Opening Songs
OP 1 - Shosho Innocence (Maaya Uchida)
Ending Songs
Too many to list*
Genre: Action, Drama
Episodes: 12
For some reason, the higher ups of a certain top secret organization wants some high school girl dead. So what do they do? Put her in a class full of 12 freaking top level assassins without her knowing about it! Amazing plan....isn't it? "Akuma No Riddle"'s title is a lot less than it implies. There are no riddles, there are no devils...hell, there isn't really anything supernatural about it in the first place, despite having such a title. All we have....are 12 high school girls with superior assassination abilities trying to murder one...helpless airhead of a woman. With such a simple premise, its actually quite hard to screw up, and honestly "Akuma No Riddle" does quite well. Usually something like this has to rely on fanservice, but "Akuma No Riddle" actually holds its own without having to rely on that aspect....though there are a few gripes. If you're all about girls fighting against one another (without excessive fan service, mind you), then "Akuma No Riddle" may actually be something really entertaining, and it might even surprise you, even IF you're not a fan of all-girl animes.
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| Okay...Yuri time! |
A lot of budget was obviously put into the songs used in "Akuma No Riddle". There are an absurd amount of ending themes, a different one with each episode. While there are some pretty good ones in there, I'm not about to handpick them and list every single one of these ending themes....if you want to, go look them up yourselves. The opening theme is "Shosho Innocence" by Maaya Uchida (judging by the cast at first, I thought she was going to voice a character, but apparently not). Its quite a cool song actually, not something that she does often, with a pinch of intensity and occasional moments where she actually sounds sexy. Quite fitting for an anime like "Akuma No Riddle".
Rating: 7.5/10
Its actually a lot better than it looks, and right off the bat it gives off the "Holy shit, this show is going to be pretty interesting!" vibe. While we have an ultimately uninteresting main character and the supporting main character is naive AND incredibly stupid at times, the rest of the characters (the ones that are trying to gut the f**k out of our 2 heroines) are actually pretty f**king awesome! Its definitely pretty beast that we get to see regular looking high school girls actually turn all twisted and evil, then do something really unexpected, be it try to blow someone up with explosives or smash them with a giant hammer. These supporting characters that also serve as antagonists are some of the more interesting characters that I've seen around, and you can tell that their seiyuus are having fun starring as sadistic, violent girls rather the stale and stereotypical high school girl. Blood will be shed, and the girls will fight. It will be entertaining...though that's pretty much its strongest point, because the story is pretty much nothing without its excellent character cast.
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| So...when do I get to kill? |
Azuma Tohkaku is as boring as main characters get. She's a blue haired girl that supposedly belongs to a family bloodline that exists to kill and only that. Belonging to a long running generation of assassins, Tohkaku easily passes the examination given by Kaiba sensei to mark herself as a top class assassin. She is then given her first mission, to enroll into Myojo academy and assassinate a certain someone, a girl in her soon to be class. She goes to Myojo the next day, only to find that the entire class is filled with nothing but assassins of her calibur, all with the same mission....except one girl, by the name of Ichinose Haru. Haru is just like any other high school girl, and greets everyone on her first day like its all good. Of course, seeing how easy it is to kill a naive girl like her, someone immediately goes in for the kill, only to have Haru herself be protected by Tohkaku, whom was lucky enough to be her room mate. After hearing Haru's story, Tohkaku decides to be a different factor in the game. 11 assassins will try to kill Haru...who only has Tohkaku protecting her. 11 assasins vs 1 Tohkaku...how will this play out?
So that's all for "Akuma No Riddle". There are no mind boggling riddles, there sure as hell are no demons, only bloodthirsty girls out for each others' throats. With the way it ended, there most probably won't be a second season, but I wouldn't mind for something like that. For an original project, this one was pretty good. Let's hope Kaiba sensei has something else in store for us (either that or the post credits scene was nothing but a troll scene).
Peace.
