okeefe.glenna - 2014-10-03 01:00:20

Upon finding out about this anime, I got pretty intrigued by its premise and the trailers certainly made me a bit excited to see it but was also pretty nervous with how it would turn out. The fact that people who had already seen it claimed it to be a Madoka Magica knock off did not help. Nevertheless I decided to give it a try and see if it was really the case (since I liked that show and all). So, how did it hold up? Let's see...

Story: There is a world being plagued by Daemonia, creatures that take advantage of the negative emotions of people and transform them into monsters. A young girl named Akari Taiyo (yeah, I know it means sun light... very creative :P), joins an organization called"Sefiro Fiore" to confront the Daemonia along with others. However, it does not take long for Akari to learn that with their duty comes an unbearable guilt, as to defeat the Daemonia, the humans afflicted by them must perish as well.

Yeah, the story isn't the most original you'd hear in a magical girl, mecha, or any anime for that matter. However there is something unique they added in the story to make it more interesting and cool:

Since ancient times long past, this world has been ruled by two tarot cards. Diablos Tarot—The tarot of the devil that feasts on the souls of living humans and uses that nourishment to bring countless pain and suffering. Elemental Tarot—The tarot that draws its energy from the power of nature in order to oppose the Diablos Tarot. The girls who fight the Daemonia from 22 special bloodlines are chosen to wield the power of the Elemental Tarot and confront them. Akari's has the tarot card of the sun.

Now that sounds like a very good concept. And while they don't really run with that much, when they do its really well done. The first half is... pretty painful to sit through to be honest. It's hard to explain but if you saw the first three episodes then you'd understand where I'm coming from. Honestly I thought it would be about Akari going against the organization and trying to find a way to save the Daemonia instead of killing them or something like that and I think the show might have been a bit better if they did go that direction.

It doesn't get as bad in episodes 4 through 6 but it becomes a bit formulaic and tiring. There is some variety and a bit of development but not much is there. To be frank, in my opinion the show didn't start to get good until episode 7, where it gets a lot more interesting and addicting, quite hard to put down in fact. And the ending and climax, is super satisfying (I think I'm the minority here but I feel its way better than the ending in Madoka Magica). There are technically some comparisons and similarities to Madoka Magica and at times it can be pretty obvious and painful but it doesn't last long (only a few episodes) and only rips off some minor stuff (except for one major but I won't say due to spoilers) but I can see where people would come from when they say its sort of like Madoka Magica in a way.

Animation: The animation for the character movements (walk) is pretty standard as well as the lip syncing, nothing wrong here. The animation on the fight scenes are really outstanding. They're everything good fight scenes are: fast paced adrenaline, cool, and crazy. And I love it! The art for the character and background designs are gorgeous. Characters have very unique and colorful designs that make them look memorable, stand out, and easy to tell apart. The background has loads of different designs from the Daemonia world, to the real human world, to the organization, even the weapons the girls use are amazing.

Sound: Sound isn't anything to write home about, while the main characters have perfect voices and the side characters are ok voices, the secondary characters sound either bland, annoying, or both. The background sets up the mood and tension in the scenes the show has. The OP has nice imagery but the music is pretty forgettable IMO. The ED song is better cause its quiet and mysterious but it isn't great by any means, just good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTXhIlz5RrQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgMtDFHtoZc

Characters: Most of the characters are likeable and have some development... however there roles are generic and are some you'd probably have seen already in other shows... to them for the most part... well in the second half of the show anyways.

Akari is your typical nice heroine who wants to do the right thing and is out going and friendly to everyone. However what separates her from other leads like her is the fact that... she wants to be a fortune teller like her late mother... she is the first of this right? I don't anyone else right now. Her card is the sun and uses a flaming rapier.

Seira is a calm, strict girl who fights with an icy bow and arrow. She has a firm hatred of Daemonia cause of her harsh backstory we learn later on (we don't see much but... its pretty brutal). She prefers to fight alone or with others who are not hesitant on killing the Daemonia, but she soon warms up to her team members while fighting with them some more... just a little bit though. Her card is The Star.

Luna is a modest, shy girl who fights summoning magic vines and has healing powers. Her card is the moon. She seems to have a romantic interest in Akari, which appears to have stemmed from her admiration of her missing twin sister, Serena, and becomes jealous when Akari grows close with others.

