Anime: Zetsuen no Tempest: The Civilization Blaster

Review
Zetsuen no Tempest (Tempest) is a decent work animated by the Bones studio, smashed by the absurdly hyped and popular shows like Sword Art Online, Accel World and Kyoto Animation's work for the winter of 2012. It's a typical Bones show when it comes to the absurd and vague references and confusing and unexplained setting, but in nearly all other aspects it comes as a great work that is sadly buried by its competition and shadowed by the studio's fame to make messy things.

Tempest storyline is certainly messy and a little hard to explain. Basically its a tale of vengeance and a love triangle between two boys and a deceased girl. The trick in it is that the two boys are brought together by a young mage stranded in a desert island, communicating with them through a doll and using these two boys and their motivation in order to stop the revival of a magic tree that may rewrite reality and wipe mankind.

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1. It all falls to two boys
   I don't usually like when they put the fate of the world in two random and useless peons, and that's exactly what Tempest does at first glance. The two friends, motivated by the death of the girl they loved, whom one was her brother, of course, lead by a mage thousands of miles away and hoping to save the world. This cheesy quest is the final objective of the show, but fortunately it's left to sidelines most of the first half and only taken more seriously when we at least have a few adults and some background to make things a bit more mature. Still, it's your typical shounen save-the-world stuff.
   
   Seriously? Trees?
   Okay, so the show's mindset is to save the world where mages draw their powers from trees. The show makes lots of references to many mythologies in order to base its setting, but it never makes it far too convincing that the world is ruled by two giant trees that rage war with each other. It's kinda hard to accept if you try to truly understand it, but when you check that this is all about giving the plot their tools to make the save-the-world stuff turn to fight-fate it becomes easier to understand. If you know Bones' plots like in Full Metal Alchemist, Kurau, and other series, then you'll have no problem here though.
   
   Change of focus
   One nice element of Tempest is its change of focus after its middle part. The tale of two boys wanting revenge remains, but the psychological drama of their past gives space for the remaining cast and the show becomes a bit more direct in what it wants to be. The stranded mage shows that she is just a girl, the stylish villains become more human-like, and even a new important character is added to the show. Basically the shows admits it's a shounen and embrace it with strength, and that turns out to be a great move considering how slow things start to progress a bit before the show reaches the end of its first half (like nearly five episodes of dialogues just to bring the stranded mage back to reality).
   
   A varied cast
   Tempest's cast has very interesting points, from good to bad. Like the shounens with magic and super powers, the cast can be quite flashy and with a decent number of support characters. However, this time around we have a nice amount of screen time to every important one and a decent distribution of when and where to give each character a bit of a boost. Sadly, their initial personalities don't match this rare character direction.
   
   We are all cold hearted and badasses guys
   The personality of Tempest's cast can be all traced to the fact that none of them is affected by the brutality of the events around them. The two protagonists, Yoshino and Mahiro don't shed a single tear for people turning into stone, for children dying in despair, or for the simple fact that their hometown was completely destroyed by the mages. It's not as if the show forgot to show it though, they are indeed this kind of cold-hearted freaks as mentioned in later episodes. The remaining cast also has this shield for emotional events, maybe with the exception of Hakaze, who starts as a super-smart mage girl and end us as a love interest with many episodes where she's just a complete tsundere (at least she adds to the love triangle in the later parts).
   
   But the support
   As I've told, the important cast has quite a decent development. The same can't be told about the less important ones. Some characters look completely uber-powerful and may pose as absurdly interesting, but they are never given enough explanation to why they're there or to what are their reasons to remain in the sidelines and do nothing in the long run. Others are simply not explored at all and used more as a way to give the audience characters like a sexy spy, stylish spear guy and angry deliquent-like mage.
   
   The love triangle
   One thing to notice in Tempest is the way he tackles with a character that starts the show as already dead. Aika, the girlfriend of one of the protagonist and sister of the other, may be quite unique as how she influences the plot and the motivations of the boys. The show doesn't bring the dead back to life, it doesn't even give us hope that she may be alive or revived, but still manages to make her quite important, mysterious, and at the same time as realistic as possible considering the badass-cold-type of the cast.
   
