First Impressions / Trinity Seven

「支配者(ゲームマスター)と憤怒の魔人(セイタンスレイヴ)」 (Shihai-sha (Geemumasutaa) to Fundo no Majin (Seitansureivu))
“Game Master and Satan Slave”

Trinity Seven is making some of its old mistakes, though a reveal that changes the series calculus keeps the episode from being a loss.

Beating Back the Demon Lord

One of the better parts of the episode was when Mira and Sora beat back the Demon Lord inside of Arata. Or more precisely, how. Had it been some elaborate stratagem or dues ex machina—the former of which I’d like to see more of in this series, and the latter of which, less—it would have rang false, because Demon Lord Arata does not look like the kind of character a vulnerable Mira and a still-reeling-from-her-imprisonment Sora could handle in a magical slugfest. But by having him be frozen by Mira’s words, it hearkens back to perhaps Arata’s greatest feature—he wants to see everyone smile.

Arata has, inadvertently though it may have been, built all kinds of safety mechanisms into his life to prevent him from going out of control. As long as one of his friends is around, they have a chance to snap him out of it, and that will keep the Demon Lord from taking over. Good thing Akio didn’t kill him, because he stands a good chance of staying on the straight and narrow, more or less.

Second Grimoire Get-o!

Points to Arata—though Mira and Sora may have cringed when he asked Ilia to come along with them, if Arata were the type to hold a grudge just because somebody tried to kill him once, his harem would be a lot smaller. It would be Levi, and … that’s it. (Though Yui was sleeping at the time, so not sure if that counts.) Which isn’t a bad life, but it goes back to that central pillar of Arata’s personality, where he wants everyone to smile. He doesn’t hate, which is nice to see when many of us humans are so ready to hate at the drop of a hat. He isn’t even angry (or surprised) when Hijiri comes to kill him. He is a good main character, when he gets a chance to show it.

Nuking the Sun, Summoning the Arin

Yet, Trinity Seven returns to its old bad habits by pulling bullshit dues ex machina resolutions out of its ass which have no grounding in our knowledge of the magic system. Arata pulls out a new gun by combining … what, exactly? It wasn’t explained. Then he (with Ilia’s help), Sora, and Mira nuke the black moon, because … reasons. Once again, no idea why that worked, or even what exactly they did.

Worst of all was when Arata summoned Arin to his rescue by calling Hijiri’s name. Or maybe Arin teleported to him, I don’t know. And she had a new spear, for some reason. This one was even worse explained. The whole situation brings to mind Aldnoah.Zero, which I just finished last week (have to catch up before the end of year post, ahhhh!). Now, I enjoyed Aldnoah.Zero, but that’s because A) I pegged it early on as all flash and noise, no substance, so I was able to enjoy it for what it was, and B) nothing conspired to make me think about it too much, so I got to turn my brain off and watch the pretty animation. With Trinity Seven I find myself thinking about it more, both because I’m blogging it and by the simple act of watching it week-to-week rather than marathoning it. Would these bullshit dues ex machinas annoy me less if I were watching this entire series in a day?

Maybe, but I don’t think so. When they’re trying to be serious here, there aren’t pretty explosions to distract me like there were in Aldnoah. All the distracting stuff takes place at other times (though not always). So I guess my point is, stop with the dues ex machinas already, gods!

Hijiri is the Big Bad

I hate to toot my own horn … that’s a lie, I love to toot my own horn. The ego monster must be fed! … but I told you so. Both on Hijiri being the Big Bad, and on who the demon lord girl ended up being (still Hijiri). Granted, the hair clips were a dead giveaway, but I also think they foreshadowed this fairly well, if a bit too obviously for my tastes. (Contrast this with the fourth episode of Tamako Market, where the foreshadowing was all there in retrospect, but was cleverly obfuscated.) But Hijiri being a powerful mage (and what’s more, an enemy) makes certain things make more sense, even if some decisions (if you’re just going to take the grimoires from Arata, why give him one and let him take the other?) are still a mystery, and the reasons are probably stupid.

Other than that, secret evil society with a bunch of demon lord element people, attacking the school, blah blah. It’s pretty standard fare, so nothing to get excited about save for how the heroes react to them with so many of the Trinity Seven away from home.

Looking Ahead – Liese, Is That You!?

