Review of Absolute Duo

TL;DR An utterly bland, by the numbers fantasy harem romance that feels like it only exists because there was a hole in a schedule that needed plugging. Don't bother. To my mind, there are three types of bad show. There's the ones that sincerely think they are good, but end up being terrible. There are those that would have been good if their initial ambition had only been matched by their ability to realise it. & then there are those that just don't care enough to make the effort. Absolute Duo, sadly, is the last of these. After a brief prologue that foreshadows a possible conflictto come between the two main characters (that ends up looking nothing like it's depicted here *spoiler*), we begin by accompanying Tooru (or Tor or Thor or whatever the translator feels like using at a given point in time) on his first day at a new school for magic people. For reasons that don't matter & nobody seems to care, the school is made up primarily of random European landmarks such as Big Ben & the Colosseum, I guess because it looks cool. It is in said Colosseum that our main man suddenly finds himself in a battle royale to decide which entrants are actually worthy of attending the Kouryou Academy, announced by a loli goth who it turns out is the school principal.

It is during this fight that we discover Tooru to be a special snowflake, because unlike everyone else his Exceed power takes the form of a shield instead of a weapon, marking him out as an Exception. Not that this apparent handicap matters, because he also has a special falcon punch attack that is never really explained but sure is good for hitting girls in the belly. Anyways to the surprise of nobody he passes the battle royale & so begins his & our journey through quite possibly the worst show of the Winter 2015 season.

To sum up Absolute Duo's biggest flaws in a sentence, it is that the show is just going through the motions & really doesn't care if anything makes sense so long as it keeps the story moving in its desired direction. The most obvious example of this is the titular Duos themselves, specifically the one between Tooru & main loli Julie, a foreign exchange student from a made up place in Europe. It's established pretty quickly that forming a duo is a) a pretty unremarkable thing that every Exceed does & b) it is always between two members of the same sex. However, because no homo, when it comes to Tooru agreeing to form a Duo with token guy friend Aoi, suddenly it's a really big deal that they have to sign what amounts to a marriage certificate & our MC must do the right thing & form a Duo with Julie instead.

Naturally nobody else sees what the fuss is about & indeed Tooru & Julie are noted as odd for being a boy-girl duo, which makes it seem all the odder that Tooru had such a problem forming one with Aoi. Of course the answer to why is that the Duo is really just a contrivance to create a "romantic moment" where Tooru asks Julie & also to put Tooru & Julie in a binding relationship together, because writing friendships/romances that form naturally is hard work for a Light Novelist. This adds to the already forced fun that is when, to the surprise of nobody watching, Tooru finds himself sharing a room with Julie & shock horror she doesn't know how to look after herself. If you've seen Pet Girl of Sakurasou, you could sum up their relationship as Sorata & Mashiro with magic swords & I think you'd just about get the gist of it.

Beyond this trio (Aoi nonchalantly forms a Duo with another guy but he plays no role beyond kinda making their Duo look like a Uke - Seme pairing), we also have Tomoe & Miyabi, who form the girl Duo in our group. Because :anime: there are some yuri undertones to their bond, with stronger & more outwardly confident Tomoe forming a protective attachment to the more insecure & shy Miyabi. Of course, again because no homo, those undertones are really just there so the second end credit sequence can have them both naked in it, & in fact Miyabi soon forms feelings for Tooru because everyone else is doing it so why not her too? Don't be shocked if her feelings & desire to prove herself worthy of Tooru's non-existent affection end up causing trouble.

Our group, which you can call a harem although it's one of those where it's clear from the beginning that the MC only has eyes for one girl, is rounded off with the arrival of transfer student Lilith Bristol, another Exception who quickly decides she's going to form a duo (& marry) Tooru, but of course his manly man principles see him stick it out with Julie. Much hijinks, many boob grabs & hilarious misunderstandings ensue. It's really fresh & original stuff.

The story of Absolute Duo is one that's best not given too much thought, because it will only hurt your brain. Our first antagonist, for example, is revealed to be none other than the groups class teacher, bunny-sensei (she has a name, but you won't remember it. You'll remember her bunny maid outfit, though) who for reasons unknown decides to try & kill those Exceeds who are doing well during a class exam/battle royale. Of course, our heroes ultimately defeat her through the power of friendship, only for her to go right back to being their teacher because the loli-goth principal thinks she's good at her job. That's it. There's no real indication that she's working with the Rebels, who become the schools main antagonists after this point, nor is it suggested as it so easily could have been that she was doing it on the principals orders as part of her at all costs plan to find the titular "Absolute Duo" (which isn't really explained but one can assume means the most powerful Duo in Duodom). It just kinda happens.

