Dance With Devils 06-12 [END]

Gosh, I wonder if he’s the bad guy.

There still wasn’t quite enough dancing in this show for me, but I guess the heroine and the numerous musical numbers made up for it.

I see the kabe-don technique has evolved.

Shiki and Roen’s characters were looked into and Shiki was just as… キモイ weird as I thought he seemed. Roen was also not Ritsuka’s best option, but it was interesting how he had ties with her father. …Plus he was pretty badass for a fluffy dog. I mean, he even had a fluffy dog choir. Damn. In the end, Roen just kind of disappeared for the rest of the plot, but Shiki, Mage, and Urie fell into the background and just kind of became like comic relief characters in their fights for Ritsuka. But this wasn’t really a bad thing, since it let Lindo and Rem take the spotlight as the top two candidates for Ritsuka’s affections. And at least the guys still showed interest in Ritsuka even after they thought she had nothing to do with the grimoire. Plus they even had that little song number in order to try to get Rem to admit that he has feelings for Ritsuka, which was pretty bro of them (even better, according to the subs they called him “emo liar”, which was hilarious).

And in the end, Lindo and Rem really did seem like the best candidates, since both really cared for her. Both really sucked at showing it directly, but after they talked about their feelings or where they stood regarding Ritsuka, things certainly went so much smoother. Especially when it came to Lindo trying to protect Ritsuka. It’s amazing how much more compliant people can be when they actually know what’s going on. If only Lindo and Azuna had told Ritsuka everything earlier, she probably wouldn’t have run off with the guy of the week so often (though of course, then we might not have had the guy of the week format happen so easily). Also, who would have guessed that the two red haired green eyed characters in the show were related to each other. But hey, even though Ritsuka and Lindo are still technically related, marrying cousins is totally okay in Japan, so it could still work out in the game.

Damn, a unicorn and a golden retriever. It doesn’t get more pure and innocent than that.

However, the anime spent a lot of time building up the relationship between Rem and Ritsuka, so they went in that direction instead. Unlike Lindo, why Rem came to like Ritsuka was a little more unclear, but they certainly made the relationship seem like a good idea with the two’s interactions. Rem sucked at explaining his intentions, but he never really did anything to harm Ritsuka, and instead protected her from pretty much everything all the time. I’m pretty satisfied that she chose Rem in the end (and at the same time, didn’t), but I’ll get to that later.

I’m glad they expanded a bit on Azuna’s character other than her just being the overprotective friend. Maybe she didn’t evolve past being protective of Ritsuka, but having Ritsuka cover for Azuna in Shiki’s episode made her sadness over Azuna’s death seem way more understandable. Without that scene, Azuna would have just been a person Ritsuka never listened to (though you’d think by now that the characters would realize that if they tell Ritsuka to stay in sight or in a specific area, she’s definitely going to do the exact opposite). What Lindo said about Azuna really wanting to be Ritsuka’s friend also helped provide more for her character.

I was worried at the beginning that Azuna would have been a rival for Lindo, since that cliche of having the best friend be a love rival for at least one route is pretty prominent in otome games, but I’m glad that Azuna was there for Ritsuka herself. It’s also nice how her death continued to affect Ritsuka as opposed to having it as a plot point to reveal the location of the grimoire and forgetting about it. …Even if they did just kind of abandon her corpse out in the open and forget about it.

Apparently everyone had time for a costume change before the big battle.

It’s interesting that they expanded on all of the sides of the struggle as opposed to just sticking with the demons. The church were kind of asshats about the whole thing, since they could have avoided handing the grimoire over to anyone if they had just provided protection as opposed to scaring Ritsuka off into the hands of the vampire. Plus would a good organization kill using dental tools? That seems overly sadistic. But anyways, the vampires also had an interesting side of things. Sure it was all lies and their plan probably would have gone a lot smoother if they didn’t tell Ritsuka it was a lie or give her any reason to resist right before it happened, but they had an interesting way of luring her there. Every side seemed like a pretty bad choice though, so it’s probably for the best that Ritsuka took the whole struggle into her own hands and ended things on her own terms as opposed to being swayed to any side.

They also did a good job at filling out Ritsuka’s character as opposed to just having her as a decoration to show off how desirable the male characters were. Her personality was one thing (hooray for having the heroine save everyone in the end), but even her family had a lot of lore behind it with both her mother Maria and aunt Marta. I would have liked to have known more about that whole back story, or even heard part of it from Maria’s perspective, but it’s still nice that they had that part in the plot.

Another interesting thing was have Ritsuka actually choose Rem in the end, but then also go down what I would assume was the “bad” end of the route (following otome game logic), since she didn’t actually have much of a future with him. Of course, this was probably a ploy to get people to buy the game and see what would happen if she chose to stay together with Rem. I found the end rather fitting though, since they had already established Ritsuka as a strong individual who cherished her everyday life. It makes sense that her character would chose being happy as a human instead of being happy with Rem.

This was definitely fun to watch. The musical aspect was great! It was often hilarious, and kept the exposition interesting (I would definitely appreciate those cliche dancing scenes where the characters fall in love/ realize their feelings more if they all included duets with pastel unicorns and rainbows). As for other things I enjoyed, Ritsuka was a strong character, and I’m glad they kept that consistent throughout the anime right to her decision at the end. They made the characters pretty likeable in the end too, where they all saved Ritsuka (or where they decided to respect her decision to go back to everyday life), even if their actions previously were pretty questionable.

Unless I see it on discount though, I’m probably not going to ever buy Dance with Devils game (especially since I bought Arcana Famiglia Ancora despite telling myself that I wouldn’t OTL). The anime was fun, but I’m not sure I’m so interested in the characters that I’d want to see their individual routes. But the anime was rather enjoyable, and I’d definitely be up for a sequel. They left the end pretty open, after all.

About Karakuri

University student and the one at Metanorn who's known for wearing glasses. Likes blood, insanity and plot twists, but also plays otome games and adores cute romance anime. It balances out... somehow.