Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
shovelkun_
Being a fan of Madoka Magica, I was looking for another dark mahou shoujo anime to get into. When I came across Genei wo Kakeru Taiyou it was described as a very dark mahou shoujo that hit hard and had no reservations. I was a little skeptical that it might just be an attempt to jump on the hype of Madoka Magica but I gave it a try. What I didn't expect was for the first episode to hit me like a semi truck with the grim nature of the magical girls and their fight against the Daemonia. As I watched, I was drawn in by the unabashed chuun, the unique tarot card based approach to magical girls' abilities, and the unusual characterization of some members of the cast and their families, including the main heroine Akari Taiyou. Some other characters were not as original but were strong enough to…
Read at the sourceAgent_Redacted
Don't ever trust the MAL rating. A 6 for others may mean a 10 for you.
Genei wo Kakeru Taiyou is one of the biggest hiddem gems I've ever discovered. Despite its low rating on MAL, the anime was actually fucking lit and I couldn't find any flaws in it except from the mediocre voice acting.
It has Yuri. Its dark and edgy. What else could you possibly want?
I can't explain the story. My brain doesn't work anymore. But I'll tell you something. It's all about emotions and choosing to move forward. Something along that line.
Incredible OP, great story, kawaii, edgy. Recommended to those who are looking for a good and dark magical girl show. Also. Don't fucking compare this to Madoka.
Read at the sourcemouthpiece
Ah, another one of those dark mahou shoujo that try to cash in from the fad Madoka Magica created with its hype and financial success. Although it does a fine job at having polarized imagery of happy moeblobs on one hand and creepy murderous monsters on the other, it still fails to accomplish the thing that actually made Madoka Magica such a hit. Which one is that you may wonder? Could it be the deep characterization? The elaborate storytelling? The amazing analysis of its various themes? HELL NO, that show sucked in all that.
… It was the production values, ok?
AIC is no SHAFT. They can’t throw a mountain of money at it, nor do they have overrated anime creators in their disposal to hype the damn thing six months before it even begins to air. And this is why despite all the good efforts…
Read at the sourceTheBrainintheJar
Horror comes from inside and is directed inside. People who want to kill us are quite scary, but they’re a very specific problem. True horror is in realizing that we can be the killers, that we can be what we hate. It throws a big wrench in our grand narrative and shatters it to pieces. That’s why we limit our consciousness, assume the patriarchy or the media or the government is to blame for it all. Negative feelings are bad, but the true problem must be outside us.
Obvious comparisons to Madoka spring up, but these are superficial comparisons. The latter is more existential and philosophical, less concerned with the emotions of its characters and relying more on structure and mechanics to deliver its philosophical idea. Daybreak Illusion is far more emotional, fantastical and wild. Each…
Read at the sourcewhiteteeth
I'm going to be sincere, i heard of this anime because everyone on the internet kept saying that it was a "Madoka Rip-off". But as i believe you can't judge before watching it yourself, i went on and watch it.
My conclusion: people really exaggerate, it definitely isn't a rip-off. It does have some common grounds, but Genei Wo Kakeru Taiyou has proved to me that it stands as it's own series.
Genei Wo Kakeru follows the same formula that most Magical Girl shows have, the only difference it's that, apart from the grim factor, it handles very mature topics.
Each character that is infected by the villain by accepting a contract with him suffers from a human problem: Jealousy, anger, sadness, isolation... we all have experimented that once, and maybe sometimes, if someone came to us in our da…
Read at the sourceDiamondparka
Oh, DayBreak Illusion.
*Oh*, DayBreak Illusion, you poor, poor, poor, soul. Why did it have to turn out like this?
Genei wo Kakeru Taiyou is the prime example of how not to do a dark magical girl anime- No scratch that. Genei wo Kakeru Taiyou is the prime example of how not to do anime collectively. It's not absolutely dreadful, but it should have never turned out how it is.
The anime has a collection of six actually good episodes, where there's emotions and development that seem realistic. And then there's the rest of the anime, which is unable to decide what it wants to do with itself as it hoplessly meanders through the plot, trying to grab as many plot points and characters as it can but only getting the most minimal grasp. That's not even mentioning all the down to earth, heavy, rea…
Read at the sourceihateeveryone
Alright, let's face it. After the ever famous and successful "Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica," a want and increase in demand for dark magical girl shows have been prevalent in the anime community. Now, I'm not going to be comparing this show to Madoka 24/7, because trust me, this show is bad on it's own, but I will be using Madoka as a basis for what a dark magical girl show should try to succeed, and what it shouldn't.