   It starts very messy
   It's hard to understand what exactly is happening and why such a sad tale doesn't move the emotions of the protagonists. It slowly turns to a love triangle drama to develop the cast and finally falls from its attempt to be super-uber-complex and admits being a shounen about saving the world. When it does this move, Tempest becomes a nice addition to the genre, especially considering how nicely the cold bastards develop in the long run. Sadly, this attempt to sound complex and absurdly mature takes its toll and the shounen part is not exactly masterful as well. But considering recent attempts in similar areas, Tempest is a minor jewel that should not be overlooked.
   
   A sharp yet average production
   Tempest, although being a Bones show, is not as spetacular in its production value as you would think. The sharp visuals surely help, but animation is lacking when compared to contemporary shows and the color palette certainly makes it feel as if you're watching a mid 2000's animation or similar. Fortunately, the design choice keeps the show at a more serious level, with mature characters despite many being your typical bishounens and a somewhat shoujo feel in the air.
   
   It's always nice to see a sound direction that matches exactly what the show is tries to present, and in this regard Tempest does a brillant job. The opening and endings do an awesome job to prepare the mood for each episode and the voice-acting is certainly great. What can be a bit bothersome are the few background themes that try to make the show look like some sort of deep thoughtful drama, when in reality it's just a great mindless shounen.
   

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Comments
Tempest surprised me in a very positive way. It's a show that has some depth regardless of its abuse of trying to be complex, has a very interesting character development considering from where it starts, and is one of the few Bones show's that took a contrary route in its plot. Instead of starting simple and becoming convoluted by the end, Tempest starts a mess and ends up quite straightfoward. This course, in my opinion, proved to be a lot better than the former, especially given how messy the studio's shows tend to be in the end.

Anyway, fans of shounens and even fans of shoujo may be pleased here, as there's an awesome interaction with the memories of a dead girl and her influence in a large-scale event that slowlys gets more direct and easy to grasp. Ah, and it has a decent ending that treats most holes left by the messy start, which is definetely a plus.

The story is about two uninteresting (ordinary) high school students becoming mages by a half naked witch and try to avenge the killers of a girl they liked before evil mages rewrite reality. It’s cheesy and convoluted, trying to combine a typical revenge story with some really confusing hocus pocus terminology. The presentation will constantly be attempting to make it appear like it’s the most awesome thing ever by throwing in complicating terms, pretentious pseudo-intelligent dialogues, and weird visuals. The execution is as lazy as it gets.

The plot is very hard to follow. It begins with the hero returning home and meeting his SWITCH a half naked girl is thrown at an island where she can’t cast magic through SWITCH the hero is bullied at school and his girlfriend tells him to SWITCH they are on the grave of their family where they say someone SWITCH a sexy agent is after the protagonist until he SWITCH a mysterious disease turns people to statues and the heroes go to SWITCH and then a huge cocoon hatches and the world is about to end.

Oh, wow, best teaser of a half season series I have seen in awhile. Let’s see if the actual show is as good…
What??? This was not a teaser but the pilot episode??? Jesus, why is the plot all over the place? They barely show something before they switch to something else. And don’t give me this whole “it is not wasting time in needless events” excuse. If you don’t invest time in the setting and the characters, then how do you expect the viewers to care?

Ok, maybe they just rushed the beginning so we can go straight to the point. Maybe the rest of the episodes will have good pacing and worthy plot… NOT! The pacing in the rest of the episodes suffers from the exact opposite issue. It is EXTREMELY slow, filled with useless dialogues and pointless action scenes. The prize easily goes at the point where the characters are doing nothing but TALKING FOR 5 EPISODES WITHOUT DOING ANYTHING ELSE! I mean, really, all they had to do is press a simple trigger that would save the world and instead of that, they began talking non-stop. And do you think the whole thing ended when they finally reached to a conclusion? Hell no, a magic tree appears out of nowhere and saves the world regardless of what any character wanted. TOTAL BULLSHIT!

The above example is also proof of a major flaw in the script. IT IS FATALISTIC. Nothing the characters do seems to matter if all the action scenes and the dialogues are irrelevant to the progress of the plot. And the plot is literally controlled by a bunch of magic trees that appear anytime they feel like it and regardless of what the characters do. There is a scene where thousands of people are fighting each other with magic, and tanks, and missiles, and everything becomes a huge battlefield. The outcome was irrelevant to what they did; a magic tree appeared on its own and it just trashed everything. People are simply decorations when it comes to the plot! It should be the other away around, with the trees being a pretty background.

