I have a slight secret to admit to the world; I personally don’t prefer yaoi. Contrary to jokes and other instances where a yaoi is actually good, I feel like most the yaoi I’m watching was made to be fetishized by women. As a queer woman who understands how that feels when the opposite occurs, I’m not really big on watching it unless it seems remotely realistic. Let’s be honest, there’s a ton of random yaoi out there that makes no sense. This is one of those yaois.
Spiritpact is about a guy named You who dies and ends up making a pact, as a spirit, with this white-haired dude you see before you. The two of them begin on this amazing journey being exorcists together, cursing the evil spirits of the land and as a surprising romance blossoms between the two. A relationship of dedication and loyalty comes to light as a series of random events, a result of a poor story line, lures victims into a trap.
Every season, I try to pick at least one anime to really rip into and my friends, this is that anime. It almost beat Charlotte in how much I despise the writing in Spirit Pact. I saw that some people liked it, but… I really feel like at this point some people will like any strange yaoi thrown their way. With that in mind, let’s get to the review.
The Good:
I really… Don’t even want a ‘The Good’ section to exist when it comes to this anime… We could go down a few avenues about how it was useful for friendship or had some decent characters, but that was just it. There were so many continuity errors that I couldn’t even keep track of who had a character mold or not. They switched their dynamics too often to keep track. What I will say is some of the women looked like they could have been serious characters, had their outline ever been fleshed out.
Alas, that did not happen. So we can only imagine what could be. I would say this is just a really bad yaoi version of Yu Yu Hakoshu… And even then, I feel like I’m insulting an anime I loved growing up. But I suppose if you love a yaoi, no matter how bad it is, you’ll watch it no matter what I say now. Ignore the review and go forth. Find a love that was not only one sided but also made no sense what so ever.
The Bad:
Here we go boys, girls and other. This is were I get into THE DANGER ZONE.
In all my years of watching anime, I have never, not even once, seen something so all over the place. If I’m being honest, Elliot and I watched all ten episodes and not even he can give you an accurate summary of what this show is about. It seemed as though it changed the story line every episode. If I had to guess, I would say that the writers started with a concept but did not flesh out exactly what kind of back story they wanted. Towards the end we were still being introduced to new characters whose overall influence had no purpose in the total arch.
Not only were some of them new, but ones we’d seen from the very first episode were being changed as time went on, and no it wasn’t like a change of heart or character development. I could not, for the life of me, tell you who the antagonist was in this show. I have this odd feeling that everyone who wasn’t You and his angry boy toy was, in some way, a villain. You know what wait, even You was a villain. Never mind, everyone in this anime was at one point or another some kind of antagonist.
Which is great and all (sarcasm) but what exactly am I do think of this story? There were so many changes in the ultimate goal that I’m still not sure what I was supposed to be watching. Really the biggest issue with this show was simply the continuity of it. It didn’t know what it wanted to be, and honestly? I really hated that it had some potential with the female characters (whether they be antagonists or antagonists) and it never tapped into that.
It felt like no one really grew as a character and by the end the writers tried to push it off like they’d been building through this whole journey. I call bull on that by the greatest power vested in me, but whatever floats your boat.
I can’t… I would have given it the sad Elliot emoji for how many tears of just agony I spilled over having to watch this anime. I literally watched the timer more than I was reading the subtitles. I could not, for the life of me, find any good in this forced yaoi that really had no business being… Whatever it was trying to be. But okay.
It was just so frustrating to watch and the more I watched, the more I felt like I was wasting my time when there were other shows I needed to get through this winter. So, without going on for too long, what is the over all consensus on this anime and would you personally enjoy it? If you’re a masochist with a death wish and a bunch of free time on your hands, go ahead. I almost didn’t want to even rate this anime. I was filled with hopelessness from the first five minutes and it continued for a full ten episodes.
Good luck, my dearest friends.
What’s an anime you guys personally find frustrating? What about it makes it so uncomfortable to watch?
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