studio that has been in hiatus for a year, but MAPPA, you've shat yourselves up big-time this time.

The unmistakable "we all agree this is good" part will lie in the music department, that is a central focus to the show...in name only because of the Musicart origins. The OST is impressive no doubt, that's really expected of the OP composed by Supercell's ryo feat. Mafumafu and gaku, and Mika Nakashima's ED. But this is a case of quantity over quality, and as much as the music really shines in its bombastic glamour, it will always be overshadowed of the fact that the entire show just tries too hard to stand out even with all the pompous hits that manages to stick out more than most.

So there you have it: a very new, just released mobage that unexpectedly had the highest of high of budgets that I've seen ever in subpar adaptations, only for that same subpar-ness to slowly seep into the entire show quite expectedly. Never thought that I'd pay so much attention to the regular shitty mobage adaptation that the anime industry has for years, and Takt Op. Destiny adds a number to the same reception that mobage-to-anime adaptations should not exist as mere promo material quality. A disappointment this is too easy to dismiss, but we the audience should learn this one thing: learn to not put insanely high expectations, of which the majority will never, ever learn to get out of this ruse.

"What is a good character nowdays?" "Well, it's one that's dynamic." ... "okay, I don't see any way to change this character, can we just kill her and make a new one?" "Yeah and such an dramatic turn of events will drastically effect the other characters as well.""Then let's just stow all character developement into 10 seconds (combined) in one episode, the "sudden action" and "realization", then we don't have to go through it for the later episodes to come"

"Sounds great"

...

MyAnimelist ranking: "This is a good watch"

...

This show had an ineresting plot point, but failed to execute it, and they can't fix that and it won't change.

*Some spoilers for the first five episodes Such a disappointment lol, another style over substance anime. All it's got going for it is pretty colors and pretty characters, is there anything else worthwhile? I'm struggling here... The conductor has to be one of the worst ideas I've ever seen in anime, let's face it, you're doing next to nothing in helping with these battles. Destiny is the one in control and in charge here. The music aspect of this show is non existent and isn't portrayed well at all, in either battle as creative ideas or just the soundtrack in general. I was waiting for Hell's big fightscene and what do they give me? XD XD Some stupid fucking yandere clown with shitty roller-skate powers. Just piss off already...

This is reminding me of Listeners, both set in a world where music isn't played, they're both on a road trip to a certain place and they are always fighting the same monsters every episode lol. Listeners failed with it's direction and pacing and you didn't care for the characters at all, this show also seems to be heading in that direction.

Trash/10.

Well what can I say ... at some point in my life, music became something I couldn't go a day without. Now, I don't really listen to classical music but I have a huge appreciation to the people who created all those masterpieces. In this anime, we can hear A LOT of different classical music pieces that suit incredibly well in the scenes they are played at! I love how many scenes, just as "Titan's finale", Lenny starts playing 4th/Final movement of the 1st symphony of Gustav Mahler - which funnily enough, this symphony has the nickname "Titan" - how cool is that? Obviously there area lot of other interesting musical moments throughout the show, which will take a long while for ma to list, but what I can say is that, Takt Op. Destiny is one unique anime that contain a little bit of everything with the biggest impact being - music. I am sure people who have a high appreciation of art and music will also enjoy this!

Without including any spoilers. all I will say is - give this anime a shot since you might very well end up surprised from what it has to offer!

Takt Op. Destiny was one of the most disappointing shows in 2021. Ambitious project involving cooperation between two of the most beloved studios in the anime industry (Mappa and Madhouse) turned out to be a simple eye candy with no substance or depth in it... Probably most regretful thing about it all is how much potential this story has in it: Musical themes, awesome waifus, complex story and lore, interesting characters, great action. Unfortunately authors fall short to deliver high quality writing to back this premise up and instead we get: Failed musical themes, hollow waifus, bad story with inconsequential lore, blank or awful characters, meaningless action withconfusing combat system.

Takt Op. Destiny is placed in a post apocalyptic world where earth was showered by mysterious magic stones, first ones were harmless with some mysterious power in them, but then came the EVIL STONES. It looks like bad stones spawned evil monsters known as D2's which hate music for some reason. When humanity was on the brink of collapse Magicarts and Conductors showed up (show never explained how they were created btw), which had the power of GOOD STONES and managed to save United States and presumably rest of the world (idk this show doesn't care about other countries). Now D2's are coming back and we need to live in a dystopian reality where merciless government prevents us from listening to music... because apparently in the year 2047 they have no headphones. If this sounds like a convoluted premise don't worry, it isn't important for most of the series.

