Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin – review

“History changes, starting from now!”

Beam my beam~

Pardon my recent laziness. I’ve been rather busy/unmotivated lately. Anyway onto the review: in short Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin was a fantastic watch that showed a wide range of comedy and drama. Perhaps the biggest flaw I felt was that they spent too much time on Maya’s character, rather than building up other parts and personalities of the series.

JK and puddin'

I felt the production values in Occult Academy were fairly strong. The animation was great, and it’s good to see how every person has a different appearance to one another. Much more refreshing than the whole moeblob stuff we get these days. Also at times there was a strong emphasis on facial expression which is also always great to see. As usual of anime these days, the soundtrack was probably forgettable, but at times it was used to solid atmospheric effect.

Is it me or are there a lot little people happy to see me?

Where Occult Academy shines is its variety of humour. There’s a LOT of it in this series, and what’s fantastic is that it seldom tends to repeat itself till it becomes overkill. My favourite moment in the series has got to be when everyone finds out that Naruse was only left behind after the out-of-body experience because she lost her glasses AND HER GLASSES WERE ON HER HEAD. Huge facepalm and a priceless expression from Maya.

Light vs Dark

Occult also has some pretty strong and powerful emotional moments too. For instance Maya’s beating of Fumiaki was rather graphic, as was Mikaze’s seductive movements towards (and on) Fumiaki , both in episode 11. This is why Occult Academy rocks, as it’s able to combine some very good humour with emotional poignancy.

Spot the guy who just shat in his pants

However with only 12 episodes to spare, things did inevitably get left out. I felt a little let down that they didn’t decide to delve on the pasts of the secondary characters like JK, Smile and Chihiro (dango-head). They spent a lot on building up Maya and I feel more time could’ve been spent on the other personalities in the series.

Priceless.

If I had to be a grouch, I also found Maya’s sudden development of feelings towards Fumiaki after seeing his flashback a little unbelievable. That may have been okay if the director supported these growing sentiments by adding more intimate Maya-Fumiaki encounters throughout the series but this was poorly handled. I just was unconvinced by the end of the 12th episode.

Got rice?

Also if I had to be picky the end wasn’t quite as plausible an explanation, and when you actually think about it, it f*cks with your mind. However the twist regarding the Key of Nostradamus was a nice way to conclude a great show. You don’t see many anime series out there tackle time travel, so I’ve got to hand it to them for trying their best.

Smile reminds me of Andy from Advance Wars.....

Overall if you have some free time, Occult Academy is definitely a good way to spend your time. Its variety and compelling story and characters will definitely wish there was more of such series airing these days.

Animation: 8.5/10

Sound: 7.5/10

Story: 9/10

Characters: 9/10

Enjoyment: 8.75/10

Overall: 8.55/10

It's called stainless steel, dipsh!t