Day Break Illusion is, absolutely, what it shouldn't.
If the promotional art and the opening wasn't a dead giveaway, it should be well-known that this show is going to be pretty dark. And well, it definitely is. The story pretty much revolves on young tarot card users who fight against "Daemonia" - demons created when humans contract with them and eventually succumb into desp…
Read at the sourceEnglishOtaku
STORY:
Daybreak Illusion has a fairly unique basis, being based around tarot cards, something I have never seen in an anime before; however DBI turns into your typical magical girl anime with a group of young girls being able to turn into magic girls, in a sense, with their powers being based off their personal tarot card. I thought the story was slightly interesting, there wasn't alot of development except the story being centered around the main character being able to hear the voices of the "daemonia" and the girls fighting these daemonia. Although I initially found the story interesting, it turned a little repetitive and was slow to speak.
ART:
The art in DBI isn't exactly bad, the character designs in general were fairly cute before turning into a more serious style of animation whil…
Read at the sourceMistyBlue
At first, I was skeptical about this anime. It received mixed ratings. Some were 9, while others were 4. The ones who rated this anime to be low were mostly those that kept comparing it to Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica. Critique the show, not compare! It's not a perfect anime, but it doesn't mean it cannot be enjoyable.
Story: The first episode took me by surprise,with me thinking that it escalated pretty quickly with very little background to the story. It made me prepare myself for the upcoming episodes, as there were more grim. The tarot cards were a cool component of this anime; I just wished that they described them in more detail, especially with the cards that the 4 girls have. They don't really explain the organization that they work for either.. The battle scenes were nice, they sh…
Read at the sourceCheapShotFail
A failed attempt at an interesting concept.
Day Break Illusion (avoiding the tedious title) is a show that started off with potential but a prime example of dropping the ball halfway through.
The story synopsis is above, so I'll just give my perspective on it. Basically, it is unique at first but does not explore its total potential by the end. There are many loose ends not tied up by the end and many things introduced lack clarification (such as the Daemonia). I found the story to be a bear to watch as it quickly became redundant, focusing on several things only and not answering many of the viewer's questions. I give the story a 4.
Art was decent enough, really colorful to suit the magical girl genre but dark when it needed to be. Art doesn't normally make a difference to me though u…
Read at the sourceKingArthur13th
Day Break Illusion is a series that could of joined Madoka Magica in building the dark magical girl sub-genre, instead it simply copied it with little originality. What little originality this series does contain comes from its Tarot Card Reading theme which doesn't effect the progression of the series as much as you might think. Day Break Illusion can be exciting at times and deliver emotional scenes here and there but overall, it's a disappointment. Not a failure but a disappointment. Everything is actually really predictable except for what happens to Luna or the information dump in episode eleven. Day Break Illusion's story is centered around young girls who are called upon to sacrifice themselves and save the world as magical girls. In the beginning that was actually well performed, w…
Read at the sourceeverfeather
thoroughly terrible anime. It's only saving graces were, character designs, tarot, ED, and transvestites.
The story seems incredibly forced, has pacing issues, unresolved plot points and more.
The character designs are extremely tryhard, but it was in a way I quite appreciate.
All of the battles were incredibly uninspired, usually revolving around someone getting grabbed suddenly
The characters had little depth, but they did a half decent job with branching off into some of them A lot of deus ex machina brought it together as a very uninspired show trying to ride off the coattails of madoka
Read at the sourceIceprism
Just finished watching this. My thoughts gravitate toward different ends of the opinion spectrum. Hmm. Well, I’ll begin by saying that I did enjoy this series for what it was: in essence, a magical girl series with dark elements and an interesting take on tarot cards. The characters are colorful (figuratively and literally) and develop in their own ways throughout the span of 13 episodes. The scenery and overall art of the show is colorful and vibrant. The general idea of the story is kind of cool with a few interesting concepts. The show has no problems with setting an atmosphere with an overall serious tone (with a few comedic elements here and there). And of course, it’s generally entertaining.
I do, however, have some problems with the show. I feel like this series had (and maybe stil…
Read at the sourceOrsonius
It’s been a while since I last reviewed something, and that’s mostly because there wasn’t anything I finished that I felt like reviewing.
Genei wo Kakeru Taiyou though is one show I wanted to review since episode one.
So I sat down, watched the remaining 5 episodes that I haven’t watched yet and marathoned them.
And what should I say? Meh.