Visually Takt op. is a colorful assault on your eyes.

This anime tries to look great and distinctive while failing at both with a third of the environments consists of deserts, which gets boring fast. They also somehow managed to make fights that feel like they had a lot of effort put into them while looking mediocre at best.

Music and sound of this anime are pretty good, matching circumstances and with nice feel to it. This alone would be good enough for most other animes but not in this instance. As a show with music as its main theme, Takt op. hardly does enough to develop this idea.

Story is centered around a musician, with characters born from music in a world without music, but it is important how authors miss opportunities to elevate their ideas further while also giving them some meaning.

The most important idea of this show (conductor musicart relationship) is bad.

Musicart is basically a female transformed by the power of music, after which she becomes a weapon to fight D2's. Conductors on the other hand are made up of normal human males which use musicarts as tools while enhancing their abilities (I don't know if there is a story reason behind those genders being assigned to those roles, as musicarts are more numerous and with more interesting designs I suspect it is simply to make more waifus). How do conductors use musicarts? By waving their sticks around. This is a problems and a missed opportunity, why leave music out of combat? First thing that comes to mind is to have conductors use instruments which would give them something interesting to do instead of sitting in the back with their sticks while doing nothing. This whole stick thing relegates music in action to just being a soundtrack.

Second problem is with inconsistency of this relationship. We are told that conductors are there to boost musicart's abilities, but... when Takt (mc) uses his conductor stick his magicart sometimes does a different somewhat stronger kind of attack and sometimes she doesn't and sometimes she does strong attacks without Takt and his stick movements.We also have a bunch of magicarts running around without conductors while fighting with high efficiency even beating musicarts which are supported by conductors. We are told how this should work, but see something completely different which ends up making everything confusing and makes outcomes of fights unpredictable in a very bad way. This also raises a question "are conductors even necessary?"

Someone might say that we have a good example of how conductor can be useful as a commander in the back who can observe the entire situation, but musicarts aren't dumber than humans... if all you need is a commander then just make few teams of musicarts with one commanding the rest. In this situation not only such a musicart can defend herself and won't need protection, but also when fight gets heated she can attack as well

So in combat musical themes are undeveloped and the whole 'no music' problem is so bad that authors had to literally delete the existence of headphones. How about characters?

We have Takt an introverted person with a tragic background, he is also an unlikeable and uncaring psychopath who needs to play on piano so much that he will do it even if someone will be put in the risk of death because of him, while also making himself completely responsible for a lot of destroyed property. He tries to write music from time to time, but this thread goes nowhere..

Then we have Cosette or Destiny later on who becomes Takt's Musicart (why she transforms into a musicart? never explained). She probably had most potential in our main trio for being somewhat interesting, but then anime turned her into basically a robot which over time is becoming slightly interesting. But it is cool because this robot of a character is here to be cute! Look, she just accidentally blew up our house! Look, she came out through window instead of using the door! Look, she loves sweets!!! Isn't that cute?!

And then there is Anna with no character development, she is here just to care for our protagonists and scold them from time to time. Anime is also hinting her romantic interest in Takt (with whom she has sibling like relationship) at 11th episode out of nowhere... so that's something I guess.

Are those characters an embodiment of musical animes? You decide. So what about character development that we do have?

Takt goes from piano psycho to piano maniac who now cares about some people. Destiny becomes somewhat human while also getting recognized as a person. Thats it. Plus this growth isn't even executed that nicely, you would think that someone would at least try to challenge Takt's love for music but no. They even made an antagonist who hates music and created an opportunity for some meaningful conflict, this would require good writing tho...

You also need to know that this anime loves to waste your time making artificial problems for a while only to forget about them when action is about to kick in (they literally had started episode with few minutes of examining their destroyed car which then magically repairs itself when they abruptly have to get to the place of action) or sending protagonists on a series of side quests(New Orleans).

Anime as a whole seriously slows down at least two times which is very puzzling taking into consideration how much it later speeds up in last episodes. The end of this story is rushed to say the least. We have two finale antagonists, where we know almost nothing about the first one and didn't know that the second one existed at all until the 11th episode. I mean how can you take things so slowly if you are planning to make such a convoluted and complex finale? There is also the third antagonist that I didn't mention which shows up before the climax and let me tell you he is one of the most insulting characters I've seen in a while.

This moron has so many issues that I decided to write an entire spoiler rant at the end of this review, if you don't feel like reading it all you need to know is that he is basically a very annoying, psycho version of Thanos with even dumber idea of how to use his power to change the world that is of course rightfully his.