Don’t tease me, Trinity Seven. You’re starting to stumble again, and you toss out the Liese card? Because that’s exactly the right card to play right now. Just don’t tell me you have pockets Selinas and are trying to pass them off as a full Liese with a good bluff and … what was I saying? (trope!) I just want my badass Levi and Liese. Please make that happen, Trinity Seven. For me?

tl;dr: @StiltsOutLoud – Arata is a Demon Lord, Hijiri is a Demon Lord, everybody is a Demon Lord! Dues ex machinas, thy name is #trinity7 10

Random thoughts:

  • Arata is going all Liese, trying to control Mira with a kiss. That’s not the lesson I wanted him to learn from that! Not when he’s in Demon Lord-mode, at least.
  • Is Arata’s impure power like Sensei-chan’s (Denki-gai) joshi power? Though his definitely isn’t as low.
  • Dere mode Mira is a national treasure. What nation, you ask? Doesn’t matter, all of them!
  • She has three thema. That makes her a Trinity. Gah! Everybody in this show has to be some kind of Trinity! Get a new word, dammit!
  • “I heard your voice, so I collapsed space and time to come here.” Arin says some pretty outrageous things in that calm voice.

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Full-length images: 22, 23, 26, 28.

 

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40 Comments

  1. I agree with almost of your grudges against Trinity Seven. This episode is awesome despise having so many ass pull such as summoning Arin. Nuking the black sun is possible since his thema is control anyways and the combining gun is the combination of Akio’s thema (the dragon) and Lilith’s thema (the gun).
    I love fact that Hijiri and Arata relationship, it similar to Seirei tsukai no kenbu: Blade Dance, but with better execution and reasons (which is amazing and charming reason btw). You cannot resist but love the Yandere, but also caring Hijiri.

    P/S: Dere-mode Misa is definitely national treasure and playing Levi’s badass and Liese’s sexy card are the correct play, if they play them that is.

    HurricaneBlazer
    Reply

    1. It is only an ass-pull, cause the viewer is linked to Arata and he knows dipshit about magic. But subtle hints are used to give coherency to the magic system. Arata (and the viewer) get their bite-sized explanations served one at a time.

      the Spear and other equipment is already hinted by the magus outfits people equip when they link to their archives. Weapons like that will have a bigger role as the story goes on.

      The same for the Trinity concept. That very name and concept is about mixing up magic to gain greater power. Why are demon canditates so strong, cause they dont only learn multiple magics, they can combine the properties of each into a single magic.

      Faolan
      Reply

  2. Stilts my boy this isn’t the show where you look for logic and intricate explanations. This is the show where you enjoy the girls and the stuff they may or may not pull for example, your precious LIESE is coming back! What more can you ask for? The show appeases its audience with the characters not its explanations. And occasionally you also get to enjoy Arata’s character on the way he acts for example as you put it his incapability to actually hate people even when they go so far as trying to kill him. It was actually kind of funny when Hijiri made that heartfelt moment and cried and suddenly she was like “I am going to kill you now.” with the same heartfelt voice.

    That’s probably not the last of asspulls we’re going to see here and by this point my boy you shouldn’t mind them so much, just sit back and root for your girls!

    gawrshness
    Reply

    1. I wouldn’t be surprised if the act of Liese coming back in itself is done through some kind of asspull. I mean, wasn’t there a bunch of talk on how nigh impossible it would be to free her and all?

      HalfDemonInuyasha
      Reply

    2. Well I see what you mean sir, but a little more explanation is a given for world building at least. How this demon king thing and how do these breakdown phenomena work with the respect of magic is still a little too obscure IMHO.

      Solaris
      Reply

    3. @ gawrshness

      That was the point of my Aldnoah diversion. Would I enjoy this more if I weren’t thinking about it as much to blog it? Maybe, though it also doesn’t distract well when it’s being thick, so maybe it wouldn’t be different.

      Stilts
      Reply

  3. Yet, Trinity Seven returns to its old bad habits by pulling bullshit dues ex machina resolutions out of its ass which have no grounding in our knowledge of the magic system.

    Ok, I don’t watch a lot of anime with ‘magic systems’ so I don’t really know what you’re talking about. I re-watched the one a couple episodes back where you said they explained the magic system, and I still don’t get what you were talking about. I guess the thing is that my standards are low,

    http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/11/02

    that standard makes the show work for me, I don’t really know what else to expect >_>

    flap
    Reply

    1. To simplify, I meant “None of what they did made sense in the context of the world.” I’m mainly watching this for the comedy and the ecchi, but in an episode relatively devoid of those, they have to entertain us in other ways. They didn’t quite make that leap this time, and are having trouble doing it consistently.

