Let’s Watch is a weekly recap column where I follow an anime for the course of its entire runtime. Expect spoilers!

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I think I’m closer to figuring takt op.Destiny out. I could’ve told you from the opening minutes of episode one that this series had a flair for the dramatic, but “campy high-concept action series” is a pretty populated genre these days. That alone doesn’t tell us all that much. When I say that I’m closer to “figuring it out,” I mean I think I know what it reminds me most of, at least at present, and that would be Black Rock Shooter. Not the OVA, the TV anime.

Both shows are predicated on high melodrama and have a broad music theming tied together with ostentatious transforming heroine designs. There are of course some big differences too; Black Rock Shooter is a lot more esoteric than takt op has been so far, and being animated entirely in 3D CGI gives it a very different visual feel, but the general similarity is definitely there. And that’s a good thing! Black Rock Shooter is a real gem, and there’s enough interest in the franchise even ten years later that we’re getting a new anime based on it next year. So believe me when I say, I mean the comparison only in the most flattering of terms. Even the opening for the third episode (“Awakening -Journey”), an honestly kinda edgy scene where Takt and his new Musicart cut through swathes of D2s only to eventually pass out, will make you say “oh the drama” in a good way.

They’re rescued by new character Leonard, who is almost certainly more than he appears, but other than this scene mostly serves as a charming face to drop exposition and cryptic hints on us alike in equal measure.

^{To the Guy Enjoyer segment of my audience: You’re welcome.}

His own Musicart, Titan, helps out here too. I’m actually a little sad she doesn’t get more of a role in this episode. (This is to say nothing of the other Musicart who briefly appears in the opening, cuts a huge magic tuning fork in half(??) and then disappears.)

Now does all of that mean that takt op‘s third episode is particularly great on its own merits aside from that scene? Well, I complained last week that it felt like takt op seemed to think it needed to “explain itself” in terms of worldbuilding and mechanics and such. There is some logic to this–this is a tie-in to a mobile game, after all–but it’s easily the weakest component of the show, and it takes up a good chunk of episode three. The silver lining is that the show’s production carries it even in moments where the story is a bit dry, and the characters are likable enough that even “dry” isn’t actually “boring.” This leaves us then with an episode that is a bit slow in spots but still mostly pretty good. There are worse things to be.

As for what is exposited to us, I won’t bother recapping every nuance, but there are two main takeaways here, and a third that’s essentially a restatement of something we already knew. Almost all of which comes to us courtesy of Leonard, filling his Guy Who Knows Things role here admirably.

One: The “Cosette” we followed in episode one and the latter half of episode two is not really Cosette. Musicarts lose their prior sense of self upon “awakening.” We learn–although anyone who read prerelease press materials sort of knew this already–that her actual name is Destiny, hence the show’s title. Everyone rather stubbornly insists on calling her Cosette anyway, though for the purposes of this column going forward I’ll be referring to her by her Musicart name and reserving “Cosette” for her prior, pre-awakening self. She’s also “unstable” somehow, which perhaps explains her wildly fluctuating power as a fighter.

Two: Destiny awoke in a very unusual fashion. Leonard informs Takt and Anna (and by extension, us) that most Musicarts are trained over the course of many years. (The even moderately attentive viewer will note this raises quite a lot of red flags about the whole “Musicarts forget their entire past lives” point, but that’s presumably something to be addressed down the road.) Destiny’s emergence, all at once, makes her very unusual, and Leonard speculates she may be a literal world-first. She also, again unusually for a Musicart, appears to somehow unwittingly sap Takt’s lifeforce when battling. This again is called out as unheard-of, and Leonard seems genuinely shocked by it.

Three: The only people who can possibly shed any more light on any of this are the Symphonica themselves. And as we knew from episode one, their HQ is in New York. The full route that Takt, Anna, and Destiny plan to take is detailed for us here, starting by going “down” to Las Vegas, along the American South, through the Appalachian Mountains, and up the East Coast to New York. Leonard and Titan offer to tag along part of the way, yet they were nowhere to be seen during episode one. Hmm.

^{Boy, Titan sure is cute. It would really be an emotional jab to the gut if she and her Maestro died horribly or turned out to be evil or something.}

And that’s essentially our episode. There’s another (great) fight scene to close things out, in which Destiny literally blasts Takt’s house away in an almost hilariously on-the-nose symbol of his abandonment of his old life. But hey, the show is at its best when it’s not being subtle. More metaphors like that, I say!

The closing moments of the episode feature our main trio piled into Anna’s car, where Takt and Destiny lightly bicker. For the first time since its premiere, takt op feels like it’s found its “normal” again in this final scene, and the character dynamic that immediately endeared me to the series clicks back into place perfectly. Will it hold up for the rest of the series? That’s impossible to know. But I do know one thing, assuming next episode picks up right after this one. Anime fans? We have a trip to take.

Until then.

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