Ginka's a blonde, cheerful, and energetic girl who can summon coins which then can convert into a sword, an axe, some shields and other weapons. Unlike the other girls, Ginka has no real motive for killing the Daemonia and just does it for fun and for justice. Also, for the most part she has no fears either and just shrugs off the scary stuff with a smile. She loves food and the outdoors. Her card is Temperance.

The secondary and side characters are pretty interesting and likeable too. The only ones I hate are the triplets cause they never shut up, and that stupid jerk ass crow (thought Kyubey was bad? That bird is even worse and they don't even try to hide it).

Enjoyment: I enjoyed this anime pretty fine. I'm glad I sat through with this one and didn't give up after a few episodes otherwise I would have missed some pretty awesome (and at time sad) scenes. While not as emotional or powerful as Madoka I can still see this as a pretty good show.

Pros: Episode 7 and beyond, awesome art and animation, likeable main characters, great ending.

Cons: Forgettable music, first half sucks, especially the first three episodes, annoying secondary characters, voices range from passable to annoying, feels like wasted potential in some aspects.

Overall: It's not a bad Madoka clone as everyone says, but its far from perfect. If you are tired of seeing the same girly magical girl anime out there and want to see something different, Madoka would probably be the better option, but this one is also a good one to check out if you can stomach the first three episodes (not for the kiddies though).

Also recommended: Yuki Yuna Is A Hero/Yuki Yuna Wa Yusha De Aru

Thanks for reading my 66th review~

emmerich.griffin - 2014-05-11 03:17:04

Full Review Here: http://littlecloudcuriosity.com/category/anime-recaps-reviews/genei-wo-kakeru-taiyou/

crona.keely - 2014-04-26 05:19:31

Day Break Illusion / Genei wo Kakeru Taiyou follows Taiyou Akari, a girl interested in fortune telling via tarot cards. After a traumatizing event that gives her special powers related to the Sun arcana, Akari must join others who fight the Daemonia, evil creatures who exploit the emotional weaknesses of humans and wreak havoc.

Story

Oh boy. The story is the weakest part of this anime, for countless reasons.

Some of the obvious issues arise early on, such as a monster-of-the-week approach that fails to add anything substantial to the overarching plot line. While important details and concepts are brought up, they are mentioned in battles that have no absolutely tension to them and involve newly introduced throwaway characters who have no impact on later episodes – the information would feel far more important if introduced via something actually related to the greater narrative.

In addition to this, there are a few plot twists where controversial new information is presented, and while it seems that this info could greatly alter the progression of the story, it is soon completely pointless. Combined with an excess of deus ex machinas, lack of foreshadowing, and generally poor explanations of what is actually going on, these assumedly problematic twists are rendered null and void within an episode or two.

The majority of the plot twists serve only to strengthen the notion that this is a “dark” magical girl anime – for better or worse, it’s impossible to miss that fact. Of course, as a result of stuffing the characters into suffering for the sake of suffering, these situations feel completely contrived and add nothing substantial to the story, especially when they quickly become irrelevant.

This happened in the first episode. Why? Suffering.

As a result of a story that threw random unexplained twists in all directions, the ending leaves several unanswered questions, a few in particular that should not have been left in the open.

And, another issue with the story, which I would consider the greatest – the writers (sort of) play the “rape card.”

To put it simply, this should never have happened. Besides the fact that this was said to a 12 year old girl, he followed it up by saying he would break down her mind through mental torture in order to gain her consent. To a 12-year old girl. This should not have been a thing. Why was it included? Because the viewers need to be reminded that this is a “dark” magical girl anime.

To sum this all up, a fairly average concept was ruined by amateurish writing decisions. Rather than creating an interesting story, the writers were preoccupied with attempts to shock the viewers with the despair inflicted on the main characters.

Characters

Compared to the story, the characters were a welcome addition to this anime – that’s not to say that they’re anything special though.

The one thing that helped the characters through the story was their conflict with one of the recurring themes – throughout, it is stated that the characters are bound to their fates. In spite of this, the main cast commonly choose to make decisions on their own, ignoring what their pre-determined fate is supposed to be. The main exception to this is actually the ending, which ignores the majority of what happened in the story.

In terms of character development, only two of the characters are worth mentioning. Akari (orange hair), the main character, is forced to decide whether or not to get involved with the Daemonia conflict, and her path towards making a decision is the majority of her development in the series. Seira (purple hair) has the most realistic character development, having her viewpoint and reasoning for fighting altered by the events she was directly involved in.