It is worth mention how convenient this show is for its plot. Characters randomly and without reason find each other all the time and Destiny sometimes will feel where Takt is but not when he is following her and so on.

If after all of this you still want to watch at least the first episode let me spoil it for you. It also nicely encompases what happenes in a typical episode of this anime when there is some action.

Intro starts saying that 'not too long ago' there was a post apocalyptic event of which anime shows no signs in landscape (maybe I'm overly interpreting how catastrophic this event was). Than there is a lot of talking about stones from sky and their 'mysterious powers' musicarts and conductors apparently use powers of those stones. Then came the black stones and with them D2's, but fortunately humanity had conductors as well as their magicarts (according to what we see in this into in those days both conductors and magicarts where able to fly.). Afterwards they saved humanity from D2's. If you finished this series there is a large chance that you forgot about all of this, which just shows how unimportant this sequence is.

Okay we passed the intro, first episode at a second watch is a really confusing experience which I will try to recreate here.

So you start watching and apparently Takt and destiny decided to lure a single D2 into the city while endangering civilians instead of killing it in the wilderness. They do it with a piano that just sits there in public, in a perfect condition, where some random kiddo can press one key and doom this whole town. What is even stranger, Destiny was fighting this one D2 outside the city without being transformed. So they actually started fighting D2 outside, but then Takt was like screw this shit I'm out and went to play piano? WHAT!? And then Takt teleports on top of the roof and we have a fight. After the fight it turns out that to kill D2's you have to destroy a stone in their chest which after this episode will never be shown again or have any importance at all. We get some bad attempt at comedy, which is followed by dialogue with Destiny, who scolds her 'maestro' leading to a back and forth between them. She also says something about tuning her adjustment when they will reach New York, which is never brought up again. After that comes Anna to scold Takt, apparently they were shopping and then we somehow got into this situation. WHAT!? Later on we are also shown that Takt (as I guess 'special' conductor) can sense D2's which in few episodes will be forgotten. This level of confusion and bad writing will be consistent throughout this whole series (in episodes without much filler) with always somewhat similar dynamics between characters as seen here.

Takt Op. Destiny is a bad anime at almost every level and at best passable in terms of action scenes if you are willing to accept that for the sake of those fights you can watch it, I just have to warn you that it isn't a battle anime full of those fights.

Now it is time for my SPOILER RANT about Schindler.

Schindler is one of the worst and laziest anime antagonists i have seen in a while...

Obviously he is one of those boring psychos full of ego who believes that music is stupid and world doesn't need it (because why not) and that he is the only one fit to RULE THIS WORLD. One of his most ridiculous ideas is to kill of all the poor people because USA doesn't have enough resources to

sustain them so he uses power of his musicart to control D2's and kill all those pesky peasants.

If authors made him at least a tiny bit smarter Schindler would come up with a much better idea of using Hell (his magicart) to draw D2's far away from human settlements reclaiming a lot of usa, making room for more farmland and getting support of the people in Schindler's future takeover of the government. Instead he is losing more lands to D2's making his future realm weaker, getting rid of even more limited recources they have and creating a refugee crisis that affects all leftover prosperous lands left in america, how those actions helped our antagonist in his goals? Of course Schindler is just a puppet, but to be a puppet while doing something so stupid irritates me greatly.

It is also dumb how they made Hell ignore Schindler's orders which breaks rules of this world. She herself said that musicart bound to a conductor can't ignore his will. Sure it is possible that she lied, but it would imply that it is hard to check this information, which it isn't. All you have to do is to give an order to your Musicart. With how easy it is to check it, knowledge if Conductors can control magicarts fully or not should be widespread.

Takt first goes from only thinking about his music composition, to then having a totally different mindset where he's motivated and committed to fighting Schindler. And then after Schindler is at his mercy Takt just doesn't really care.

Also if you think that sticks are useful than watch 10th episode.

Lenny is using his stick, Takt is using his stick through half of the fight, Sagan just stands there. Who wins? Sagan... sticks don't matter.

I could go much deeper in this review, but it would require more time then was spent into writing this anime.

Takt Op Destiny was an amazing 10 episodes. I was enjoying the music, the animation, the action, and even becoming attached to some of the characters and their stories. I thought the world was interesting and unique compared to most modern anime worlds. I don’t get the other criticisms people have been throwing out about fan service and waifu bait? But wait… There’s 12 episodes? Look… if you have the insatiable desire to finish any show you start, don’t watch this. If you can stop in the middle of a show and be fine with the high quality content you got, then go ahead and watch the first10 episodes of Takt.

