After his home town
is destroyed by a mysterious black sun and his beloved cousin lost to the void,
teenage Arata joins a school for mages to learn enough magic to rescue her. He soon
encounters the Trinity Seven, a group of powerful schoolgirl mages who aid his
efforts while he variously lusts after them.
In
the best tradition of harem series such as this, each one of the seven is
defined as a basic female archetype, such as the tough girl, the shy girl, the
aloof girl and the nerdy girl, this last one also doubling up with a sexy evil
twin. While this kind of setup is largely the focus of the harem subgenre, it
shouldn’t preclude the girls having functioning personalities beyond their
behaviour towards Arata or their primary presence being intended to provoke his
desire.
As
well as this, the series is riddled with an absurd volume of fanservice,
frequently focused on to such an extent it supersedes everything else going on,
including the occasional battle sequence. As well as the tight and revealing
outfits the girls wear, for some reason dispelling magic causes their clothes to
explode off, leaving only a few scraps strategically stuck to their shapely
bodies. There is also inadvertent groping at least once an episode and a random
beach scene a few episodes in where they slink about in skimpy bikinis. While it’s
nowhere near as explicit as, say, High School DxD (to which this series bears a
passing resemblance), the constant lechery becomes rather grating.
It
turns out Arata has an inherent ability to copy the magic of others, meaning
that he can gain powerful abilities without having to bother understanding them
or go through the inconvenience of having the slightest idea what he’s doing. He
calls to mind some dynastic scion at an elite school whose wealthy family
bought his way in, uncaring of how much work it took for his poor but talented
peers to attain the position he drifted into practically on a whim, and remains
utterly oblivious of how much advantage his fortunate circumstances have
afforded him through no effort, ability or even competence of his own.
We
are apparently supposed to admire Arata for his blunt honesty, while in reality
all his cavalier nonchalance does his highlight how thoroughly obnoxious and
unlikable he is. Possessing awareness that you are a misogynistic prick and
freely admitting it doesn’t actually excuse you for being one. It doesn’t help
that the only other male character in the entire series, the school’s
headmaster, is just as unapologetically perverted and so sees nothing wrong
with his behaviour.
Setting
aside the juvenile fantasies, other annoying issues include that the magic of
the girls is meant to be emblematic of the seven deadly sins, but is not
realised in any significant or competent way, while the magic system itself operates
by utterly arbitrary and inconsistent rules that usually require laborious
explanations to justify away single actions.
There
are numerous anime series out there with similar content and themes to Trinity
Seven that are actually entertaining. Watch any of them instead.
TRINITY
SEVEN / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: HIROSHI NISHIKIORI / SCREENPLAY: HIROYUKI YOSHINO,
KENJI SAITO, SHOGO YASUKAWA / STARRING: CAMERON BAUTSCH, ALLISON SUMRALL,
CHRISTINA STROUP, CARLI MOSIER, CHELSEA MCCURDY, PATRICIA DURAN, KIRA
VINCENT-DAVIS / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
