Takt Op. Destiny (Episode 9) – Family -Eroica-

Takt Op Destiny Title

They have finally made it to New York where Anna is reunited with her family. Luckily, her older sister who works for Symphonica is able to check them out and hopefully tune Destiny, freeing her from her bond with Takt!

Takt Op. Destiny (Episode 9) – Family -Eroica-

What happened?

Anna, Takt, and Destiny are a little surprised to see that New York appears to be pretty much unaffected by the D2s invasion. The only thing missing from before is music. They don’t waste any time and head straight to Anna’s house where they find her parents and her older sister Lotte. Lotte works for Symphonica and has been in contact with Lenny. She’s somewhat aware of their situation and takes them to get examined right away.

After a thorough going over, Lotte tells them that she is unable to break the bond between them that is essentially killing them both. Destiny uses Takt’s lifeforce to power herself up, but it also works both ways which is why Takt is able to fight almost like a Magicart! Basically, if they stop fighting the D2s they could live a long and happy life.

Unfortunately, Destiny is unsure of how her life would go if she couldn’t fight the D2s, but that thought has to wait as she hears the tuning fork waking the nearby D2s from their slumber. They hurry to Anna’s house but before they can explain anything, Lenny calls and tells them to run. When Takt refuses, Lenny decides to tell him the truth of Symphonica and the Boston Tragedy!

Takt Op Destiny Episode 9 Takt and Destiny at the aquarium

What did you think?

Nothing says post-apocalyptic like a famous city in ruins. Well, you’re not going to get that here as New York is in pristine condition. In fact, it’s probably better than ever! Although it would appear that is about to change as someone… we all know it’s Sagan… is trying to summon the D2s to New York. I’m half expecting a giant D2 similar to Godzilla to attack in the next episode, but not until Lenny has been able to finish his discussion with Takt.

Otherwise, this episode was boring as hell. I don’t see how this can even be the same series that we saw in the first episode. Honestly, I really wish I didn’t have this conviction to finish stuff once I start it. I guess I’ll just have to be a little more careful next time I pick a show to watch and review.

Takt Op Destiny Episode 9 Takt Destiny and Anna

What have you learnt?

Apparently, if you want to build mystery and tension have someone clench their fist repeatedly while not actually saying what’s bothering them. I am glad in a way that Lotte gave up on her exposition speech about Alpha Youths and how they are compatible to become Musicarts. She realised that I didn’t care and promptly moved on to other important things, like taking Takt and Destiny to the aquarium!

Then we were treated to a montage of eating and shopping and it was exactly as boring as you might imagine. It wasn’t even animated for the most part. There were just a bunch of images showing us them doing different things. As if that wasn’t enough, Takt and Destiny considered settling down and taking it easy… Of course, all that can wait as Lenny is about to cliffhanger us with some information about Symphonica. Lenny, you tease!

Takt Op Destiny Episode 9 Takt is ready for the truth

Other posts in the series


Lynn Sheridan The Otaku Author Header

7 Comments

  1. Welp. I’ve just watched this episode with the previous two I had to watch last night. So much potential for the plot elements to tell great storytelling that I’ve finally realised it sounds good on paper only. This series is giving me the same feeling of what Mars Red did earlier this year…then again, Takt Op Destiny is actually a mobile game ad in disguise.

    This is why I always have to lower my expectations for anime-original series as low as an underground train. As much as I felt enjoyment watching another similar great anime-original music series this year, and yes that would be Vivy, watching Takt series has become my unfortunate reminder on why I didn’t like Listeners in the first place. Hilarious in Hindsight is that this series & Listeners are mainly produced at the same studio, MAPPA.

    The only difference in me scoring Takt one point higher than Listeners is the animation quality though this episode has showed great quality of that element because there’s no battle scenes at all. I can’t believe there are avid fans saying this series is getting better after each episode. Well if you ask me, episode 4 was the actual start of where everything is going downhill that not even the fight scenes can save Takt’s story from a disoriented script.

    It kind of baffles me on why they had to limit Sagan’s appearance that much. Does his character design take too much time to draw that they’ve to opt Heaven to make it obvious that her glowing eyes were a sign of Sagan to become the Anti-Villain of this story? Somehow it supposed to give tremendous tension to the audience, but sadly I didn’t feel any of it at all. Maybe I would’ve felt it if I could have seen Heaven showed her powers in stopping that last fight in the previous episode.

    Final rant is that Lenny’s knowledge of a dangerous secret is obviously gonna be a tedious exposition dump in the next episode. How do I know that’s gonna be boring for me? Because Lenny does this over the telephone like he has all the time in the world when in fact, a lot of D2s are coming out of the ground in the next few minutes. If the writers want to avoid a boring exposition dump with stationary flashbacks, they must do like what 86 had done with its first cour.

    • Being a mobile game tie-in isn’t an instant death sentence, but they really have to try hard to make it work. Princess Connect has been the one that really worked for me. This series really hasn’t.

      I haven’t seen Vivy yet although it’s on my to-watch list. I did enjoy ID: Invaded which was an original so I know it can work from that perspective too. It seems to me that they thought they could get two remarkable animation house to work on this and instantly get a hit. I think the over collaboration has been an issue for it. In one episode there were something like five animation directors. The phrase too many cooks comes to mind.

      I think Sagan appearing instead of Heaven would have worked better as he has a cheery demeanour that is clearly a facade, where as I think Heaven just makes everyone uncomfortable and that makes it a dead give-away that she’s evil.

      I can’t wait for the telephone exposition conversation. Nothing makes exposition more enjoyable that seeing two people holding a phone to their heads while barely moving.

      It just feels like this series has had no real direction and they’ve been happy to just amble along doing whatever. I liked episode 1 and the end of episode 2. Other than that, it’s been a steady decline for me.

  2. That’s exactly what I meant to say about Sagan should have been the one appearing in this episode. I mean isn’t Heaven’s character design harder to draw than Sagan’s? Because if it is, then I don’t see the point of putting her witnessing Destiny’s database because it’s an obvious but dull giveaway that she’s Hell’s twin sister.

    Ah yes~ I take it back of saying stationary flashbacks is the dullest method while exposition dump is happening. It’s worst exposition dump if Lenny and Takt just stand there and listening to each other for the whole 10 mins.

    I’m unsure whether this series is worthy of calling itself “an ambitious project” because if you ask me, the writing department has been less prioritized than the storyboard department because the former has to follow according to the drawings. Hence, and unfortunately, Takt series is obviously on the path of “style but no substance” kind of story in the history of anime.

    • Absolutely. I think they just want to include more shots of the Musicarts as they will no doubt be the main gacha component of the game.

      Just wait for the shocked faces and the back and forth between Takt and Lenny. It’s going to be such a groundbreaking revelation that I’m certain it won’t be that Sagan orchestrated the killing of his father and used the D2s to gain power. That would be far too obvious.

      The fact that they have failed to make me care about any of the characters shows how poorly the writing has been handled, but like you say, they probably have to fit it in around the images. It’s not the ideal way to craft a compelling story.

What did you think?