Tatakau Shisho The Book of Bantorra

Ugh. If you have read a couple of my pieces you know I'm not that hard to please (my wife might take offense at this remark though).

I don't need great graphics, nor great voice actors. Hell, I can even forego a coherent story, if, and I repeat, IF only they manage to keep me entertained in one small way or another. Unfortunately, or perhaps, looking at the backlog and the number of series from this season alone I'm following already, I should say fortunately, Tatakau Shisho The Book of Bantorra fails in doing so.

I wondered if I would give a synopsis or keep it general and in fact, while I'm typing this I still am unsure which way to go so I'll just start things and see where it ends.

Apparently in this world people that die, have their souls turn into books. If you can call a stone tablet a book that is, but let's not go into semantics as there is plenty more seriously wrong with this anime. These 'books' are being stored in a library which is protected by the Armed Librarians of which Hamyuts Meseta is it's leader, or Acting Director as she is called in the series. Another faction in this world is the Shindeki Church, allthough evil Cult would be a much better description as you'll notice very soon.

Right of the bat this series gets in boatloads of trouble as the creator of this series, mistakenly so, assumes that people have read the light novels this anime is based on, and makes assumptions on how much the casual viewer actually knows already. In the first episode you are almost bombarded with terms as "True men", "Mock men", "Shindeki Church Clergymans book", "Dragon Pneumonia germs", "7 ancient warmachines" and apparently the audience is supposed to know what this all means.

The series begins with the Armed Librarians making an assault on a ship from the Shindeki church in order to investigate and find evidence. Again, no explanation at all what it is that the Armed Librarians are investigating nor what evidence they are supposed to find.

On board of the Shindeki Church vessel there are a great number of so called 'Meats'. Basically a human, but one that has been brainwashed making them believe they are not human, and in this case a lot of them have bombs surgically implanted in them and have been instructed to kill the leader of the Armed Librarians, Hamyuts Meseta.



One of these 'Meats', is basically the male lead and is Colio Tonies. When the attack of the Armed Librarians starts, the higher ups (the True Men) of the Shindeki Church, who were having a meeting, are teleported of the ship and the rest of them get slaughtered by the Armed Librarians.

While the librarians are busy finding the undisclosed evidence and rescueing the 'Meats' a cryptic message ("Vend Ruga is alive in the heart of Olivia Litlet") is found. And I'll be repeating myself here, but again you won't get a single clue as what this is supposed to mean.

Hidden bombs go off which sends the ship and the 'Meats', who aren't at all interested in saving themselves, to the bottom of the ocean. Colio Tonios is also busy with drowing when a fragment of a book lands on him which actives so he sees a part of what's in it. He sees a beautiful girl who gives him a cryptic message. The scene ends with seeing him sink deeper. Much to my surprise though Colio appears in a town somewhat later, apparantly having saved himself which is rather odd as his fellow 'meats' just gave up and let themselves drown. So far consistency I suppose.

We also learn that the Armed Librarians managed to save a piece of a book of one of the leaders of the Shindeki Church, Shiron Byacornise. We learn that 280 years ago a plague (Dragon Pneumonia) hit a dukedom and that Shiron Byacornise was the only one that knew how to make a cure for it. This she did, but not before letting the disease spread so she could make a huge profit by selling the cure. She also possessed a magical sword, Shlamuffen, that was always laughing which she used to kill all that dared to oppose her. And that basically wraps up the important stuff in episode 1 and basically left me with a "wtf did I just watch"-feeling.

To make matters worse at times the conversations are so utterly ridiclous that it almost makes my eyes bleed reading the translation. A perfect example would be that totally pompous and meaningless talk the higher ups of the Shindeki church have during their meeting aboard their ship. Lord almighty spare me. It's at times like this I remember a line from one of my favorite TV series Star Trek, "Others talk much, but say little". The leader of the Armed Librarians doesn't fare much better though with her 'comments' on overhearing the Shindeki meeting with her special ability.

The characters also aren't to be a redeeming feature as to put it bluntly they are for the most part still strangers (even after watching 6 episodes), some shallow, some obnoxious, some completely uninteresting and others plain annoying.

From the group of Armed Librarians we meet in the first episode 1 dies just after 6 minutes and another dies after 9 minutes in the second episode. Not that you really care as you know next to nothing about them. Probably a sentiment that is shared by the leader of the Armed Librarians as she also couldn't care less if one of her subordinates lives or dies, which is made especially clear in episode 2. Besides being very strong and having some kind of super spy ability she has also the power to transform as seen below.



