Alma Tandoji, seventeen, is someone who likes to keep other people at a distance, thanks to an incident in his past that saw him seriously injure a large group of schoolmates who had been taunting him. His ability to keep to himself may be coming to an end, though, as he's approached one night by Ruri Aiba, a young girl with secrets of her own. She pleads with Alma to battle against the Dark Stone, creatures that can only be defeated by the power of the Sacred Seven - a power that Ruri believes lies within Alma... Mysterious powers, deadly opponents, and lots of fighting. There are two ways of doing fighting: the Shounen Jump style, which drags it all out forever and is interminably dull, and the more sensible way, which keeps things short, sharp, and occasionally brutal. Sacred Seven keeps things short and sharp, anyway - brutal, we'll have to wait and see about. So far so good. Less convincing, though, is the highschool setting, which is more in keeping with a harem show, and the way that Ruri - who seems to share a little in common with her namesake from Demonbane - employs the most well-equipped maid army I've seen since Gravion. Not things you do if you want your series to be taken seriously. THE GOOD: Ruri, high production values, and a sense of humour despite what would otherwise seem to be fairly serious subject matter. And a FictionJunction OP theme that rocks. THE BAD: It's a strange mix of concepts that could turn out to be a real Frankenstein's monster, depending how they play with it. I like it, though. Any show that lets me reference both Demonbane and Gravion - guilty pleasures of mine - has something going for it, and I'm looking forward to seeing how this one pans out.
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