The whole show was just to promote a bad mobile game, and the last two episodes basically cram everything the show had been building towards, that could’ve taken another season or 2, down your throat with spoken info dump. It makes no sense and moves way too quickly when the rest of show had a slow pace, just to finish the story to set up the world of the game.

It had such potential and yet they threw it all away…

FULL SPOILER REVIEW After completing the show, the only thought I had was "So this is what it looks like if Vivy: Flourite Eye's Song failed." Then I started analysing the story, art, music, characters, the lot. And what I found was most of them are either very good or very bad. STORY (3/10) What was Takt's original goal again? It is to save the young girl. But halfway through the show it seemed like the show forgot all of that. 2 villains appeared. First one was a one-dimensional, power hungry villain who got defeated in 1 episode and was never heard of again. The second one isa guy whose motivation did not serve any purpose to Takt's journey and goal whatsoever.

The plot is all over the place. Every episode felt disconnected. We were given backstories that create more questions than answers. It felt like the writers came up with the premise and then struggled to think of what to do with it. And the result is a story that felt like the first draft and a plot full of holes.

SOUND (9/10)

The music is incredible. As expected from a musical anime.

CHARACTER (6/10)

I feel that they managed to do the bare minimum to make me at least root for the protagonists. Takt and Destiny had good chemistry. The characters themselves are just barely decent. Destiny was totally emotionless at the beginning but start to develop feelings especially to Takt. And Takt had at least the determination to save the world and music.

Other characters are written terribly. Especially the villains. The fight with the first one felt like a side quest. It had no connection to the story. It's just a guy who is jealous of Takt and he is power hungry. No emotional threat. Same goes with the 2nd villain. I know he caused the death of Takt's father and Lenny, but Takt killing him felt empty. And despite the long conversation between Takt and the 2nd villain in the final episode, I had trouble trying to understand what the villain's motivation is.

PLOT HOLES

What happened to Destiny?

What happened to the 1st villain?

How does the crystal that controls the D2s work?

We will never know.

OVERALL (6/10)

It succeeds in animation and music. The duo protagonists have good chemistry. But the story is not good. The villain backstory in the final episode felt like it was made up in the last minute. Episodes felt disconnected, and the villains are terrible.

This show is the best representation on HOW TO FAIL AT VIVY: FLOURITE EYE'S SONG.

Ever remember a show within the past few years called Listeners? Remember how much it brought to the table, only to fall flat on it's face with it's concept, and be a complete and utter mess? Well you'll be pleased to know, that this show isn't that, and is actually WAY more interesting, and way more polished then Listeners ever could've hoped to be. Sure, both shows have their own styles, so I can't take too many jabs on it, but as someone at the time, who I had recently watched Smyphogear, and got to liking this idea of music and fighting being connected within ananime, I was seriously disappointed with how Listeners came out. Takt on the other hand, is a massive step up on Listeners, and is a rather enjoyable watch from start to finish, let me explain why I believe that.

The story, and the characters, along with the overall presentation of the show in general.

The story feels so much more deep, and thought out. Imagine a world that has basically BANNED music, and leaving future generations to not know what music is, or even have heard such. All because of the emergence of D2. An invasive species originating from a black meteorite that fell to Earth, and to prevent any further deaths, music and melodies alike, has basically been outlawed. With the only defense being Musicarts, young women representing pieces of classical music; and Conductors, the ones controlling them.

But that, combined with the mystery of the D2s, and also how the Musicarts are basically came into existence, is all interesting and deep. To the point it makes you want to watch more, to find out so much more about it. You only have to take episode 2-3, to really see for yourself, just how deep this mystery goes, and how certain moments, can really hit you right in the feels. Some really thought provoking stuff I can tell you.

That doesn't even tell you about the characters. While a show like Listeners can seem more child like in a way, Takt feels more adult like with it's characters. But also treating them like such. Even if they may seem a little too cold in some cases with some of them, it's their more deep backgrounds, that really set the scene, but they're a great cast so far, to the point because of how they're written, that you would want to see more of them, and what they come up against. Combine that with the good writing in this show, then you have a recipe for success.

The art style is another high point for sure. Sure, the animation can look a little weird and janky in small cases. But in terms of presentation of backgrounds, the characters looks, and the shadowing and such. Then it all looks splendid and top notch. Being bright when it needs to, and dark and gritty when it needs to be such. Top tier quality stuff. Much like the sound in general, a lot of is super fitting for purpose, and the OP song is just a jam. All good.

Takt is one of the animes of the season for sure. Which only seems to get more intense and interesting with each passing episode. I cannot wait for more, and you should too!

