Zettai Bouei Leviathan – 12-13 [END]
Not quite the Leviathan Signal, but still a Signal!
Welcome back for the last post for Zettai Bouei Leviathan. With these last two episodes, the girls are returning home, but are there more dangers awaiting them? Let’s take a look!
Return to Haruna
Homecoming time!
Homecoming is wonderful, but it feels like there’s a lot left to do. But even worse, Bahamut, searching through her father’s library, finds a secret diary in which he reveals that he’s not Bahamut’s biological father, but rather found her and her mother on his doorstep in a storm. Bahamut runs off, not sure what to think about this. Meanwhile, Leviathan’s brother is telling her in a dream to join Syrop’s crew, because she’s the only one who can save Aquafall, but she can’t do it alone.
I’m not sure it’s a hat anymore, it might just be part of her head
Episode 12 did a good job setting up for Episode 13, as the Lucasite is bearing down on the town, the townspeople are evacuating to the coal mines, and two of the stronger town employees, Wyvern and Cockatrice, are sent to try to defeat it. But mostly it dealt with Bahamut’s feelings about learning about her father. And when the girls finally head off to fight, she can’t bring herself to go with them, despite Syrop’s belief in her. Eventually, tho, after seeing how determined Jorm’s younger sisters are to fight, Bahamut returns to join the Defense force to fight the Lucasite.
Bringing It All Together
The final battle!
I liked how the final fight brought everything together from the entire series. I’ve mentioned that RPG feel before, and that’s how this fight went. You learn all your skills so you can use them in the boss fight, and that’s what they did, as well as using their friendships made with Yurlungur and the Fire Drake (and also giving us another chance to hear Syrop say “Yururunguru”). And even with all that help, it wasn’t necessarily a slam dunk fight, although it wasn’t nearly as close as the others have been. Finally showing good coordination, they used fire then water to make it brittle, and then had Jorm smash the Lucasite while it was weakened. I again thought it was a good amount of fighting, because it got the point across that these girls have all gotten better, stronger, and more coordinated. They also got help from Bahamut’s father, who showed some chops putting up a barrier (with his face on it, nice touch) that delayed the advance of the Lucasite and the Toripu. So it really was an “everyone defeats the enemy” final battle. They even worked in a new secondary transformation sequence for Leviathan, which worked better than her just all of a sudden becoming blond. And in keeping with Leviathan being the main character for the show, she really was the instrumental one in winning the fight, guarding Bahamut in recovering the sphere and Jorm in delivering the final blow.
Wrapping It Up
I wish I had a shadow like that
Because the fight didn’t take the whole episode, they had a good amount of time for an epilogue act as well. All three girls officially join the Aquafall Defense (as if there was a chance they wouldn’t), and they’re going to head off to work on clearing out the Eibolias (the name for the space invaders). We also see that everyone in the town is safe, and that they even managed to destroy the Dragon’s Key Tail Inn again! Lastly, they still don’t know who the mysterious kid is, but we’re learning that he’s one of the 72 ‘pillars’ of the world, which seem basically like gods.
Finally!
I really enjoyed Zettai Bouei Leviathan, far more than I thought I would when I first decided to give it a try. It really stayed very consistent throughout, with the same mix of adventure, action, and humor, as we got to see the progress of the girls from low-power strangers to a powerful group of fighters. Likewise, the ending of the series was satisfying, with the boss that defeated them before being vanquished, but still setting up for future stories. The production quality of the show never really changed, it didn’t have the greatest animation, and the CG stayed consistently passable, perhaps improving a little bit, as later appearances by Yurlungur were a lot better than that first one in the swamp. But really, even if it wasn’t the most beautiful series, the art and animation never got in the way of enjoying the show. And the real shining part were the seiyuu performances, with Hayami Saori, Kitamura Eri, Hanazawa Kana, and Taketatsu Ayana really carrying the show. Someone described the show in my first post on it as a “base hit”, and that’s really how the show ended up: a win where your team just plays solidly throughout. Flashy enough to get the job done, enjoyable enough to get you excited about it, and finishing off so you walk away with a smile on your face. I think they’ve got a good setup for any future series they want to do as well, because everyone likes a good solid adventure.
About Highway
Proving that you don't have to be young to love anime, I enjoy all genres and styles of shows. If it's not hurting anyone else, you should never be ashamed of what you like!
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
Zettai Bouei Leviathan turned out to be better than I expected. Though it wasn’t up there with the best of the Spring shows, it held its own with a good story and a full female cast of characters each with a distinct personality which was the best part. From strong willed Leviathan to tsundere Bahamut (Still thinking of a dragon from Final Fantasy) to strong yet adorable Jormungand. Not to mention that it had both an awesome OP and ED that I look forward to every episode. Overall, this was an enjoyable series to watch whenever you’ve got some extra time on your hands to kill.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
Something cute I noticed: for the last episode, everyone was a -tan nickname in the opening credits.
It was definitely a good series, and I think one of the keys to it is that while it wasn’t amazingly great at any point, it was extremely consistent. It never got bogged down, everything moved along at a nice pace, and it made good progress. It probably also helped just a little that the episodes were a few minutes shorter than normal, making it always seem like the show’s ending before you expect, giving that feeling of time passing faster.
POWUH: 500-599 with 519 comments
This was very enjoyable to watch. 🙂 It’s just the type of show you watch when you just want to relax and just watch something without too much thinking.
I don’t know how much of a chance this show has of getting a second season but I wouldn’t mind watching the girls go on another adventure.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
Actually, I wonder if there aren’t some different motivations for this series. It’s developed by Gree, which is apparently a pretty large game publisher / developer for mobile platforms. They do some RPG games, and this show was definitely RPG style. Also, not to take anything really away from the show, but it had to have been pretty cheap. Shorter than usual time, fairly low detail animation, some sub-par CG, pretty small cast although they did go for high quality in the main characters, which I give them credit for.
Apparently, they are developing an Android RPG from this property, so I’d guess the measure of effectiveness for this show won’t (solely) be BD’s sold, but also how the game does. But even though some people have complained that the show is just a commercial for this upcoming game, I still think the show was quite enjoyable.