Not even its internal logic makes any sense. Despite its numerous attempts to make sense of magic, offer limitations and balance, and to present a worldview that can logically stand on its own feet, it comes down to magic and teleportation! Anything can happen just because the scriptwriter thought it would be cool. So despite wasting half the show in talking and explanations, NOTHING MAKES SENSE much less being serious in its themes.

Exposition is boring as heck. They are talking for whole episodes about how magic works in this world, as if it’s complicating and hard to understand. In practice you just wear magic jewellery and gain superpowers without any training; anything further that that is unnecessary complication. It is ridiculous how much time they spent on explaining something so unimportant with such detail.

And even after all the explaining, the logic of this goddamn show is still contradicted in the second half. They say for example that you need to use something man-made in order to cast magic. Later on, that is no longer necessary since mages are introduced. They spend a lot of time showing the rivalry between the mages, the rebel mages, and the army. Countless people died because of their actions. In the second half and out of screen, they are now best friends, as if all the disastrous things they did to each other in the first half weren’t even important! The series literally turns from a dark action/survival/drama into a fluffy school comedy!

As if that wasn’t enough of a mess, the creators keep trying to fool you into believing this shit of a show is gritty and serious. The most glaring example is how the characters constantly quote Shakespearean works. Is this supposed to add depth to the plot? It adds nothing, makes the show pretentious, and the characters only manage to talk in a completely artificial way. It’s like they decorate an empty box with a hundred fancy ribbons.

Furthermore, if you REALLY think about it, the main two dudes would have no reason to do anything in this show, if any of the villains had told them the truth right away. Yet instead of just saying “Well, heh, you know, the witch can’t really help you and your plan will fail no matter what you do” they just chase them around and fight for no reason. Even when they get ready to achieve their goals by pressing a SIMPLE TRIGGER they instead start talking for 5 EPISODES while the world around them is being destroyed. And eventually what happens? Nature does what they should have done 5 EPISODES AGO, thus rendering their whole mission pointless yet again. The whole plot is one big troll.

Even when the show tries to flesh out the characters with numerous flashbacks, it still fails to make them interesting. They are blunt and simplistic, they have no control over the events, their goals are petty, and to the most part they are just walking around and talk. And they also don’t seem to give a damn; everything is in ruins and all their loved ones are dead, yet they act like nothing much has happened. How can you feel any sympathy for these uncaring assholes? Occasionally they fight but even that is boring as hell and could very easily be avoided altogether. Here is the roster so you know what you get.

We have the Pussy Boy, someone who is following the Bad Boy for not much of a reason. He loved his sister and they are buddies but other than that he can’t do anything right SO WHY DOES HE TAG ALONG?
- At one point he is fighting Slutty Spy for a whole episode. He defeats her all the time and instead of talking with her or finishing her off, HE RUNS AWAY! As a result she keeps attacking him with more and more powerful weapons, until he gets fed up to kick her around and asks for a truce… And he gets it. Damn, a whole episode was wasted on these useless spars before they form a truce that could have been achieved right away.
- He then starts arguing with Bad Boy for some misunderstanding that lasts for 5 WHOLE EPISODES the result of which is zero since that tree they were trying to destroy gets destroyed by some superpower from the planet itself.

Then we have Bad Boy, who leans magic in order to avenge his family and NOT to save the world; great motivation there fellow.
- He fights a much stronger opponent and the whole episode is wasted on spars with no tactics or even a resolution. And the lolz part is how the enemy could teleport anywhere he likes, yet the injured hero outruns him and escapes by running in plain sight. DERP!
- He then creates a super weapon that can destroy the bad guys’ magic tree and he is willing to use it right away, but then just talks for 5 EPISODES while pointing the gun. Planet Namek blowing up was at least thrilling. This was shit.

We also have Naked Witch, who doesn’t do anything besides sitting all day long on an island and stuffing items between her boobs. She is there only as an excuse for infodumping and fan service. She constantly tries to offer a logical explanation to everything that is going on in the series. Too bad it’s about MAGIC and after awhile it’s just random crap where logic has no place being there.
- She later falls in love with Pussy Boy for no bloody reason at all and completely turns from a dynamic super woman in command of a huge clan of mages into a 10 year old girl who can’t even express her feelings for him and acts like a complete klutz. Deep … character … development! Or perhaps plain misogyny?

