So, the “School for supers” archetype that we’ve been looking at this month has a few common elements. For one, the vast majority of them (including shows of the type I’ve looked at before, such as Hundred) have some degree of Harem elements. In a lot of ways, it’s very similar to what you see in the Isekai genre, where the same basic principles that are known to work are remixed in new ways with different trappings. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but in the end they develop a long set of expectations and turn out a lot of crowd-pleasing junk food, a good few generally disliked flops, and at least a couple gems at various stages in the genre’s popularity life-cycle.
One of the ways in which these shows distinct themselves from others of their type (if they’re smart enough to do that) is to focus on a different element of the formula. For Trinity Seven, the Harem and Ecchi elements that appear in other “Battle School” affairs are turned up to eleven. I said that Anti-Magic Academy worked better as a Harem show than it did as an action show, but its ambition was still firmly a hybrid, and given the dark tone and feel probably leaned more towards the weaker action side. Trinity Seven, by contrast, is all about that steamy Harem goodness, with some action and drama thrown in for good measure.
And, by all rights, I should hate this. If you want to see an example of what I was afraid I was getting into with Trinity Seven, you can take a look at my review of Omamori Himari, not itself a “Battle School” show but very much a show that doubled down on the Ecchi elements and was destroyed by them in return. But there are a few reasons why what’s a death knell for so many shows actually wraps around to the positive here. In my opinion, they all come down to the main character, Arata, and his relationships with the members of his “harem”.
So, here’s the setup. Arata is a normal dude living with his cousin, Hijiri, until one day he finds out that life was destroyed three days ago in a vast disaster and what he thinks is his cousin is actually a magic grimoire in human form (it didn’t make sense in Demonbane and it doesn’t make a lot of sense here, but roll with it. I feel like I’m missing a cultural touchstone for why “a magic book has become human” is so weirdly common) maintaining an illusory world to grant Arata’s wish. The figure confronting him with this issue is Lilith Asami, a busty redhead magician with a big gun who gives him an ultimatum. Arata’s solution is to vow to become a mage, control his power, and find and rescue his dear cousin who is still alive out there somewhere. He’s taken to Biblia Academy, the only place of learning more disaster-prone than Professor Xavier’s School for the Gifted, and told by the headmaster that to accomplish his tasks he’ll need to step up as a candidate for the title of “Demon Lord” (evidently a degree of mage in this universe) and obtain the help of the Trinity Seven – seven intensely gifted mages each bound to one of the Seven Deadly Sins… who all, of course, happen to be cute girls about Arata’s age.
Now, if you know your rules of
Ecchi/Harem, you’re going to have some expectations on where we go
from here. For one, the main character is always the same type: the
naive, nice everyman who’s bad with girls (hence why none of them
ever get anywhere with him despite practically throwing themselves at
him) and will be mortified when caught in an embarrassingly sexual
situation like he’s liable to do constantly due to some voodoo harem
curse, as his intentions are entirely chivalrous. If he’s a fighting
type, his normal notes of reserved (or spineless, if you prefer) will
come out in a naive pacifism that sees him not wanting to fight,
kill, or fully utilize his great power. And somehow this results in
all the girls falling in love with him, sometimes without rhyme nor
reason.
Arata is not that character. In fact,
I’m fairly sure he’s designed to be the explicit and exact opposite.
Arata, for a start, is openly a perv.
He knows what he likes and wants to see, so when he gets an eyeful of
one or more of his gorgeous companions disrobed, he’ll give thanks
for his luck and take in the view as well as he can before getting
hit or blasted. Boob grabs go the same. When by contrived ecchi
harem luck he falls into them, he’ll go ahead and own the feel, again
until his just desserts find him. He’s not a creep, he doesn’t go
out of his way to peep or manufacture such circumstances, but when
reality seems to conspire to award him with such gifts, he’s not
inclined to complain.
Further, Arata is a driven individual
with conviction. When he sees a problem, he’ll use everything at his
disposal to try to solve it. When he fights an enemy, he doesn’t see
any reason to fight with the kid gloves on, and utilizes every bit of
power he can control (or more) to achieve his goals.
Lastly, most of the girls here don’t
fall in love with Arata for no reason or trivial reasons. Depending
on how you define those words, you could say that none of them do.
Because this is an Ecchi/Harem/Romance show first, I think it bears
summarizing Arata’s relationships with the Trinity Seven before
getting into the plot.
First is Lilith. Of the seven, she’s
the one Arata interacts with most and most honestly. She’s also,
because of that, the absolute most common victim of the Harem antics,
which does not suit her well. Her Thema (the core of her magic) is
tied to Lust, but we’re repeatedly told that in this world a mage’s
Thema is typically the topic that they’re farthest from, something
that doesn’t come naturally and they are instead lacking or, in some
cases, would have to work hard to achieve if they wanted to. So, as
you can imagine, she’s rather prudish and potentially even
emotionally constipated. I wouldn’t exactly typify her as a
tsundere, but she certainly plays some of those notes. Because of
this, her relationship with Arata is long and slow-burn. By the end
of the show she’s the girl that I’d say he has the best romantic
emotional connection with, but when it comes to actually working out
a relationship, even whether either of them wants it, they haven’t
gone very far. And instead of being for stupid reasons, it’s more, I
feel, because they’re still getting to know each other even by the
end. Relationships don’t sprout out of the ground overnight, after
all.