***I will try to keep this review as short as possible*** takt op. destiny is just overhyped becuz of its animation in the trailer. everyone was talking about this anime's visuals and how it will be the next big hit in the anime industry, oh boy how wrong they were. This anime has such an unoriginal/useless story, 3 random teenagers just go on a journey fighting monsters on their way thereby saving countless lives(smh). yep, that basically summarises this wholeseries.

this series is just an empty shell with a half-baked plot with good animation, don't waste your time watching this.

I have grown to hate shows with strong opening episodes that give us a taste of what potential a show has, followed by mediocrity. This a review of 5 episodes, the only amount I could stomach before dropping it outright. This review is spoiler free. I want to preface by saying, this show is not bad, and the score is not a reflection of its quality, but rather the way I am feeling about it. Takt Op. starts out with a pretty boring expository narration, followed by a bombastic scene that sells the world, characters, and animation, and really gets you geared up for what potential liesdeep within its future. An aloof genius, a robotic/badass/sweet loving girl, and a classic wrangler of the group in the form of an older sister. This characterization is provided in the first 9 minutes of the show, and layers of intrigue is added alongside this as well. I thought that as I was watching these first 9 minutes, that Takt Op. could possibly be well on its way to getting a 9 from me.

You know how they say "Never judge a book by its cover", well it should be "Never believe an anime will be good because its first episode is". I have fallen down this hole many times. My Little Monster got me with this trick, so did Sing "Yesterday" for Me, The Ancient Magus' Bride, and the list goes on. While those shows disappointed me to different degrees, I still felt broken when I realized that the promise they showed in their beginning episodes, had dwindled. Takt Op. ran a speedrun on me, when I have high expectations for a show, I'll give it a requisite amount of time to disappoint me, Takt did it in 5 episodes, which so far is a record.

You probably want to know the problems with the show. Well its simple, you see that promise I talked about two paragraphs up, well that's all there is. The way the characters are characterized, well that's just who they are. There is no nuance, there are no dialogues between characters that can deepen their relationship. Its the same song and dance everytime they open their mouths. When people disparage the writing of this show, they're talking about two things. First, the plot. There isn't really a concrete plot at the moment, the show is pushing things back so they can make a big fate conspiracy plot twist reveal in episode 7 or something. Right now they just drive, and fight monsters, and then say a bunch of nothing. Second, the dialogue. This show has not had a single meaningful dialogue exchange, where the characters can jump out of their monotonous set speech patterns and have a conversation that can convince the audience that they are indeed people worth rooting for. No nuance, no comedy, nothing.

Don't waste your time with Takt unless you're ok with mediocrity in every facet of storytelling.

My pure disdain for this show drove me to make my first review and I need to get this off my chest. Speaking as a musician this is simply not a music show. I can agree that they rarely make some niche references, but the actual application of anything vaguely musical is surface level at best. There is nothing that makes me as a musician think "they actually thought about this - I'm impressed". Every time music comes up, I feel like it's been shoehorned in in a way that anyone who actually understands and has dealt with music in their lives would know isjust bullshit. It's plainly obvious when you scan the rest of the reviews, and everyone who says "I know nothing about music" gives this a 9/10, yet anyone who cares enough about music gives it a 5/10 or lower.

My point is this; It's pretty, and it's got action. If that's all you need to enjoy it, then good for you. Unfortunately, the misuse of music here just puts me off. As long as you're OK with music being a word that means "sounds that makes people feel the good good inside" then give it a shot I guess.

If you are still not convinced that this show doesn't take music seriously, consider watching a show that actually tackles music in a real and respectful manner, like Hibike! Euphonium, and compare this with that. You'll see that the only thing driving this show's score up is gacha buyer's remorse and explosions.

Apart from the visuals, the rest of the show falls flat.

tl;dr - If you're a musician this isn't worth your time.

Let's be real here: The story-plot is quite generic (Monster attack humanity, people with special powers, in this Anime music related powers, fight them). We got "Conductors" and "Musicarts" here. If you know Fate (of course you know Fate), it's basically like Masters and Servants, but with Music. But aside from the generic story: The Anime is well animated, visually pleasing and the fights are great. In my opinion, a lot of the characters are highly likeable - some people might call it waifubait, I call it cultured. The voiceacting is also great, I found myself replaying some scenes, simply because I liked how the charactersacted and how they were voiced.

The music is also good.

8/10 overall.

