Polyphonica

Summary: >

On the continent of Polyphonica powerful spirits may form a contract with special musicians who serenade them to give them strength. Society relies on this relationship to build society, so people with this kind of musical talent are highly respected. Phoron doesn't seem like anything special but he's incredibly talented, something recognized years ago by his contracted spirit Corticarte.

Together they handle odd ball jobs, many of which are beyond any regular human to handle.

Thoughts: >

Polyphonica sounds like a some sort of rash that wont go away, but even though this anime isn't that, it's about as irritating. The problem is simple: it's boring. Some have a knack for story telling, others don't. If you've met someone who can make the most awesome adventure ever sound boring, they may have worked on Polyphonica. And that's too bad because there are some cool ideas in this anime.

In the first episode, Phoron pushes a button on his motorcycle, and parts start moving like it was transforming. So I figured it would become a robot because it's anime right? Instead it changes into a keyboard / pipe organ thing. As he plays music his partner's bust size grows by like 5 cup sizes. I wondered what in the hell kind of anime I was watching. It certainly had my attention for being different.

Conceptionally it is very different and on paper this should lead to a vibrant anime. Which makes it puzzling how Polyphonica could be such a dull adaptation. The characters are bland; lacking likable features with most simply filling space. Phoron is a combination of "nice guy" and dope. Corti is a bitch for the entire duration of the show. And if you haven't yet noticed, everyone in this anime has a really weird name.

Polyphonica seems like an adaptation made by someone who knows what it's about but doesn't care at all about the source content. It pulls from a large catalog of material, but doesn't consider if those parts will fit together to accomplish anything in the anime (assuming it's even trying to do that much). It gets into the relationship with Phoron and Coti as the main characters, does a caper of the week format with various problems they have to solve at the agency they work for, and approaches a bigger story problem they need to resolve. It doesn't go far enough into detail on any of those points with a poorly told story that doesn't make the characters even remotely interesting. This makes this anime a slog to get through, although the concept was good enough to make me interested in checking out the sequel Polyphonica Crimson S to see if this series was ever done right. I haven't watched it yet so I can't say, but it has to be better than this.

Polyphonica has some cool ideas I've never seen tried, but doesn't do them justice. Skip it.

Screen Caps: >