      Stilts
      Reply

      1. The manga doesn’t really explain too much either, granted it does do better than the anime in some spots. I’ve read it since it started being published and love it for the character development. It’s one of the few mangas where I truly haven’t found a character I completely dislike. The anime is staying extremely true to the source material so that’s why I’m so fond of this one. As for Arin, she has been implied to be really strong due to her thema but I can understand the frustration since at 1st she didn’t even wield a weapon.

        Zero
        Reply

    1. What makes that whole scene so enjoyable to me is it also features a character- Sora who is voiced by one Rie Kugimiya who is nicely being neither tsun nor dere in this role. They, the series seyuu, must have gotten a masterclass before starting work on this series, as the transition was so well done in my humble opinion.

      RJD TAYLER
      Reply

  5. A scary thought occurred to me at the end of this episode.

    If Arata was female (as could well happen, statistically, since most mages in Trinity Seven happen to be a female), Trinity Seven’s genre would automatically be reclassified as Mahou Shoujo. I wonder how Trinity Seven would play out if it was a Mahou Shoujo. And Fem! Arata retained the same personality of his canonical self.

    Andmeuths
    Reply

  7. the only thing interesting from this show is the fan service.
    fan service is fine but plot is more important.
    plot = sushi.
    fan service = wasabi.
    this show just eating good wasabi without sushi.

    Name (required)
    Reply

  8. some decisions (if you’re just going to take the grimoires from Arata, why give him one and let him take the other?) are still a mystery, and the reasons are probably stupid
    This sums up all of this mess for me too.
    Also there’s a discrepancy between the present Hijiri chick and how the girl was introduced early on in the serie.

    Ah, how much I wanted to send a D-mail back in time and tell you to blog Inou Batllte instead of this.

    Solaris
    Reply

  10. https://randomc.net/image/Trinity%20Seven/Trinity%20Seven%20-%2010%20-%20Large%2028.jpg

    Its woman like this girl that makes me love evil girls…. I know its bad taste in my part, but I cant help it!

    https://randomc.net/image/Trinity%20Seven/Trinity%20Seven%20-%2010%20-%20Large%2016.jpg

    The loli is strong in this episode.

    https://randomc.net/image/Trinity%20Seven/Trinity%20Seven%20-%2010%20-%20Large%2018.jpg

    When a serious girl goes awkwardly dere dere, her stocks sky rockets. This is a tried and tested method in anime

    Ginobi47
    Reply

  12. What Arata chanted when he pulled out the new gun are the macros, or spellwords, of Lilith’s and Akio’s magic that he copied. Realize is the macros to summon a gun. Arata said it first when he mastered the gun and destroyed the dragon in episode 4(timestamp 20:38). He said that he wanted the macros chant to be the same as Lilith’s. Conception is Akio’s macros to activate Mantra Enchant. She mentioned it in episode 7(timestamp 08:31) before she she showed her will to him and Arata saw her loli form, after which she fainted.
    Arata combined both Outer Alchemic and Mantra Enchant which are magic from two different Themas and Archives which seems to be a difficult thing given that Sora was surprised about it. Notice that the new gun has the dragon when he first used Akio’s magic.

    I thought it was obvious why they destroyed the black sun. It was the one in control of the dimension. Mira said that Astral Trinity created a breakdown phenomenon to exercise control. And Ilia said that she lost control of the dimension, after which Sora pointed to the sun. Remember that the place that Sora was trapped in earlier was the lynchpin of the dimension at first.

    Arin’s sudden appearance and her magic didn’t really have much explanation for it, but if you look at it, it still fits within the scope of her Thema, which is Ruina/Destruction. She destroyed the link between Arata and Sora, which caused Arata to go out of control in episode 2. She casted a barrier on Arata during the Yui rescue mission to destroy monsters that come close to him. And here she destroyed time and space to get to where Arata is. All have something to do with destruction.

    Behind the T&A and harem antics of the show is a decent magic system. It still has some holes in it but it’s not overly complicated like in Mahouka.

    belatkuro
    Reply

    1. That all makes sense when you explain it (except for the Arin part … destroying a link, projecting a shield, and “destroying” time and space are nothing like one another outside of some linguistic gymnastics), but the issue is that they’ve explained things so haphazardly along the way (mainly via massive, dry infodumps) that it never drew interest.