I didn't think my first review on MAL would be Takt Op Destiny but here we are anyway I guess. I tried so *very* hard to enjoy Takt, the first 3 episodes was some of my favorite content to come out of Anime this year. Takt's musical prowess paired with the incredibly apt classical music and composer bias, alongside the absolutely outstanding sound design of the early episodes was incredible to experience. The music bled the emotion and passion of the characters that brought it to life, the action was punchy and wonderfully choreographed, the characters were simple and easy to get behind but hadplenty of potential, especially with the intertwining of Destiny and Takt. There's so many wondrous things that these first three episodes bring viewers, and it screams of what could have been endless potential and a contender for Anime of the Season, at the very least, and at best a beacon of hope for mixed media projects and Anime Originals. The keyword in the previous sentence was 'could', if that wasn't clear. It *could* have done all of that, but decided to not and instead embarked on the most confusing, hair pulling, heart crushing, train wreck of a story that's a spider's web of media tropes and pathetic attempts at advertising to hopefully convince a few poor souls to attempt to throw money at a mobile game that's been delayed indefinitely.

One of my biggest gripes with where Takt Op. Destiny went was its music. There's some great pieces in there, and previously there was some good theory around *why* specific pieces of classical music were played and what their importance was to each character, but that was before that world came crashing down. Original pieces with concrete meaning in the scenes that they're played in are replaced with a pathetic attempt to incur "immediate nostalgia". That means that they replay the same pieces of music over and over and over in a desperate attempt to capture your attention as the show basically screams, "Hey! Hey! This music was used in that one part early on that you *really* liked, right? We're using it here so you should like this part too!". Not only is it monotonous and incredibly low-effort for an Anime that markets itself as "all about music", it's depressing. Music is such an awe-inspiring thing in life. There's rhyme and reason to it such that there's obvious paths to take with it, but despite the semi-concreteness of the profession an Artificial Intelligence can't make music. There's something incredibly human to it that can’t be recreated without a heart or soul. Rather than make full use of those two aspects of humanity, Takt decides that it’ll pick the ‘10 Best Classical Pieces’ and interweave it with a disparagingly small amount of original music. Episode 1 had a great symphony piece that, to my ears, seemed original. Episode two brought us some prohibition style piano music, and after that… after that. Nothing really came after that. There was *maybe* one or two more original pieces in the series that were actually used with the intention of *being* music, rather than just weak background noise, and if you’re lucky it might be something modern sounding like the heavy metal of episode 5 which feels woefully out of place aside a pair of classically inspired musicarts. Any important music that pretended to have any use in the anime itself was shamelessly reused, and/or entirely limited to classical music. Where’s *more* prohibition-era music? There’s a Musicart that seems to have their character designed loosely inspired by the era, but they don’t get combat soundtracks like Destiny and Takt. There’s an entire rebellion waiting to happen against the censoring of music, I mean, how many bands are out there that challenge that sort of stuff? Rage Against The Machine Anyone? Run The Jewels? There’s a plethora of artists and styles to draw from for some absolutely incredible pieces and inspired Musicarts for rebellion, which you’d *think* would be a big piece in a story where music is entirely censored while the rich get the okay on it (will cover that later), but it’s nowhere to be found. There’s even musicarts called Heaven and Hell, but no religious inspired music. Walkure (In English: Valkyrie) is even a thing, but not once do you hear anything resembling Die Walkure or any other Valkyrie related music.

I could probably write this entire review just purely based off the egregious offenses in regards to music, but that doesn’t paint an accurate picture. So you’re not a huge fan of music or its accompanying theory and meanings, that’s fine, that’s cool not a problem. We then enter the next stage of the problem, Waifus. Sure some series are better off for it and it’s the premise of them because they’re satire, parody, ecchi, etc. Takt is none of those things, but it hints that it *really* wants to be. All the Musicarts are women, nice and easy red flag. We didn’t see any other ones until later down the road, first pair we see is a man and a woman like Takt and Destiny, that’s fine it’s his mentor so they can be similar. More and more Musicarts get introduced and they all continue to follow that pattern, there’s not a single male Musicart, nor is there a female conductor. It’s a simple problem, with a *really* simple solution. Instead though, they went full steam ahead on using the Musicart as half-hearted advertisement to appeal to the basest of desires and interests. There’s never even an *attempt* at an explanation as to why they can only be women. So maybe you can get past the female only cast of Musicarts, credit to you for finding a way to power through, but you get to the next issue. Cookie-Cutter personalities. I was fine with Destiny when it was *just* Destiny, with each new Musicart they added another painful stereotypical and one dimensional personality to the grab bag of Build-Your-Waifu. There’s the Kuudere, The Tsundere (which as a bonus *also* includes the public morals committee personality aspect!), The Yandere, and get this, they even went full circle to add another Kuudere. Oh, and there’s a Loli as well of course. It’s just such blatant advertisement and fan-service that it blew my mind when they introduced more and more of these characters. Almost a negative effort was put into the creation of these Musicart and even less into their subsequent development. They took a look at all the stereotypical love interests in bad (and when I mean bad, I mean *bad*) RomCom anime and said, “We’ll take the lot!”. There’s not a single moment in my mind that I believe any of these characters have where they have gotten “good” development. Has there been development? Maybe? Depends on who you ask. The happy-go-lucky Loli going all serious and murder-y on people can count as development depending on who you ask. The kuudere learning to process and show emotion while simultaneously falling in love with the MC? If you want it to I guess it can be. What about the Yandere that wants violence but is actually sort of out to protect her love interest and their desires? Can check that box off too. I think you get the point here, depending on your requirements for “development” and “personality” the quality of these Musicart varies quite widely. In a critical sense however, absolute garbage. It felt like totally incoherent rambling from someone way too confident for what they’re doing, who subsequently leaves you with a charismatic smile and a, “Right?”, after they just forcefully removed all but one of your brain cells.