Next, I’d lump together Levi (a
ninja-like girl, tied to Envy with the precise theme of Expectation)
and Akio (a confident, competitive woman, belonging to Gluttony). At
least in the bounds of the show, I would regard Arata’s relationship
with both of them as utterly non-romantic friendship. The delta
between them is that we don’t see Arata with Akio a lot, and when we
do she comes off as something of a teacher (or at least a senior or
mentor if not a formal instructor), while Levi is introduced early
and around a lot, and comes off more as a buddy or even wingman, a
peer rather than a senior.
Arin is one who forces some challenge
to the idea that none of the girls freely fall in love, as this
flat-affect doppelganger of Hijiri introduces herself declaring she
is (or will be) Arata’s wife. But, as one might expect being
positioned at the opposite of Wrath, she doesn’t have a lot of
passion in anything she does, and in fact regards her pursuit in an
extremely perfunctory manner: she’s ‘supposed’ to wed the Demon Lord,
Arata is the Demon Lord candidate, therefore he’s her fiancee in her
eyes. She doesn’t seem to actually care about him as a person (if
you need evidence, she tries seriously to kill him just to explore
her destruction magic and gain a better understanding of what it
means to destroy).
Yui is the other girl who looks more like a traditional harem relationship. After Arata manages to change her circumstances so she’s no longer permanently locked to sleep in the dungeon depths, astrally projecting her mind elsewhere (plot, I know) she takes a very bubbly deredere approach, and doesn’t hesitate to use words of affection. Her magic flows from Greed, so she’s rather selfless. Of all the girls, she’s also the one who gets the poorest study as a person. Honestly, I think the lack of a unique relationship between her and Arata makes her fairly forgettable. This show is overall pretty good about its growth arcs, but I guess they can’t all be winners.
Speaking of arcs, we’re missing two of
the girls, and I’ve left them for last because they develop heavily
over arcs that are later in the show. So, to get to their stories,
the basic summary of what goes on early.
Essentially, the first part of the show
is dedicated to encountering and foiling “Breakdown Events” that
happen at the school. Any of these could be end-of-the-world
scenarios, or at least regional catastrophes, and no-name students
may or may not evaporate en masse. The Headmaster is kind of blase
about this, preferring to troll Arata and the Trinity Seven as they
clean up their messes – Arata’s (from which he learns his Thema,
Control, and his first magic, an anti-magic effect that because mages
conjure costumes also disrobes everyone in the area.) and Yui’s
(Which is less disintegrating but not necessarily less dangerous),
after which we’re introduced to the last member of the seven we meet,
Lieselotte, and spend an arc with her… as the main antagonist of
the arc.
Lieselotte, you see, is the Trinity
Seven of Sloth, which means that she herself is extremely motivated
and ambitious, while possessing Sloth-based magic that lets her cheat
to fulfill her desires, manipulating time and stealing magic power
from others. She’s already used her magic to become a Demon Lord
Candidate (like Arata) herself, and is more than willing to absorb
anyone else’s potential in order to advance her aims. She’s also as
much of a perv as Arata, more than willing to use her jaw-dropping
figure to gain the upper hand and very much inclined to actually
banter with our lead. In a few conversations, it’s hard to tell
whether they’re posturing and threatening each other over the magical
nonsense or legitimately flirting as a young couple.
It could be both, of course. Both is
good.
In any case, despite their first
interactions being antagonistic, they actually build good chemistry
and an oddly friendly rapport, so that when the resolution of the arc
sees Lieselotte trapped in a bizarre time dimension, it’s totally
believable that Arata is fairly broken up about this turn of events
and puts rescuing her on his list of priorities along with finding
Hijiri. In the show, at least, he doesn’t accomplish that, but
Lieselotte makes some further appearances by possessing her much less
magically talented sister, which tend to reinforce how well she and
Arata play off each other.
Which brings us to the next arc, where
Arata and (primarily) Mira, the last member of the Trinity Seven I
haven’t discussed yet, are tasked with an investigation that brings
them into conflict with a foe who is at or near proper Demon Lord
status in a sealed-off space.
Now, Mira has been in the show pretty much from the start, unlike Lieselotte who was actually a latecomer. Mira is the Trinity Seven member tied to Pride (specific Thema, Justice), but unlike most of the others she doesn’t seem to be actually opposed to her magic element. Instead, like Arata and his Control, it’s something she doggedly works towards and grapples with the conception and reality of. Until this arc she gets relatively little development; having reached a position of power in security, she’s been fairly firmly opposed to Arata and all of the out-of-control nonsense that seems to follow in his wake, especially since she’s nearly as prudish as Lilith and perhaps even more offended by the harem antics. While she’s grudgingly assisted Arata up to this point when he’s been making an effort to put things right, the arc handling this enemy, Astral Trinity, serves to firmly transform their relationship.