The only interesting ones of the club are Volken and Mirepoc who are a couple even if they don't know (or want to know) it themselves. I think Volken had the best line in all the 6 episodes I watched, when he said that Hamyuts Meseta lacked a heart.



The villains are nothing better. We have a mystery guest who was on board of the ship of which we haven't seen a face. There is an old geezer who is in dire need for some dentist work and then there is Cigal Crekessa, the main villain for the first 4 episodes. Sigh, I doubt if they could have portrait him any more cliche then they did with his uber exalted mannerism.



For those that haven't had enough, or have but still are interested in what I learned watching some more of this series you can read on the spoiler tag as I will disclose some more stuff which I've learned watching up till episode 6.

[Spoiler]I really intended to make a coherent story out of the first 4 episodes, and in fact I had a full page written out already when I realised that the plot is so over the place and events are stringed together by such coincedance that it simply isn't worth my time and effort.

You'll get explained where the Dragon Pneumonia comes from, how the ever-laughing-witch and the Shindeki Church fit in all, well, most of this. At the end of episode 4 Cigal and Colio Tonios are dead with the first actually killed by the second. I have to admit that Colio killing Cigal is a case of poetic justice and I'm all for justice. Also the reason, as I understand it, why he could do what Hamyuts Mesata couldn't is that Schlamuffen wielded by Cigal obeyed, for a better word, the wish of it's former owner and lowered its defense allowing Conio to make the kill.

Episode 4 apparently ends the first 'arc' as now that the Shindeki Church has been dealt a blow with the defeat of Cigal and the loss of Schlamuffen, we suddenly have Volken take off in order to try and save people which he apparently failed to do in the past. This after getting a book from a mysterious person who also has a weapon of the Gods. This person also collects the book of Cigal which we, as far as I can tell, see ending up with the higher ups of the Shindeki Church.

Volken taking off without permission, with a plane and one of the weapons of the Gods are tantamount to treason although the director of the Armed Librarians doesn't seem to get worked up at all over this. In order to complicate things we have Meripoc erasing her memories and feelings for Volken through a magical procedure.

Also we have a new player, who by the looks of it, is equal of an Armed Librarian and one of the lesser characters is being attached by Hamyuts Meseta to that person so I'm kind of guessing we're going again on two seperate paths here.

It's not often that I can't find any redeeming qualities in a series, but this one manages to pull it off. A fair word of warning also that the pretty picture and the synopsis on Anidb are giving this trainwreck of a series way to much credit not to mention that it is partially wrong as Colio does not fall in love with Hamyuts Meseta.

From the getgo you're thrown into a series as if you're supposed to already know everything about it which is okay if you have read the novels, but for newcomers this is immensly annoying. Sure, (partial) explanations are given later on, but it makes for a very disturbed viewing experience if you get terms explained 3 episodes after you first heard them.

There is a fair number of characters, but even after 6 episodes you know hardly anything about them and the fact that 4 characters die in the first 4 episodes doesn't make it easy to develop any attachement to them. A fact that is emphasized by the fact that basically they come over as bland, cliché and downright annoying.

I've seen people lamenting about the CG that's used and do I admit that for the attack on the Shindeki vessel in the first episode the CG looks so terribly off that one almost could wonder if this wasn't orginally made for another series. I haven't seen anything that obvious (and bad) after that though.

I don't give much about openings and endings. Usually I watch them once and after that I skip them. I have to say though that the opening of this series must have been the most bland I've seen in ... forever. Godalmighty help me, but I could have done something better blindfolded.

Another thing that's irking me is that the story doesn't seem to go anywhere or is all over the place ... or both. Cigal has been defeated and the story of Shiron and Colio is finished, but already we're back at 2 tales again with the mystery newcomer and Volkens treason, but for some reason this feels more like sidestories then a continuing plot as the premise of the story, which in my eyes is the conflict between the Armed Librarians and the Shindeki Churchm, is suddenly (seemingly?) abonded.

The final nail in the coffin is that, while I am able to take a fair amount of coincedences and illogical stuff for granted, this series drives it to far. If you take into account the odds that Colio is hit by a fragment of a book while busy drowning, and especially knowing that this book is one of the most important ones the Shindeki church had in it's possession you would logically conclude that the "True Men" that were evacuated of the ship would have taken it along with them. The way Colio manages to 'read' other parts of Shirons book also are way to farfetched for my taste.

Perhaps I'll download the last episode just to see if they have any kind of ending and if there is any development in the situation / relation between Volken and Meripoc, but this series is dropped as of right now.

Final verdict: 3,5 out of 10.