Trinity Seven

Episodes 8-12

After episode 7 I ceased doing episode-by-episode reviews of this series in large part because the faults of the series were so regularly recurring that I was mostly just repeating the same comments from episode to episode, and thus the title was not worthy of such attention. In looking back at the series' last five episodes, did anything which transpired change my opinion or elevate the series from the doldrums in which it was trapped?

No, not really.

In fairness, the actual plot afoot did finally take over, which at least gave Trinity Seven a long-needed sense of direction. In the wake of the Liselotte incident (from episode 7), Arata is made a subordinate of the Censorship Committee, in which capacity he travels with Trinity Seven members to the Liber Academy in order to investigate a school of magic which has supposedly been destroyed. There they are separated, with Arata, Mira, and Astil Codex encountering what looks like Hijiri but eventually turns out to be another legendary codex which can take human form – that of her master, the real Hijiri, who is, indeed, a powerful magus (and even another demon lord candidate!) and also a member of a group called Iscariot. In the process of trying to free themselves from the artificial world created by “Fragment of the Iliad,” Arata's demon lord side emerges, endangering friend and foe alike, until it can eventually be suppressed. While most of the Trinity Seven members recover and regroup, other Iscariot members attack the Royal Biblia Academy, where only Yui and Levi defend until the others can return. Once they do, Arata and the Trinity Seven must defeat Hijiri and one of her allies, in the process of which they learn that their world is locked in a perpetual cycle of destruction and reincarnation, with the destruction always caused by Arata uniting with the Trinity Seven. Naturally they don't buy that. The series wraps with a veritable date between Arata and Lilith which reaffirms the strength of the connection between Arata and all of the Trinity Seven, in the process leaving a fair number of plot threads dangling.

Whether those plot threads are actually interesting enough to care about is another story. Some somewhat intriguing further details about magical mechanics come up, but the only part of this five-episode span that I found even slightly compelling was the emergence of Astral Trinity, Arata's demon lord side – and sorry, but even with as bad-ass as he is shown to be by his actions, he is simply not that visually intimidating or even interesting in that form. Most of the magical battle scenes still suffer from an all-too-casual presentation, which denies them most of their spark and verve; it is hard to keep the thrill factor or even energy level high when enemies are politely waiting around for the heroes to engage in long-winded conversations. Again, this problem is hardly exclusive to Trinity Seven, but this series is a vastly worse offender than most.

The few strong points remain ones that have been good throughout. The artistry still looks fine, never do the character designs fail to produce appealing (even sexy!) female characters, the fan service is relatively lightweight but still good quality, and Lilith and Arata do make a neat-looking couple (when I can get by the whole “teacher dating student” dynamic, that is – and no, them being the same age doesn't make a bit of difference). Arata's frankly perverse attitude about the girls and what he likes to see still holds its refreshing charm through to the end, too, and it still has a good opener.

While the concept behind Trinity Seven never had a huge amount of potential, it nevertheless should have fared better than what it did; indeed, it never after recaptured the edge it had in the first half of its first episode. An OVA which sounds like it's going to be a pure fan service fest is pending in March, but based on what has been delivered so far, this is one of the most consistently disappointing series of the season, if not the entire year.

Rating: C-

Trinity Seven is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.