It saddens me that this show clearly had potential but had two main issues that ruined all potential it had.
First - The pacing.
This show was just waaaaaaaaay too rushed. Sometimes they squeezed in so much stuff into one episode it couldn’t build up any impact for the things that happened prior than that,
Second - The Visuals
If you know a bit about studios, you know that AIC is not the greatest anime studio around, but they usually try different th…
Read at the sourceMicchi91
Well, I'll try to review one of the most discussed anime of the last season, at least for the hype that this apparently dark majokko created in who was expecting another Madoka.
Story: 6/10
Personally, I didn't find it quite entracing; magical girls who receive their power from Tarots and fight against evil creatures, the Daemonias, that invade weak human beings feeding from their inner fears and hatred, it's not what I can call original. All the magical girls who discovered to be a power connected to a card from the Tarot deck are gathered in a fake Divination School, in which they are trained to fight against this beings, and all of them, apart from the main protagonist, Akari, seem to have any problem in doing this work mainly because all of them have a purpose in doing it, or at leas…
Read at the sourceGorbovskiy
Okay now, here we have a Persona series clone, merged with some Venus Versus Virus… well, that seemed interesting for me, so I’ve decided to watch this (especially after reading some good reviews, telling me not to think it has connections to Madoka).
Story – 5
The actual story begins on the eighth episode, and all I can say is it’s pretty twisted and has LOTS of loose ends in it, like the opposite tarot cards having no actual meaning (it it present as something really important and dangerous in the series, but it resulted just in a lost possibility of making cool explanation); I really did like the first 7 episode, each of them has its own plot and tells us about different people and their feelings… the eighth episode itself is touching and is probably the best in the show, after that al…
Read at the sourceAsfaria
Daybreak Illusion is a magical girl anime that follows more in the footsteps of the darker “Madoka Magica” than the usual shoujo-oriented ones like “Sailor Moon.” It begins with Taiyou Akari, a young girl with dreams of becoming a fortune teller just like her mother and the other adults around her. She is a bright and cheerful girl with a room full of plants who lives with her cousin Fuyuna’s family since her mother passed away and her father is no longer around either. What she does not realize is that Fuyuna has been building up a burning hatred of Akari and her cheerfulness. One night, a monster appears and attacks Akari, which turns out to be Fuyuna. Akari hopes it was all just a dream the next day, but soon finds out that no one remembers Fuyuna aside from her, and it now seems as if…
Read at the sourceScootboi
FEW SPOILERS AHEAD.
PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK.
Many people consider this to be an almost blatant rip off of Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica.
Which, lets be honest here, it's easy to see; there's malevolent animal beings that seem to not give a rats ass about the people who they work with, physically or emotionally. Lapalace and Kyubey seem really similar in that sense.
There's 4 girls who turn into stronger versions of themselves and fight in an interdimensional space against evil beings, one nice one, one bad ass one, one that's more set in their own goals, etc. However a few things set them apart.
1: The main character Akari Taiyou willingly accepts her powers, although she seems to be upset by what her actions entail (killing people who've turned into Daemonia - the enemy who takes over…
Read at the sourceMoleKing
UPDATE: Completed it now. And everything in this review still stands.
The review contains some spoilers, past the first two paragraphs.
Let me start of by saying that this series is quite bad. Let me explain why.
In short, it's a series that tries really, really hard to be Madoka, but doesn't really understand what made Madoka really good, and thus only imitates it on a surface level - namely, the artstyle and overall dark tone. However, it's story and characters are painfully shallow and succumb to all the Mahou Shoujo clichés that Madoka managed to avert.
The characters are all Mahou Shoujo stereotypes, through and through. All of them. Most of all, Seira and Akari - everything about them is predictable and cliché. Luna is also rather cliche, and what happenes to her in episiode 9 wa…
Read at the sourceraritydash
Two years ago studio SHAFT gave to the anime watching world Puella Magi Madoka Magica, a show which cleverly blended the conventions of magical girl anime with dark horror themes, subversive storytelling and striking visual style to create one of the most perfect and memorable anime that I've certainly ever seen. Madoka Magica was a game changer and achieved acclaim and popularity that has proven persistent. Given all that, it's really no surprise at all that other anime studios would want to try and repeat that success. So it is anime studio AIC has decided to present us with an original dark magical girl series that copies quite liberally from the Madoka book. However, while the inspiration is quite evident, having followed this anime, Genei wo Kakeru Taiyou, I can safely say that it tra…
Read at the source