This is another of those shows like “Infinite Stratos” or even “Unbreakable Machine Doll”, whereas only maidens who are pure of heart and come from a noble family can pilot a body ship, or, in this case, make contracts with the spirit world and become elementalers. In order to achieve the finest education in all these matters, they attend the Areishia Spirit Academy, where they are trained and given an Elite’s education in order to qualify to become an elementalist. Well, all of this is knocked into a cocked hat when Kamito Kazehaya (find the dude up there, dude) somehow manages to make a contract with a spirit, making him the ONLY male elementaler in the world and only the second since the Norman Conquest (the real one, not the series).

“Blade Dance of the Elementalers” relates the tale of how Kamito tries to fit in with all of these girls, but four in particular, who are, left to right:

Claire Rouge
Rinslet Laurenfrost
Ellis Fahrengart
Fianna Ray Ordesia

The fifth, Terminus Est, is actually the contracted spirit for Kamito. This is her ‘human’ form; her regular form is some fabulous sword.

They are all preparing for the Blade Dance, an event that showcases one’s talents and prepares them for being established as a Blade Dancer and the best Elementaler. Too bad this series is kind of old hat.

It reminded me a huge amount of “The Familiar of Zero” in how badly treated Kamito is. He has to live in a shack near the stables (as everything is set up for ladies, so a guy in the dorms is worse than a fox in a hen house) and he is accused of every perversity under the sun. Well, he’s a guy; of COURSE he is a pervert! If this wasn’t bad enough, all the ladies carry a huge amount of baggage with them, emotionally and physically.

For Claire, she is JUST LIKE Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière, right down to her catch-phrase (“I’ll burn you to cinders!”) Her older sister, Rubia, the Queen serving under the Fire Elemental Lord, snatched the strongest flame spirit, Laevateinn, and disappeared. Claire is under suspicion of working in collusion with her and her family name is in shame. She is working to rebuild that greatness.

Rinslet is pretty good at what she does, but is a bit of a showoff and sometimes her zeal exceeds her talents. She is trying to lift a curse on her younger sister.

Ellis has a real problem, and that is her outfit. You may not be able to see it well, but it is either a shoulder guard or a breast plate, but it covers her right shoulder and her left breast, so it looks like it either slipped down or needs to go up. She is very arrogant, as she is the captain of the Sylphid Knights; a group of students, who help protect the Academy, enforce discipline and morals and handle wild spirits, so she doesn’t brook anything to the contrary.

Fianna is the second princess of the Ordesian Empire. Owing to some problem, she was unable to summon her contracted spirit and has experienced a caliber of ostracism and the fact that she actually failed her entrance exam. The dean allowed her to stay anyway.

So, this disparate group of folks has to work together as a team to defeat the forces that are running around the academy causing all degrees of problems.

It’s just that the first season was spent setting up everything, so we haven’t even gotten to the Blade Dance, where things get even more wild and the stakes have doubled, as well as the consequences. I have seen this show done better elsewhere, and with all the obviously references to other shows, it never really developed anything that set it apart from other shows of its type. Yes, everyone has secrets. Yes, everyone dislikes everyone else. Yes, good will triumph and all will be restored in the universe (but that happens next season).

It is an OK show and you have to make the decision if you want to watch the first season to appreciate the second season. I feel that other shows out there are better (like “Zero”) and your time would be better spent watching them. Gee, even “Princess Lover” was a better show than this.

On a scale of 1 to 10:

Artwork 8 (Pleasant enough)
Plot 6 (A tired reworking of an old idea)
Pacing 6 (Ran in spurts)
Effectiveness 6 (As it depends on the second season)
Conclusion 5 (It reaches a ‘coupler point’, but hasn’t ended)
Fan Service 5 (A similar show would be “Maburaho”)

Overall 5 (I’ve seen better)

And remember, it’s first run until you’ve seen it. I’ll burn you to cinders!