Review of Absolute Duo
In the ocean of generic harems that we've been all been graced by the last few years, here we finally have a show that breaks free of all those bonds and- ...no sorry, Absolute Duo is just yet another one of them from start to finish. After the hilarious trainwreck that Studio 8bit presented with their adaptation of Grisaia no Kajitsu last season, you'd think that at least they couldn't make anything worse right afterwards but you may very well argue that they did. Admittedly I don't think anyone had very high expectations on Absolute Duo in comparison, but that still doesn't change the factthat the show did absolutely nothing to try and defy those expectations.
The story takes place in a typical magic high-school where the students learn to utilize what's referred to as their Blaze: a physical manifestation of their human soul which normally takes the form of a melee weapon. The school also has a so-called Duo partner system where all the students cooperate in pairs of two for the sake of combat training, which of course conveniently enough enables our protagonist Tooru to end up living with a beautiful silver-haired girl named Julie. It's a shocking plot twist for sure and a never-before-seen way to build up the setting for an action/fantasy/ecchi/harem light novel adaptation. Beyond that, there isn't really much to be said about the story other than it has some fanservice moments, some cliché ecchi jokes, some hack & slash fight scenes with generic villains and more along those lines throughout the anime. It really isn't any more interesting than that.
Pretty much all the characters are incredibly generic and follow standard character tropes like cardboard cutouts. They're the types which you pretty much can judge immediately after you've gotten your first impression of them, and they're all shallow enough for you to be able to sum them up in a single sentence. The only one that actually stands out in any way is Julie as she's more of an emotionless dandere moecchi loli, compared to the more standard overly-busty fanservice girl which would normally get the main heroine role in a show of this nature. She reminds me a lot of Est from Seirei Tsukai no Blade Dance, albeit definitely not quite on that level of cuteness.
The animation is basically what you'd expect; it has a lot of vibrant colors and fancy character designs, but at the same time the limited budget shines through as there are plenty of moments where the overall quality drops, and a few of the episodes look very rushed as a result. On the other hand the voice acting is overall very good with several famous actors in the cast such as Matsuoka Yoshitsugu, Tamura Yukari and Horie Yui. The soundtrack makes good use of music to properly enhance the atmosphere of both the action-packed and the romantic scenes, and also both the OP and ED have some pretty great electronic tracks for them.
Overall, Absolute Duo is not a terrible show but it's more of a case of a concept which has more or less been done to death by now, and more often than not it's been done better before. Fortunately these kinds of generic harems are rarely boring per se though so it's still pretty easy to watch, but as far as actual quality goes then it has virtually none to speak of. The only reason I would recommend anyone to watch this show is because of how cute Julie is, unless of course you happen to be someone who never gets sick of seeing the same cardboard cutout storyline over and over again. I don't regret watching it, but I can't say it really provided me much to praise it for either.
If you've got nothing better to do, then Absolute Duo is a pretty simple way to spend an evening. However you will have to really run out of options before you're unable to find anything more worth your time than this.