      Take it from someone who write fantasy himself—you can’t assume that readers care about or understand your intricate magic system as much as you do, so you have to occasionally repeat things in order to not lose them. (How often to repeat things is the trick.) Here I think they underestimated how much we retained the tiny, intricate details when they never really explained (or revisited) things that well or often enough. Does that make sense?

      Stilts
      Reply

  13. “Yet, Trinity Seven returns to its old bad habits by pulling bullshit dues ex machina resolutions out of its ass which have no grounding in our knowledge of the magic system. Arata pulls out a new gun by combining … what, exactly? It wasn’t explained. Then he (with Ilia’s help), Sora, and Mira nuke the black moon, because … reasons. Once again, no idea why that worked, or even what exactly they did.

    Worst of all was when Arata summoned Arin to his rescue by calling Hijiri’s name. Or maybe Arin teleported to him, I don’t know. And she had a new spear, for some reason. This one was even worse explained.”

    As mentioned above the gun came from combining his two copied thema, which seems to be a Demonlord thing. Demonlord Arata took control of the space and made the black moon like the black sun of his first constructed world. After Arata came back into control of himself he lost control of the space. They then checked to see if Ilia had regained control but she had not so that meant the core was somewhere else and since the moon was the only new part of the space it was probably the core. So they destroyed the core just as they had been trying before.

    Arin hearing Arata call for her when he called for Hijiri is a clue for the link between the two, I think. They don’t look the same for no reason. As for the spear and the teleportation, it seems like they are linked. Arin said that when she needed to get to Arata she found that she could destroy the space between them to come to him and she got the spear of the greatest master of her thema when she did it. I imagine we will hear more about that next week.

    “But Hijiri being a powerful mage (and what’s more, an enemy) makes certain things make more sense, even if some decisions (if you’re just going to take the grimoires from Arata, why give him one and let him take the other?) are still a mystery, and the reasons are probably stupid”

    Ilia said that Hijiri had changed and Hijiri said that she got her Demonlord element after she was separated from Arata. So the first grimoire was given to him to protect him and the second was supposed to imprison him in another dimension, keeping him out of the fight. It seems like Hijiri is being driven to do this, because she really does not want to hurt Arata.

    Magewolf
    Reply

    1. About Arin, there is definitely a connection between her and Hijiri.

      Surprisingly, it seems that noone remembers the last part of the first episode very well (eheh not even my good Stilts).
      Arata meets Arin for the first time in the bath, and due to the steam, mistakes her for Hijiri (the two girls faces are shown cross-fading for us to understand what Arata is seeing). He run out and tells Lilith that there is HIJIRI in the bathroom, she explains that would be Arin. Later, Harata talks with his grimoire (Sora, but she has not made an appearance as a girl yet), that mentions that Arin and Hijiri look the same on the outside, but are very different on the inside. Arata answers with something like “Yes but I get the feeling that Arin is connected to Hijiri”.

      Could it get more explicit than this ? 😉

      Voyager
      Reply

      1. Hmmm, it’s not exactly that I forgot it, but it still seemed odd that he called Hijiri and got Arin. When the answer comes I’ll probably go “Ah, that makes sense,” but that will only apply for why Arin heard the Hijiri call. Her ripping a hole through space and time and pulling a mythical spear out of (I assume) her ass is still a huge dues ex machina, since none of that has been foreshadowed at all.

        Stilts
        Reply

      2. Yes, I agree, Arin coming out of nowhere was bad. Plus, I bet you won’t be saying “Ah, that makes sense” in the end, more probably it’ll be “uh, so it was like that? that’s stupid”. There’s no defending the execution here, but at least the author seems to have thought about using that deus ex-machina in advance. It doesn’t make it that much better, but let’s be fair and give it an F+ instead of F.

        Voyager
        Reply

  16. “You’re not Arata, so I have nothing to give you!”
    ☆*･゜ﾟ･*\(^O^)/*･゜ﾟ･*☆

    Also, about this:

    But Hijiri being a powerful mage (and what’s more, an enemy) makes certain things make more sense, even if some decisions (if you’re just going to take the grimoires from Arata, why give him one and let him take the other?) are still a mystery, and the reasons are probably stupid

    A quick note about Hijiri
    Show Spoiler ▼

    And for the grimores
    Show Spoiler ▼

    Shiden
    Reply

    1. Just a correction about Ilya she has actually been around from the start. As mentioned in both the anime and manga Hijiri had actually used Ilya to impersonate her in looking after Arata when she was Show Spoiler ▼

      Juan
      Reply

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