So we’ve ruled out any hope with music and the Musicarts themselves, what about art and animation? I mean, it’s MAPPA and Madhouse, it *has* to be good… right? Right? Well, you’re half right and half wrong. There’s no denying that, at the very least, the first 3 episodes are nothing short of outstanding. Dynamic and punchy, high fidelity with some incredible movement and creative freedom, plenty of impact and oomph to it. It had everything you could ask for, even some really outstanding cinematography and fight choreography. Unfortunately, the latter episodes all but render that useless for large scale destructive ability “because big laser beam that takes up the entirety of the screen is cool!”. There’s smaller scale moments but the further you get in the more insane and utterly pointless it becomes until they quite literally come full circle and start beating each other up with their bare hands. Hand to Hand combat on the same level of smoothness and quality of Episodes 1-3 would have had me crazily excited, but I’m going to be honest, the choreography was rough at the best of times and the reasoning for hand to hand combat in said situation is essentially nil so it rendered itself entirely moot. The quality most definitely dipped after episode 3, but that’s only in relation to MAPPA and Madhouse, it was still largely impressive and high quality (for the most part) if it were by any other studios. The choreography and cinematography was just brutal after exiting episode 3 however. Everything was zoomed out and frozen, or up tight and dynamic to the point you can’t really make out what’s going on. There wasn’t anything truly unique like you’d see in episode 1, it felt bland and cookie-cutter in nature like they didn’t have the energy or passion left for the rest of the season. For the big fights past those episodes they really just took all the typical camera angles and movements from old school Shounen battle series. There isn’t anything inherently wrong with that sort of stuff, but this very clearly isn’t a battle shounen nor should it be treated like one. It was a project with two of the biggest names in animation behind it that couldn’t muster uniqueness and quality on par with earlier scenes of itself, just a painful experience.

So maybe the saving grace is in our Main Character, Takt? Or-or, maybe side characters like a mentor or the villains of the series? Takt stood a good chance, he had a lot going for him with music, but the series sucked all that passion and life out of him bar for a few moments that feel so out of place that they elicit largely nothing when in regards to music. Takt has two (2) substantial moments with music outside of the first 3 episodes, in my opinion. One ties itself back into that prohibition story thread which refuses to be explored, and the other. The other, uh. The other doesn’t really make any sense. They *say* Takt’s doing something in regards to music, but they don’t show it. Well, they show it, but they don’t *show* it. There’s no passion or interest or frustration behind Takt’s stone cold visage. The passion in the earlier episodes for music and other aspects of his life have all but disappeared and have been replaced with, “ahhhh, I kind of want to play music and stuff, I guess”. He has his momentary explosions but has overall locked his earlier emotions in a cage where they will never be released from. So let’s move on to the mentor then, really nice personality to him, enjoyable backstory that I think works well. The issue here, and boy is this a big issue, we spend next to no time with him and his “profound” knowledge for Takt is essentially worthless. A series revolving around the mentor of this series would have performed better given what we’ve seen and know about him. He’s wise but likes to be coy and friendly for the most part, always soft spoken but very articulate and cunning, he’s a character that’s been undeservedly dropped into Takt Op Destiny and left to die the equivalent of a Dog’s Death in regards to potential character development. He gets nothing of the sort and is used to tie Takt and Destiny and Anna into the god awful faux-villain to real-villain plot line. I know that sounds spoilery but trust me when I say it’s not. It’s very painfully clear that the first “villain” introduced isn’t really the “real” bad guy, and they even suck at playing the fake villain. They’re the equivalent of a rich boy throwing a temper tantrum because they can’t bully their friends. There *might* be a reason behind the malice, and I’m not against characters that are evil for the sake of being evil, but that’s not the case here. The character is just plainly awful and is bad *because the story needs them to be*. There’s also a dead giveaway that he’s meant to be a bad guy with a certain aspect of his character which makes it even worse when doing the whole faux-villain real-villain thing. That said, the real villain isn’t even a villain. He’s just some sort of fecal matter that was excreted by a dead animal. Zero development, zero rhyme or reason to *anything* they do, they get maybe 5 minutes screen time total but they’re meant to be the endgame of the series somehow. They don’t even have a reason for doing what they’re doing, and explicitly mock themselves as they lose as if they already knew that their reasoning was worse than garbage.

