Before I start I want to first thank AIC Plus/Kadokawa for making this into an anime into the first place. I don't think I'd appreciate this series as much as I do today if it wasn't for this adaptation. Just a genuine thank you for making this anime having such a strong impact on my life in the last five years. In no ways do I mean any harsh words to the people working behind this anime.

However, sigh its time to be honest about what this anime really is.

First whats my experience with the series and....well what is the series. This series is called Date A Live in which you follow the Main Character of Shido Itsuka. The series main focus is of course dating if that wasn't obvious enough. There are two options to get rid of these catastrophic killing machines in the form of cute girls or spirits as they call them. Either annihilate the forces which is very difficult to pull off. Or date them and "Make them all weak in the knees" as the series likes to put it. This may sound very cheesy and just straight up stupid that a series that revolves around dating these ticking time bombs is doomed to fail. However, it is so much more than the premise may put it out to be. Koushi Tachibana the author and creator of Date A Live aim at first was to just have fun and write a story with dating sim elements present. However, the amount of heart and just flat out good writing throughout this story shows how high his standards really are as a writer. My Experience with the series is when I was around 16 this is the first anime that really got me into anime as it wasn't my first but it definitely attracted me to the point where I wanted become a full blown weeb. I really loved every second when watching and I finished all 20 episodes and 1 movie (season 3 and 4 were not out yet) all in one day. I love it more than most and truly think its something special. I'm 21 now btw and just finished my rewatch of the first season.

Now let's talk about the anime....what does it do well? What does it do badly? If its so special and well-written then this should be easy to identify the good stuff RIGHT!!!!..........right? sigh unfortunately there isn't any way to put it lightly the anime fails to capture what the light novel does. Credit to the studio this is a very hard task to accomplish as adapting a light novel as this with so much narration and how so much of the development happens in the head of the protagonist is not an easy task to tackle. However, the way AIC tries to do so is just unacceptable in my opinion. The many ways this adaptation in comparison to its superior version is the absence of emphasis on many scenes present, logic and purpose behind both what is happening in the anime along with why characters are doing what they are doing, and just the overall this adaptation IS JUST WAYYYYYY TO RUSHED FOR CRYING OUT LOUD. Sometimes it just comes off to me that the absence of time in most of these scenes along with the fact we don't have a clear understanding of how Shido Itsuka is feeling in many situations (unlike the light novel) kinda just makes him feel like a crazy generic MC that just does the right thing in every situation with no emotion behind it.

Take the first arc for example Tohka's arc while leaving a lot of scenes cut from the Light Novel and kinda making the user scratch their head at Shido where his parents are what's the situation he's in? At least they explain spacequakes and what they are at least. What I feel this arc does worst is fail the emphasize the situation Tohka's in and how Shido truly wants to help her understand the world. As this arc should be about how Tohka truly is a victim in her own situation about how she has no other choice but to fight off the AST and how she truly doesn't want to do this. Much of this is lost in the anime as they rush through many of these scenes with very minimal emotional attachment to it. It just feels like both Shido as a character and his purpose of helping this spirit just get lost in the anime by the constant rushing of scenes.

This does not change in the Yoshino's arc. As many of scenes here while im happy that they were at least adapted unfortunately fall flat and are victim to the constant rushing of scenes in order to get a grasp of what's really happening here along with the personalities. Take this very dumb and funny scene that I really enjoyed reading of the scene where Shido goes to Origami's apartment to fetch back the Yoshinon she had found after Yoshino fled the scene. It honestly goes by so fast that I honestly missed everything that happens in this scene. The emotions running through Shido's head the fact that he feels like he's about to pass out he feels like he's filled with sexual desire towards Origami despite that being not what he wants to do to a friend and origami keeps egging him on to do so. Its a very charming scene but yet so simple in which Origami wants to be closer to Shido and him having no ability to fight back because of the drugged up tea he just drank. However, the anime does all this in a minute removing any form of panic in Shido's personality I could barely even tell he was drugged up. One of my favorite scenes in this arc is the scene in which Yoshino tells Shido how important Yoshinon is to her and why she doesn't fight back against the AST. A super touching scene had me in tears in the LN specifically about Shido's resolve in this scene. And the fact that he tells Yoshino that he "wants to be her hero" not because that's what he really thinks but instead because he wanted to help her in any way he could because he truly felt she was one of the strongest people he met. I'll leave it at that if anyone who's reading this wants to read the LN I would highly recommend reading at least this scene as it is insane how much this adds to Shido's resolve and why he's helping Yoshino.

And Now we get to Kurumi's arc (after a shitty filler ep don't make me review that pls) in my opinion this is the worst adapted in this season. Not only did this skip basically the first chapter of the entire volume but it skips scenes where it shows the evolution of Tohka and Yoshino since Shido sealed them. Just an overall rushed adaptation of a really good volume in the series where Shido goes through the sort of identity crisis about whether he wants to help this bad spirit he realizes is killing people and wonders if what he's doing is really a good thing. Along with the introduction of Mana Shido's blood-related sister. Mana is so shafted in the anime that it's actually insane that they don't capture any of her character at all in the anime and how she and Shido are so far apart because of the constant killing of Kurumi's clones she does. And I can't elaborate on this enough how Shido truly feels about Mana and who she is as a person along with the scene in the anime where Shido decides to save Kurumi. Mana's one of my fav characters in the LN so it was sad to see they really barely gave her enough time to let her personality shine throughout this arc to the point I started wondering what I enjoyed so much about this show 5 years ago.

Kotori Itsuka arc the big bad imouto time. while suffering from the same thing from time to time in this arc as the other 3. The thing I disliked about this arc is this sort of arc gives time to shine to many side characters that usually don't get much screen time such as Reine but she gets a good amount throughout the series so I don't mind as much, the one I felt got shafted the most was definitely Kannazuki the vice-captain of Ratotskr. He gets a good amount of time to shine in this volume or at least should. Most of his characterization is unfortunately cut from the anime. But the thing that bugs me about this adaptation is, they single Handley cut-off one of the most important flashbacks in the entire series. You get a very touching scene between Kotori and Shido when Kotori obtained her spirit powers 5 years ago but they also introduce a SUPER important character down the line that shows how good of a writer Tachibana really is. But they cut all of it out of the anime by just literally fast-forwarding through the whole thing.

So in conclusion, I know that this came off a little rambly by the end of it but I really just wanted to explain my discomfort towards the anime and how it fails to capture what the LN does so well. By constantly rushing through big scenes and just many of the characters came off as generic and emotionless because the studio failed to capture their personalities well. Date A Live is truly a once-in-a-lifetime series I just wanted to let everyone know that the anime isn't the end-all-be-all for the series if you disliked it. In fact, I feel that the anime isn't even an adaptation at all of the series and is more so a good introduction of what the series is. And if you were confused at times and want to know what most of this stuff means when watching go read the LN. I don't care if you gave the series a 4/10, a 6/10, or a 1/10 if you found the series enjoyable at least at one point of time please just give the LN a shot I know it won't disappoint truly think it's one of the best pieces of media out there and hope to share this with more others scared of reading LN's or were unattracted to the series for the bad adaptation. In my opinion, this anime shouldn't determine whether the series is good or bad for you instead it should open your eyes up to it and see if you should maybe try reading the LN. I'm giving this series a 6/10 though it might deserve a lower score I feel non-LN readers will like it better than I did on this rewatch.

Thank you, to everyone who decided to take their time the day to read my review on DAL S1 though its more like a review on how the anime fails to capture what the LN does so well.