Oh look, a guy with a nun-mannequin fetish.
Which might be one of the few things which differentiates this from any other fantasy-type tale starring an amnesiac young man who is GASP! actually the possessor of grand powers!
Honestly, though, what is problematic here isn’t necessarily that the storyline isn’t terribly original – its the fact that it isn’t getting executed well at all. Whereas the original manga could pull the feat off, for whatever reason it falls flat in this adaptation, something I think in large part due to the positively glacial pace.
Nothing has happened since the first episode, when Teito flew the coop and ended up with the church and the bishops. We’ve gotten some piecemeal junk about Kors, and the amnesia thing has largely been cleared up, but we still have absolutely no idea what Teito being of royal blood means, what the hell the bishops have in it, or even the slightest inkling of the larger situation at hand (which is to really say that the world-building has been utterly lacking). Irate military officials stand around looking cold and angry, but we never actually see them do anything. Likewise, Teito mopes around the cathedral grounds, doing exciting things like finding pretty gardens, talking to mermaids which don’t speak human languages, and getting perfunctorily attacked by monster-things known as Kors. Yawn.
And this all boils down to how drawn-out everything is, something which I find frankly baffling. There are currently seven bound volumes (numbering five or six chapters apiece) of this in Japan, and there are only thirteen episodes slated for the broadcast anime – there is no need to stretch out the material this much. I suspect that someone somewhere is hoping this thing’ll get a second order of thirteen episodes (Studio Deen having done this recently with both Junjou Romantica and Vampire Knight), which calls for the slow pace, but the fact remains that it is difficult to get a second season on order if the first season fails to sustain its audience share.
Quite simply, 07-Ghost is profoundly frustrating. It moves at the pace of molasses in January, and does not possess the merits to pull such a thing off, a la Asatte no Houkou or Yokohama Shopping Log. I quite frankly don’t have the slightest idea as to why I persist in watching it, and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone else. Even if it manages to improve itself at this point, six episodes is a deep hole for a half-season show to dig before improving. Don’t waste your time.
GAR GAR Stegosaurus 