Seikimatsu Occult Academy - Final Thoughts

My last "final thoughts" post for the Summer 2010 season. Seikimatsu Occult Academy is a show that ended 2-3 weeks ago, but I didn't get around to writing this post until today. It's not like I have much to add to everyone else has said, but might as well write something on a day that I don't have anything else to post about.

Post contains spoilers.

Brief Description of the series:
Seikimatsu Occult Academy is a 13 episode anime produced by A-1 Pictures and Aniplex and is the third series in TV Tokyo and Aniplex's Anime no Chikara project. The story features Fumiaki Uchiha, a bumbling time traveler from 2012 who travels back to 1999 to find the Key of Nostradamus, an object that would lead to an alien invasion that devastated the world Fumiaki lives in. After traveling back in time, Fumiaki meets Maya Kumashiro, the daughter of headmaster of the Waldstein Occult Academy where the Key is said to be located at. Maya and Fumiaki along with Maya's friends then go on a series of (mis)adventures involving the supernatural in an attempt to find the Key of Nostradamus.

Thoughts:
Seikimatsu Occult Academy had a very good first 2-3 episodes. It probably had one of the strongest starts among the summer 2010 series. Theses early episodes features quite a few fun, attention-grabbing scenes such as Maya sending her father's possessed body flying with a steel chair (coupled with rock music in the background) and then later hacking the head off with an axe, and also the horror-movie-inspired scene where Maya is attacked in her home by a ghost. Added with Fumiaki's surprising arrival and the whole story about preventing an alien invasion the early episodes established a strong female lead in Maya, a very lively atmosphere and a lot of possibilities for the show. Coupled with the decent production quality, Occult Academy had the potential to become a very fun show to watch.

Well... it didn't quite happen that way. After the earlier episodes, Occult Academy spent the majority of the remaining episodes wandering around without a clear direction. Supposedly the characters are looking for the Key and they are having supernatural adventures, but the series wasn't making any obvious progress to the central plot. It's okay if you spend a portion of the middle episodes on things other than the central story, but Occult Academy nearly all of the middle episodes on side adventures, which left the series with two and a half episodes to put a resolution to everything. For something that spanned such a short time, the ending wasn't too bad. The battle between evil witch Mikaze and Maya, Fumiaki and company didn't make a whole lot of sense, but at least it had something to do with the central plot and there was plenty of action. The fact that Fumiaki meeting his younger self was the Key of Nostradamus was a decent twist at the end, and Fumiaki finally received his (albeit very short) moment of glory after being nearly useless in all previous situations.

Although the ending wasn't bad, it was still disappointing that Occult Academy didn't quite live up to its surprisingly good start. It could have been a very good show, but the wandering middle ruined its chances. As it stands now, Occult Academy is still a decent show which has some pretty entertaining parts, and being only 13 episodes it's not a bad show to watch to kill some time.