While they’re isolated and depowered
(which has disrobed Mira), Arata takes an attitude different than his
normal one. Remember, I did say he was still a nice guy at heart,
and this is a big part of where he shows it: he knows this is a
serious situation, and more importantly that Mira is really, honestly
uncomfortable with lewd nonsense. So when she’s in her reduced
state, he doesn’t look or quip. He helps her, and tries to be a
gentleman about it – a complete 180 from his interactions with
Lieselotte that were drenched with lewd quipping on both sides…
because that was part of what Lieselotte was into.
Being shown consideration from a source she never would have expected it from causes Mira to open up a little. We get some backstory on the other members of the Trinity Seven throughout the show, but here we actually get some of Mira’s personal history in detail. We learn what she’s been through, what she wants, and what her Thema, Justice, means to her – facts that have all quietly underscored her previous friction with Arata. They’re able to, even in the midst of a horrible situation, talk out some of their differences (though others remain unspoken) and come together in order to help each other through. In the end, their new understanding and teamwork is a third of the battle (the other two thirds are immense magical power and great violence) and they get through the worst, coming out the other side entirely different as a unit than they went in. Mira is still cold sometimes after this. After all, Arata is a perv when he’s not suppressing his tendencies, and can often be irreverent, both traits that she has trouble accepting. And Mira, of course, can be a rules lawyer and a stick in the mud, traits which Arata has trouble accepting. But both of them have seen that the other has a good core worth getting along with, and perhaps that they’re far more similar than they are different. After all, their Themas come from the same sin, and they have similar relationships to their magic when you get down to it, so it shouldn’t be surprising that there are more elements of their character that are like one another.
This done, we go into the final arc: an
all-out attack on the school perpetrated by an enemy organization…
and led by Hijiri, herself a Demon Lord candidate who wants to… let
me check my notes… kill Arata in order to save him from his
possible future self, where if he becomes the true Demon Lord with
the Trinity Seven at his side he’ll bring about the destruction of
the world or possibly even the multiverse. Essentially, in the
predictions of Hijiri’s organization are that the very human bonds
that are helping Arata control his power will one day be the factor
that brings about the End Times. Emotionally, it’s actually quite
interesting: Hijiri still has strong positive feelings for Arata, so
you might suspect that death (as she’d deal it out) might not be
meant to be the end. And the fact that the friendship/romance
between the lead and his harem is of critical and possibly disastrous
import is a very fun twist. But, on a technical level… this world
does get really, excessively convoluted. A big part of me wonders if
the last arc was adapted from either more manga material per episode
than the others or later material than what actually came next,
because they have to spew a lot of exposition fast, and it’s not
always the easiest to parse, even for someone into speculative
fiction genres like me.
Well, even if you don’t exactly know
what’s happening, the final arc is still enjoyable because there’s a
high density of decent action (the best in the show, by far) and
enough motivation and emotion to understand why everything is
happening. Hijiri and her team are fought off but will be back, and
Arata vows to control his power so the dark future never comes
about… control the whole world if he has to in order to do that,
and it’s up to the audience to wonder whether or not we’re possibly
facing a self-fulfilling prophecy with that.
Rather than just ending there, though,
the show gives us a farewell tour. Do remember, as much as you may
be surprised that there are any students left alive after the hell
Biblia Academy has gone through, we are in a school anime. Did you
really think we would escape without a school festival? I actually
rather like it, though. Getting a chance to see Arata and the girls
in their downtime reminds us of how far they’ve come and what they’ve
built together, even with the looming threat that the very
relationships that we love to see bloom will bring about ruin. The
real final scene is a quiet, heartfelt scene between Arata and Lilith
with some hints of comedy, and I think that’s right for what Trinity
Seven’s ambition actually is. Recall, it’s not really about the
action and magic here, so ending on that would have been
fundamentally unfulfilling.
At the end of the day, I’m of two minds
about Trinity Seven. On one hand, it’s a wonder. I really do mean
that, it is amazingly impressive how this show does some of the
things it does. On the other hand, what it’s most a wonder at is
navigating a minefield that the show itself set. It’s extremely good
for what it is, but in some ways it’s a big fish in a small pond. It
manages to be more than Ecchi Harem schlock, but that’s still what a
lot of its backbone is made of, even if those elements are
marvelously executed. Add in the fact that the fantasy is horribly
convoluted, at least some times needlessly so, and I think a B is a
fitting rating at the end. I’d be happy to spend more time with
these characters, but the show’s not really going to belong on a list
of greats that isn’t somehow stratified or segregated into genres and
subgenres. At least, if you’re in the mood for a hefty dose of
fanservice with some good character, I really would recommend it.