Erementar Gerad ep.1-4

To tell the truth, I wasn't expecting too much from the series, seeing how I have yet to read one positive review on it. It's not as bad as I feared, but there're more bad points going for it, I'm afraid.

First off, I have no problem with the traditional RPG-style story, but the female lead is simply too weak. In a sense, Ren is less human than Ayanami Rei (well, let's forget the fact that they're both literally not human...), and that makes all the interactions seem one-sided and thus makes the plot lame. Then there's the unchanging credit in the ED since the first episode. It's annoying when I can't check to verify that I've identified the seiyuu, and this shows the slackness on the staff's part. And lastly -I haven't read the manga yet so this is from other people's reviews- the changing of the characters' personality and motives from the manga. Apparently, the change has made the characters uninteresting and unattractive in the anime, and character is always a biggie for me when I watch any series.

Having said the above, there are some good points about the series. I won't hide it that Ishida Akira as the main character was the first and one of the biggest reason that I watched it. There's also Ueda Yuji, whose name is written in hiragana on the official site and the credit so I didn't bother reading and only realised it's him until I heard him. Speaking of which, his name is also written in hiragana in Honey & Clover. Is he going this way now? The art style is relatively consistent with the original manga, and the music is composed by the famed Kajiura Yuki.

So here's my verdict. Erementar Gerad is a nice little RPG series to keep yourself occupied when you're bored, but not good enough to keep you entertained, especially if Ishida Akira and Ueda Yuji aren't on your list of favourite seiyuu. As for me, I will finish the series eventually, if only for the reasons listed above.