Tactics 1

October 25, 2004

Title: The Dark Tengu Awakens
Fansubbed by: AnimeYuki

In a village manor, a demon traps a young boy into a block of ice.

In order to save him, our hero resorts to desperate measures . . .

and summons the legendary Tengu, Haruka.

The End

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RATING: C

Just as pointed out in the outstanding commentary of Ten, Ender, Rainy, and Tensai11, this episode focuses on the supernatural machinations of the scholar Kantarou, and his fateful summoning of the ultra-powerful Haruka. Without a doubt, this episode is quite well-produced, with excellent voice acting and stylish artwork, but . . . there's nothing that really distinguishes it from the crowd.

As an echo to BluWacky's excellent review, this episode is quite solid from a technical standpoint. In retrospect, it's a bit odd to see our shonen hero depicted as a frail, soft-spoken lad, but this fault is balanced by the warm relationship he shares with his sprites. Similarly, it's bewildering to see our hero being jeered as a fraud by villagers, but in response, it's quite catharthic to see Kantarou finally release the legendary Haruka from captivity.

However, with this being said, Tactics feels more like a cut-and-dried adventure title than anything else. Given the extraordinary powers of Haruka, we never see Kantarou ever exposed to danger, and, as a sort of penultimate cop-out, the storyline suggests that demons are captured simply by giving them a name. While this mechanism lends more support for plot development, it deprives the story of any "tactical" combat whatsoever.

In any case, this series clearly has a great deal of room to grow. There's an extraordinary amount of potential within the archaic 18th-century / supernatural setting created, but one can only hope that Tactics will create a strong storyline as well.

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