Slutty Bitch, the girl they are trying to avenge. We get to know nothing about her besides being constantly naked, talking about sex, and seducing boys for fun. And she is as good as dead, we only learn about her in flashbacks which fail to make her any more interesting. And apparently, this slut is far more important to be avenged instead of saving the world.
- Later on she is revealed to be alive all along and the whole thing was actually a prank to make the world be destroyed for the lulz. But by then nobody cares anymore and she is just a troll that is dealt with in 2 episodes.

Evil Boss, who plans to save the world… by destroying it. Okay… He is constantly trying to pass as mature, wise, and always prepared, plus he is supposed to be a master swordsman. Yet as soon as he meets the main characters, he totally flips and acts like a complete loser who cries, panics, crawls on four, and just bangs the sheath of his sword on the ground instead of pulling out the sword and fighting them. LOSER!
- In the second half he turns into a comic relief who has no real goal or dignity anymore. All his cool image gets completely ruined and becomes yet another lame idiot.

Gay Blondie, a boy with super martial arts. He can beat anyone is a fraction of a second, yet instead of joining the other two main heroes, he stays home and talks to himself without offering anything to the plot. I mean, seriously, he could beat the evil boss in less than a second, thus saving the world. He has nothing important to do in his home, and the world is about to be destroyed, and all he does is TALKING TO THIN AIR! Obviously done as an excuse for more infodump, but it could have easily been avoided if he had internal monologues and a good excuse to stay behind. In the meantime, the world is about to be destroyed and he is doing nothing to prevent that.
- Oh wait, later on he eventually joins the battle against the bad guys! The problem is, instead of going to beat the evil boss and destroy the tree, he only fights his underling. Why? Because there was Slutty Spy with her huge boobs near by and he wanted to show off so he can fuck her! What a responsible and mature guy!

Slutty Spy, a completely worthless woman who walks around half-naked and gets herself beaten by men with ten times her strength. I mean, seriously, she clearly has no fighting skills and constantly challenges males who are clearly more powerful. TOTAL BIMBO! And more misogyny.

Fail Idiot, a guy who acts like he can’t even walk without tripping and who can use magic without a material component JUST BECAUSE. He pretends to be a brave superhero that protects the world, as if he couldn’t be bipolar enough as he was. He is just a Power Ranger parody and completely useless to the plot.

So just imagine how less interesting is everybody else in this show.
- We see thousands of people tuning to statues. Should we feel anything when the series only bothers to show them for three seconds and then forgets they exist?
- There is a scene where the army destroys the exits to the town so nobody can come in or out, plus they hide the fact from the rest of the world. It is supposed to prove the army exists and cares to intervene, plus a lot of world shaking events are kept hidden from the public. That sounds so serious, right? Well, in practice all you see is a few helicopters throwing missiles without a single soldier inside or around them, and then some woman talking and saying “we will hide that from the world”. Great presentation you guys; we really see the grave importance of all these events… NOT! Where are the military officers talking about it? Where is the media cover up? Where is anything else in general besides the main two characters? THEY SHOW ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! You can somewhat excuse it by saying the plot is presented only through their eyes, and many events are revealed only through dialogues. That still doesn’t save said events from being impersonal, distant, and eventually makes you feel or think absolutely nothing about the show.
- Later on, the army tries to save the day by attacking the evil tree and again it fails to achieve anything because another magic tree does all the work for them… And also kills them despite the fact they were its allies. How nice; all the struggles and the battles ARE RENDERED USELESS! The moral of the story is “Do nothing and let the world be magically saved by hax powers. If you try to help, YOU WILL DIE BY THE VERY PLANET YOU ARE TRYING TO SAVE!”
- This show also has the privilege of taking phallocracy to new heights. Remember how women in shonen shows are completely useless? Well, this anime takes it further by killing all the main heroines right away and leaving them there only as annoying memories and sidekicks. LAME!

TL;DR: A total fail of a story with interesting themes, and shit plot and cast. The production values are ok but who cares if nothing is important?