takt op. Destiny

Episode 5

"Equitation -Valkyrie-" is a solid episode of takt op. Destiny that proves how important a decent antagonist is to an action-adventure story that is mostly concerned with spectacle and easy entertainment. Last week was such a letdown because the antagonist of the Not-So-Great Casino Caper was just…some guy. With TAKT and Destiny's development being focused squarely on practical team-building matters, and with no interesting conflict to speak of, Episode 4 ended up feeling like filler. Here, though, we get reintroduced to Commander McBadGuy himself, aka Felix Shindler of the New York Symphonica, and while he isn't anything to write home about so far as obviously villainous authority figures go, he gets the job done.

The fact that Felix can wax nefarious in all of his smarmy glory for most of the episode without truly accomplishing anything other than telegraphing his ill intentions speaks to this show's tendency to fall back on shallow plots and basic character writing. When you lay it all out, not a lot really happens in "Equitation -Valkyrie-" beyond what you get in the basic summary: The Destiny Crew's car breaks down, so they hop on a Symphonica train that is headed to Houston, which will lead our heroes right to New Orleans; TAKT makes a new Musicart friend, Felix acts sketchy for twenty minutes straight, and there are a handful of cool D2 fights to fill out the rest of the episode. This is going to be a 12-epiosode season as far as I'm aware, which means we're almost at the halfway point, and it would be a shame if every episode up to the finale consisted of similarly simplistic Musicart-of-the-Week stories.

On the other hand, the Musicart that TAKT befriends this week is a shiny, blue-haired Valkyrie named Walkure (very subtle), and she and Destiny get to blow up D2s while a bitchin' homage to Wagner's Flight of the Valkyries plays in the background. Did I mention that Shindler's Musicart is a crazy clown lady that makes I'll-murder-the-ever-loving-Bejeesus-out-of-you faces and kills D2s with her roller-wheel feet? Did I go on to elaborate that this ridiculously dressed character is literally just named “Hell”? In case you can't tell, all of this is 100% Extremely My Shit™, and I'm more than happy to put up with the workmanlike storytelling if it lets takt op. Destiny indulge in its particular brand of excess.

The animation and artwork here is also a little better than last week, too, both because the railroad setting gives the Musicarts more room to maneuver and do all those flippies that they like to do, and because the storyboarding of the action sequences does a stronger job of framing and highlighting Destiny and Walkure as the pair do their thing. I can't say I'm shocked that TAKT managed to accidentally brute-force his way into winning over the first Musicart we've met that isn't bonded to a Conductor—as if we all don't already know where that is going—but I'm also not irritated by how this show is sneaking in the elements of the mobile game it is based on. Walkure is cute, and I hope she and Destiny can be adorable alien-murdering friends together. Why not?

If I'm being honest, when "Equitation -Valkyrie-" ended, I actually hit up the old Google machine to see if the takt op. game was out on Android here in the States yet. It could just be that my weak mind has already been irreversibly broken by the machines of late-stage capitalism and franchise mass-marketing, but either way, takt op. Destiny has to be doing something right if it is tempting me to give yet another greedily monetized gacha game a chance. Maybe I'm just a sucker for cute girls in nifty outfits that hit things with their sword-guns and have classical-music remixes for theme songs.

Rating:

takt op. Destiny is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop-culture, which can also be found on Twitter, his blog, and his podcast.