Outside of the main four magical girls, the other characters don’t matter very much. While there is a fairly large cast, most of the others are involved in only a single episode, and the rest are there to fill in background space or advance the story through exposition or pointless chatter.

Art/Animation

In general, the visuals for this anime are okay. The animation is merely adequate, although it does remain consistent from episode to episode, and the short fights do look good. Similarly, the background art is nothing special – it merely fills the background with about the quality you would expect. On the other hand, when the characters are fighting the Daemonia, the backgrounds are monochromatic and relatively plain, and while this could be argued as a stylistic choice, it is simply very bland.

While the background art and animation are fairly average, the character design is an entirely different story.

Outside of the main characters, who look decent most of the time (when their heads remain a consistent size), the other characters look awful for the most part. Characters’ heads are gigantic, their necks are thin, and the rest of their bodies look as if they lack the strength to support their enormous noggins. The only character whose design actually looks good is Akari in her magical girl form, mostly because her long hair fills in a lot of the space around her twig body. It looks as if the character designer couldn’t decide on whether to go the popular “moe” route or do something more original, but the result was disastrous either way.

Sound

While the opening from LiSA was very good, the ending theme, by Okamoto Natsumi, is nothing particularly noteworthy. The soundtrack for this anime is excellent, as the music is always appropriate to the situation, is never too repetitive, and is generally interesting enough to deserve a standalone listen.

The voice-acting is about average – it’s nothing special, and it’s nothing painful. At some points, certain characters’ voices can be a bit grating, but it’s never for extended periods of time or repeated too often.

Enjoyment

While Day Break Illusion was never a painful experience, it was definitely dull at times. The story was never thoroughly engaging, courtesy of half of the episodes adding barely anything to the main narrative and most of the conflicts being completely unpredictable or even related to the main characters.

Once the story reached the homestretch, it became impossible to take it seriously after so many unexplained asspulls, and the ending was far from being a satisfying conclusion.

So,

Story – 2
Characters – 6
Art/Animation – 4
Sound – 7
Enjoyment – 3

Overall – 3/10
Recommendation – You’ll probably want to skip this one.

While Day Break Illusion started with a bit of potential, it was too occupied with reinforcing that this is a “dark” magical girl anime, and this led to a disjointed story that throws in too many random twists, relies on shock rather than foreshadowing, and uses a plethora of deus ex machinas and an absence of explanations to make up for inadequate writing.

And while there are definitely plenty of similarities between this and Madoka Magica, I believe that the incessant comparisons are a bit unwarranted – conceptually, they are similar, but the execution of those concepts is vastly different.

tevin49 - 2014-04-08 22:55:04

Welcome to the anime with many names. Pick a name, any name. It has four! The one I know it as, Genei wo Kakeru Taiyou (some don't have the w in them), DayBreak Illusion (some space day and break), Il Sole Penetra le Illusioni, and the direct translation: The Sun that Penetrates All Illusions. Pick a name. Any name. Remember, there's four. Doesn't matter what you call it, this anime is great.

If you're reading this review thinking "oh you don't know what you're talking about it's a madoka ripoff" then go and take a seat and freaking watch the thing, thank you. It is not a Madoka ripoff? Got that? NOT a Madoka ripoff. If anything, it's better than Madoka.

Just because it's dark doesn't mean it's a Madoka ripoff. There are things that were dark before Madoka. Uta Kata, Mai Hime, Princess TuTu. Pretear Need I go on? No. I don't think so. I think I made my point.

Where do I begin?

Right. The story. I'll start by saying that the first half of the episode was nice and adorable and cute...then the SECOND HALF HAPPENED. Let me just say... I was screaming. I wasn't expecting that. I wasn't expecting to see what happened to Fuyuna actually happen. Where there's more, I didn't except Akari to commit it. Come on, who was?

As the anime went on, it kept getting darker, and I kept on hoping Saturday would come every week so I can watch it uninterrupted for 23 glorious minutes and 13 glorious weeks. This anime tore my heart out, ate it, threw it on the ground and killed it every week. Every week I came back, hungry for more. And dare I say, it's darker than Madoka. It might be just as dark as the manga Mahou Shojo of the End, and that manga is horrible.

