Takt Op. Destiny (Episode 10) – Master and Pupil -Lenny-
It’s really important that Lenny talks to Takt about Symphonica so they should probably wait until morning and meet in a public place where they can be disturbed… You’ll never guess what happened in this episode!
Takt Op. Destiny (Episode 10) – Master and Pupil -Lenny-
What happened?
Aware that Lenny just tried to tell Takt to flee New York, Anna decided to wait at home while Takt and Destiny went to meet up with Lenny. A square in Central Park should be a great place to meet, there’s no way anyone could possibly interrupt them. No, wait. There’s someone now! It’s none other than Grand Maestro Sagan and he’s confused as to why Lenny has come to see him first. Of course, he’s brought Heaven and Hell with him for company.
Sagan tells Heaven and Hell to attack, forcing Destiny to tap into Takt’s lifeforce. She’s fighting well, but it isn’t long before Takt inevitably falls down exhausted. Hell closes in for the kill, but Titan intervenes. However, while she’s fighting Hell, Heaven points her pistol at Takt. There’s a shot, but it doesn’t reach Takt. Lenny stepped in the way and then with his final ounce of strength, he remembers the good old days when he became Takt’s father’s student. Those were good times!
Oh, yeah. There was a fight going on wasn’t there! Lenny gives Titan the approval to unleash her full power and makes Heaven and Hell look like amateurs. But can he keep it up? He’s bleeding heavily but manages to activate Titan’s ultimate attack. It is aimed at Hell, although Heaven jumps in to save her, taking the hit herself. Sagan is delighted and decides to wander off. Maybe, he’s going to feed the ducks or something!
What did you think?
Well, I hope you enjoyed my sarcastic summary of this episode. As with many of the others, there were so many illogical moments that it’s hard to take any of this seriously. Even Lenny’s death was pointless and the montage of stills showing him flipping pancakes with the Rooster did nothing to make it any more emotional. At the very least, we didn’t have to sit through a telephone conversation.
That said, this episode featured a lot of panning across still images to classical music. They were some nicely drawn pictures, but not really animation. The best thing in this episode was Titan who is undoubtedly the best character in the show. Even she couldn’t save it though.
What have you learnt?
Wow! So, Sagan was the big bad villain all along! Shocking!!! I called it in episode two, although I take no pleasure from this one. This show really has been obvious from the start and while I’m a big fan of tropes and villains not always needing redemption arcs or solid reasoning, this series has taken it to the next level. So far, Schindler and Sagan have just walked away from the fight when they’ve basically already won.
I’ll still never understand why Lenny or Takt didn’t go after Sagan. We’ve already seen Takt move with Musicart speed and even had it confirmed by Lotte in the last episode. Surely, killing Sagan would have ended the entire thing. However, everyone is too busy looking for a good place to sacrifice themselves. When it’s done well a good sacrifice can create powerful moments in a story. Get it wrong and it falls flat and seems pointless. It should always be the last resort made out of desperation, otherwise, it’s not believable.
Other posts in the series
- Season One
- Episode 1 – Conduct -Creed-
- Episode 2 – Music -Reincarnation-
- Episode 3 – Awakening -Journey-
- Episode 4 – Let the Performance Begin -Showtime-
- Episode 5 – Equitation -Valkyrie-
- Episode 6 – Sunrise -Rooster-
- Episode 7 – Truth -Noise-
- Episode 8 – Destiny -Cosette-
- Episode 9 – Family -Eroica-
- Episode 10 – Master and Pupil -Lenny-
- Episode 11 – Preparing for Battle -Orpheus-
- Episode 12 – Takt -Hope-
If you look closely enough, there are biblical themes within this episode. Sadly enough the scriptwriting behind the said themes seem unsatisfying, if not uninteresting developments that the reason why I say this episode is the most tolerable one for me is because of the animation quality being put with loads of effort in Titan’s finale fireworks-fighting style.
Sagan is the delusional Pharaoh where he thinks he’s doing a good food by sacrificing humans to do so. He calls D2s to wreck havoc so that a Conductor candidate can give his all in his final performance against them. Unfortunately, Sagan’s motives seem nonsensical and shallow that I’m unable to see him as an interesting villain. His Villain is Playing God trope has lost its potential in making him a serious villain to me.
Takt’s father may be Jesus when he wanted to perform music as hope to listeners of classical music. But think again for that since D2 attacks recklessly, won’t many people die in the said tragedy? It seems unbelievable that only Takt’s father died from the tragedy unless Sagan has the ability to command the mobster’s to just kill the conductor only, then I can accept as a plausible explanation on why the audience survive from their attacks.
Lenny is like Apostle Paul where he gives up his life in order to convey the light brought upon by Takt’s father. It’s somewhat emotional for me that his backstory of just loving music is plausible at some point. But at least convince me that Lenny is giving up his life by using his Conductor abilities. So far, the Conductor abilities seem absent that I struggle to believe that these men are necessary to assist Musicarts. Sure they wave wands but they look unconvincing in believing the men got superpowers after they formed a contract with their Musicarts. I guess the anime studios have a limited resource & time that they’re unable to draw and animate floating, glowing music notes around the Conductor.
It seems this episode is the most tolerable ever since I’ve noticed its script going downward spiral from the 4th ep so I shall expect an unsatisfactory ending in the next episodes. Yes, Takt is still an uninteresting protagonist if you ask me. I guess I should be grateful he’s not an annoying one; otherwise I would’ve rate this series under a score of 5.
I’m struggling to see any point to any of it. Sagan is removing anyone that opposes him and seems to enjoy watching their demise after building them up.
Conductors are pointless. We’ve not seen any proof that anything they do makes the Musicart any more effective. On that note, why would you wait to use Titan’s full power until after you’ve been shot? Why did he even stand between Heaven and Takt? If I was Heaven, I would have shot him and then Takt, but apparently someone standing in the way means that isn’t possible…
There have been too many occurrences of plot armour in this series, such as Sagan walking away before the fight is even over, just as Schindler did. The characters has consistently just done things to further the plot rather than act like real people.
For me, this episode was a horrendous mess even with Titan’s flashy animation battle sequence. People complained about the deaths in Akame ga Kill, but they all got far more character development that Lenny did.
At the moment, I can’t see me rating this series higher than a 3. Something incredible would need to happen in the last two episodes for that to change.
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