Said Rebels themselves don't make all that much sense as antagonists. Their leader, Equipment Smith (only in anime would he be called that), seems to want to make an army of super soldiers to counter the academy's Exceeds or something but it's not quite clear why or, if that's the case, why him, loli-goth & others form a round table of leaders that meet to discuss...I don't know what in a later episode. But they fill the roll of bad guys, & Rebel member K the role of Tooru's nemesis specifically (something about Tooru & Julie's bond really rubs him up the wrong way, for :anime: reasons), so just go with it. Things happen, decisions are made, allegiances shift, & all simply because the plot requires it at that point in time regardless of whether it makes sense.

Tooru & Julie's relationship, like everything else, is also one of those that feels like it's just going through the motions. It starts out with Julie apparently being incapable of looking after herself, so naturally Tooru must, as it were, domesticate her. Then we progress to her feeling unconfident & insecure about her fighting abilities, which naturally Tooru is there to give her the reassurances & head rubs every girl needs to feel good about themselves. Then things take a turn which I wish anime didn't do so often (as if it wasn't patronizing & weird enough), wherein it becomes apparent that Julie is actually capable of being an incredibly powerful fighter (as the prologue foreshadows) but that power is dangerous & it is Tooru's manly duty to both tame it when in danger of going out of control & ultimately for him to get powerful enough that she never need fight herself. Because if there's one place safer for a girl than behind a sword, it's behind the back of the man wielding her sword for her.

It may come as no surprise that despite obviously being the couple, Absolute Duo pulls the usual anime schtick of never actually having Tooru & Julie express romantic feelings towards each other, instead having them develop a more familial, platonic relationship that's all about trust & protection (& not sex!) despite this being a romance series & theirs clearly being the romance. I don't know why anime does this, but it does get pretty boring hearing the MC shout "JULIE!" in that constipated action anime voice during climactic scenes & then the closest thing we get to a romantic moment is a head pat or words of encouragement (I don't count Julie doing something that in a normal relationship would be romantic but because this is anime makes Tooru freak out like she just whipped out a penis). Of course, this is pretty standard for anime, so I guess you just have to go with it.

It doesn't help Absolute Duo's case that beyond the at best generic characters & story, there's plenty about the shows production to criticize. There is quite heavy use of CGI in fight scenes, & it looks as bad as you'd expect. It's not like the fight scenes are particularly high octane or exciting to begin with, compounded by how the CGI has that weird effect of making everything look slower, which kinds takes the thrill out of some moments. The character designs, as I have alluded to already, seem in a few cases to be more about pillow cover/figurine sales than anything like reflecting the characters personalities. The characters eyes also have a really odd look to them, as rather than having black pupils they're the same colour as the iris, only with a black rim denoting where one ends & the other starts. It's a minor thing, but I found it really odd, as though they had coloured stones inlaid into the eye socket rather than actual eyes.

Beyond that the art & animation is pretty standard. There is also, as you'd expect, a whole lot of "titillating" fanservice, which tends to be like buses in that none comes for a while & then OMG they're all naked in a hot spring together. The OST is pretty bad, the fight music in particular suffering from both being underwhelming & clearly looped. I guess the OP is pretty good, with one of those thumping trance-rock hybrid songs over a pretty action heavy animation sequence. It's a shame that they seem to have shot it entirely on two's, resulting in the OP looking like it's constantly buffering. In short it seems the show was given enough of a budget to get the job done & nothing more; much like everything else about the series, really.

So then, here we are at the end of a journey we'd all have been better off not taking. It has to be said that as bad as Absolute Duo is, it's not offensively so. Indeed it's biggest sin is that it just doesn't seem to even try to be good, or at least interesting. The whole thing feels like everyone involved, from the author to the publisher to the animation studio, is just doing this project because it's there to be done. If Absolute Duo had been one of those shows that felt sincerely like it's trying to be good, or that it was a case of having more ambition than the capacity to realise it, I wouldn't have minded as much. But the whole thing reeks of being a by the numbers, who cares if it's good so long as it shifts some books & merchandise affair. Don't waste your time with it.