Alright so side note of other awful things, and I know I’m going to be missing a whole bunch. First off, Musicart/Maestro abilities make no sense. They’re meant to be synchronized, where the Maestro provides the melody for the Musicart and their harmony is how their power is produced but that’s never explained and used properly outside of the first 3 episodes. Musicarts never target the Maestros, which are *meant* to be the sources of a great deal of their power, which is in contradiction with the fact that we’re shown countless Musicarts fighting without the aide of a Maestro, but also have examples of ones that fight without a Maestro that are pathetically weak? I don’t know, the power system makes no sense and doesn’t attempt to make any sense to the point that a science based character breaks the fourth wall and says “Actually, I guess you don’t care about the details” when *attempting* to explain how Musicarts work. I mean, that’s one of the worst tropes/cliches to use with stuff like this and they threw it in there anyways. As I mentioned earlier there’s that very obvious thread of Prohibition and Rebellion parallel, that is *continually touched upon but never used* and I can’t understand why. Outside of that there’s the hilariously simple nature of the D2 that becomes more and more altered and inexplicably aggressive. At first they’re monsters that hate rhythm/music, so a largely docile and unassuming beast that’s taken residence across the world. Cars and things like that can make vibrations that have a rhythm to them, so I can understand staying away from denser areas of them like is mentioned in episode 1. The problem comes in later episodes. The D2 become more and more aggressive and less defensive in each conflict. They appear out of nowhere with little to no reason and serve as endless hordes of mobs to fight. Even worse is that by the end, Humanity previously had to apparently fight an entire war against these D2 with the D2 themselves being the aggressors of the conflict. A pathetic last ditch effort at drawing sympathy out of viewers. Even better is this little tid-bit. The United States of America is shown to be suffering and in a bet of a reset period where there’s not an overwhelming amount of technology or anything of the sort. They drive beater cars and have to resort to farming to live and things like that, for the most part. So then why, on God’s Green Earth, does the Symphonica have the world’s most advanced technology concentrated in a single area. Where do they get the funds to operate, how were they established in the first place. Why is cryogenic sleep a thing but the rest of the country is suffering in one way or another? Just some god awful closed book writing that doesn’t care about the rest of its world. A very strong 0 out of 10 for worldbuilding.

I know I’ve bagged on Takt Op Destiny for nearly 3,000 words already so it can easily seem like I wanted to hate it from the start, but I well and truly didn’t. I was raving about the first 3 episodes to everyone and anyone that would lend an ear, it was an electric start to the series and I loved where it was going. There was so much potential, but that was all there was, potential. Execution decided to jump off a cliff as passion and interest hanged themselves in the office. Creativity died a gruesome death and corporate greed chose to don its skin in hopes that people wouldn’t notice. It was the sorriest sight I’ve seen in a long time in anime, and by far the biggest let down I’ve ever experienced. A pair of huge names in the anime industry attached to an original series that has one of the most unique concepts for an anime in a while. It wasn’t some bottom of the barrel low effort, minimum budget anime that got zero recognition or hype in the community. If it was that would at least soften the blow, or if it was just bad from the start I could stomach it as it is. But it wasn’t, it was something truly great and interesting that held meaning and value and passion and all sorts of other great feelings. It was something that for those 3 short weeks I endlessly looked forward to, but soon grew to detest. An awful example of corporate shilling in the anime industry that I hope doesn’t need a repeat.

So I say to MAPPA X Madhouse for Takt Op Destiny from Episode 4 onwards: What you’ve just given us is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever experienced. At no point in your rambling, incoherent anime were you even close to anything that could be considered a passable scene. Everyone that has watched this series is now dumber for having done so. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.