I'll explain. Episode eight was a major heart breaker for me. I WAS CRYING. The character "deaths" were FREAKING INSANE. No,,,,,,,,,,, my bbbys,,,,, was my reaction. After episode eight, you could say MY HEART WAS DIGESTED BY THIS ANIME. Then it happened again with episode nine.

Then ten.

Then eleven.

Then episode twelve.

Episode twelve murdered me. Dare I say, I was screaming by the end of episode eleven. I was. I was screaming... "NO! DON'T DO IT! DON'T BE STUPID!" If this anime had a negative ending, I'd tell people that this anime is about a twelve year old's girl's demise.

But it wasn't. I'll be honest, the only bad thing about this anime was how it ended. This anime had a happy ending, which is strange. There are so many unanswered questions. That's the only issue I had with it, the rest was good.

The only other bad thing is maybe some of the animation. It's weird in spots. Not in many, but some.

Now, I'll close this by saying this is a good horror mahou shojo. It was a nice anime and I would watch it again. Three times. Four hundred times. I would and I will. What I'm afraid of is if it gets dubbed, that's it though.

willis35 - 2013-12-15 11:41:12

From time to time, something great comes out, something that either brings out it's genre, gives a twist to it or creates a new one all on its own. Madoka magica was one of these anime. What often happens is that other companies and studios see the popularity of these few greats and see money in it. Now this can go a few ways. One it can create a spam of this style of anime and either make it so common its boring or just a slew of bad clones. Two it can create either a decent sub-genre or only a few clones that end up being good, but hide in the shadow of the original. Finally three, it can outshine the original and stand alone in the genre, though this is very rare. Day Break Illusion goes to the second category. Now madoka is my absolute favorite anime ever, so this anime I was hopeful for as soon as i saw a poster for it's set for a card game in my favorite card game store, and even more excited once i heard it's opening was done by LiSA. Of cause I wasn't expecting much from it, but it delivered enough.

So we will start with the plot. It starts with in my opinion a quite shocking beginning, going through the main character, Akari's, introduction. It shows her character and her situation it a quite effective manner. However soon it shows the most important moment in the show and one of the more shocking events I've seen in anime. I'm not going to spoil it, but unfortunately it doesn't last. It quickly turns to a monster of the week kind of show with character development episodes for the other three main characters. It's overall plot is quite good, but its not spectacular or special. It's not madoka level, but its a good plot overall.

Animation i must say, its where its starts to shine. It's very high quality and is definitely better than madoka's standards, but doesn't do what madoka did and that was to give style to it. It's animation is consistent even if the character designs are not (ill get to that later) and throws vibrant colors everywhere. It's action sequences is done very well as part of the style but its not as if they spent all their animation budget on those scenes, as just as much care is taken with any movement, but they take allot of still talking moments.

Now I just finished this, but other than the opening and ending, I cant actually remember any of the music in this anime. Now the opening is awesome, as expected from LiSA, and the ending theme is a nice ending, but not something to listen to every time, but the insert music is almost unnoticeable. Voice acting is something that did stood out to me, mostly to the emotional moments. of cause this is Japanese dub (as their is no current English dub) and I can't understand anything they are saying, but I can hear the emotion they are giving out, and it does work for me.

Characters, characters are interesting. They are well made and developed, but it's their designs that weird me out the most. If you see on posters you may have noticed the main characters look different in battle forms, but that's not the only strange design feature. I noticed as soon as they showed Akari's fortune telling peers (?) its that, well let me put this into context. One is an elderly woman, and they really wanted to make that quite obvious. next is a bit of a gypsy looking girl, which isn't all that weird, but then we have um, I think its a man dressed as a woman. We have a few other different looking characters, but while the main girls look like the same style, most of the outside characters look like they were ported from different anime. It can be jarring at times.

Day Break Illusion is a good watch if you enjoyed madoka, as long as you don't go into it as the next madoka magica, because if you go in with too much exceptions of it you might be disappointed. If you loved madoka you will enjoy this.

(note: yes I know this review referenced madoka magica allot. It was difficult to not to compare it to madoka and I'm also doing this quite late at night. However if you have not seen madoka, go watch it now)

mabshire - 2013-10-20 16:55:23

A quote on the top of the page says "People like you piss me off the most." Well, Day Break Illusion, anime like you piss me off the most too. It tries way too hard to be what Madoka Magica was.

