Fall 2021 Anime: takt op. Destiny

Synopsis

One night, a dark meteor fell to Earth carrying monsters known as D2 that ravaged the world. The D2 hate and react aggressively to music, making people no longer playing it. But girls called “Musicart” who draw power from classical music and operas emerge to counter the D2 threat along with the “Conductors” who lead them. The story of the anime takes place in 2047 and follows the Conductor Takt Asahina and the Musicart Destiny, based on Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, as they travel to New York through lands wrecked by the D2

Comments

Halimun Muhammad (The Indonesian Anime Times)

Because this project is themed around classical music, it is interesting to see how the music is integrated into the story. The introduction act in the first episode of takt op. Destiny does well to establish the setting as a world where music has been a lost art to humanity. The adults who have known music before the D2 invasion miss it, while children have no idea what is music at all, lending credibility to Takt’s bold piano performance as something astonishing to the public hearing it.

But I am also expecting that the action scenes would be incorporating the music substantially, not just presenting kinetic fights through immersive camera movements with amorphous opponents and weapons. The climax of the episode does feature Takt performing the “Moonlight Sonata” to lure out a huge D2 out of its underground hiding place, but how music relates to the power of the Musicart is still something that needs to be explored more. After all, there are yet more details about how the Musicarts and Conductors function, outside of laying out the basics of their role in countering the D2.

As a mixed media project designed to include a game and anime series, the two media are made to differ quite significantly. The only apparent similarities are the basic setting and concepts and having Symphony No. 5 as the main Musicart and Takt as the Conductor. In the game, the characters are based in an underground Berlin while the anime has them traveling to New York. None of the other Musicarts that have been introduced for the game have been confirmed for the anime, with the anime going to feature its own Musicarts like Mahler’s “Titan” Symphony.

Interestingly, Symphony No.5’s voice actresses in both versions are different. In the game, she is voiced by Kaede Hondo while the anime version is voiced by Shion Wakayama in the anime. Hondo is still presented in the anime as a different character named Anna, said to be her “older sister” who traveling together with them. Are the anime and the game completely separate, or are they going to be related in some way eventually, remains to be seen.

For now, conflict among the characters is driven by Takt’s single-minded desire to play music and Destiny’s single-minded devotion to eliminate D2 that comes along with an endless appetite to recover spent energy. These mindsets make them not always in sync, as Takt sees getting rid of the D2 as just a means to make him able to play music, while Destiny sees hunting them as her only reason to exist. Their simplistic approaches to fighting D2 can lead to rash actions that aren’t effective. The backstory and progress in the relationships between the three could be another thing to look forward to in upcoming episodes.

Facts and Figures

Screenshots and Trailer

The Indonesian Anime Times