It starts off trying to be angstier, sadder and grittier than Madoka Magica, but the creators in the middle of the story decided that the viewers aren't ready for a true tragedy and gave many asspulls to keep everyone happy and alive. Power of Friendship rules the universe, right?

The characters were as stereotypical as you could make them, their designs - generic and boring. They always seemed to do the most illogical action possible, and characters always chose the right thing to do - which the show somehow tried to show in a negative light. In the end the message was 'Do not try to fight the powers that be'. I mean, they're magical girls! It's not like there's a huge storage room full of girls capable of being magical, right? So they could make a revolution and fight those that restrict them and don't provide them with information! For some reason they couldn't even talk back to them, and there were never shown any serious consequences that would happen if you ever tried to do all of the above. So where's the logic?

Animation was rather mediocre. Nothing exceptional or even moderately good, but it wasn't completely horrible either.

In the end Day Break Illusion became the very thing that Madoka Magica tried to subvert. Not worth your time.

verda.graham - 2013-09-29 02:13:05

When I first hear about this show it seemed that it was going to be a Madoka clone. However, after closer examination this anime probably has done more for the magical girl anime has than Madoka has. In the same vibe as Madoka it goes back to the late 80's/early 90's dark tone of the genre such as the direction that Sailor Moon took it. However, this show is essentially a clone of Madoka. It draws from Madoka's sense of despair and hopelessness and its very deformed almost moe character designs. The issue is that this show does what Madoka could not, and it evolves from being a Madoka clone into something that I personally think is better than Madoka.
Story (8/10)

We will start with the story as I find it very interesting, and more complex and superior to Madoka's story. At first there is not an arching plot, and there is an almost monster of the week appeal of the show. This is very similar to Madoka, but unlike Madoka which is focused on moe blob Madoka, the very dark and magical world of Day Break Illusion is far more vast than Madoka's world. Both of these shows have a very apocalyptic and fate based drive, however as Madoka's ending is contrived and pretty much out of the blue. The ending of this show is far more up to the characters involved, and in all I found that I was much more drawn into the characters and overall plot than I did in Madoka. People actually die at the end of each episode, and there is a lot of moral backlash from the characters. The characters have moral diatribe

, discuss and even debate the state of their world's affairs and question the ideas of fate, destiny ect. Big topics for a magical anime, and it isn't as contriving as the end of Madoka. The ending also set it up for potential sequel, which I would watch and probably enjoy. Let's see if it can surpass it's Madoka clone status and do something new.
Animation (8/10)

This anime is very pretty, and unlike Madoka which has very dark color and animation, Day Break Illusion is very clean and very shiny. The world is however, much darker and I think this works with the series as a whole. The transformation sequences are great, and each of the girls do have a bit of small tweaks when they do transform. The main character especially changes to a more mature look, while the others seem to follow their own cards in it. Battle scenes are done very well, and show each characters uniqueness.
Character (9/10)
For me character is the most important thing for any anime. I don't have to like the characters, but I need to enjoy them. Madoka had to be honest very annoying characters. Day Break Illusion is bombarded with a diverse set of characters which are not only distinguishable, but very heartwarming.
We have the main lead Akari Taiyo who holds the sun card and is a very cheerful little girl.

Seira Hosakawa, the series girl who holds the Star Card.

Luna Tsukuyomi, who is a healer type. She considers herself very weak. She has strong ties to Akari. She has the power of the moon card.

Ginka Shirokane is my personal favorite character. She has the power of the temperance card, and has a rich father. In my opinion she is what ties the group together.

Then there are the supporting characters. I won't go in detail with them because there are a lot of them. Nonetheless they are an interesting bunch, and some are more important than others, but still show character development. They are far more diverse than the supporting cast of Madoka, and I find them much more enjoyable.

Sound and Music (9/10)
One word, Lisa. The opening for the anime is Träumerei by LiSa, and the ending theme Mirage. Although I will say I did go and buy the single, because it is amazing. The sound quality is great, and the music is even better. I think the music fits with the dark nature of the series.

Overall (9/10
Great series overall, and I really enjoyed watching it. I loved how everything was dark, and brooding. A lot of people died, and some needed to die more than others. It does have many similarities to Madoka, but in my opinion I find it superior to Madoka on many levels. So I do recommend it to many people who enjoyed Madoka, and if you didn't enjoy Madoka then you should still give it a chance because it is better in my opinon.