Saint Luminous Mission High School

2 reviews - 6.0 total score (Explanation of the rating system)
avg. score: (3.0)

2. Global Frequency

I remember being somewhat peeved when this series was taken off the program schedule at least year's Otakon. It sounded interesting enough. A young man is left in charge of a pseudo-religious all-female art school following the death of the headmaster, his grandfather. Soon after, students begin disappearing one by one, and it’s up to Kaihe to solve the mystery with the help of his friend, Ryuji, who has enrolled at St. Luminous in drag.

Once in a while St. Luminous Mission High School lives up to its potential, but on the whole it's a great deal less compelling than it sounds. The plot is muddled, the animation is substandard and the characters are neither deep nor likable. The eventual conclusion makes no sense and resolves nothing. The music is well-suited and the series is occasionally quite atmospheric, but it's far too little to save St. Luminous Mission High School from its own mediocrity.

1. Olmanek

Kaihe still a high school student himself, is summoned to St. Luminous High School, and is forced into becoming the chairman at the all girls high school as it is stated in his grand father's will that he do so who formerly had that position, and his grandmother is quite insistent that he do so as well. Now despite the premise of a male in all girls high school situated away in a lonely secluded place, this series takes itself quite seriously and doesn't fall into 13 mindless episodes of him chasing around girls.

I've a few mixed reactions to this anime. I very much enjoyed the start of the series, and found that the first 4 or so episodes were of great interest, hinting at various possible story paths and generally settling in some of the characters which were to remain about for the series. However, the middle stint of this series is unbearably slow and cryptic. And, as you learn right in the very last 5 minutes, the reason for it being cryptic was not, as one may suspect, a result of a highly complicated story, it was a very disappointing story and reason, in fact, it was so simple and so harmless, that it makes you question just why a production studio honestly thought that this would be a good series. The character designs are subpar, not out dated, but, lacking in any real definition, the general animation also suffers much the same problem. The one particular strong point I found this series had, was some especially creepy music, when put into proper context with the events you were seeing. I believe some parts of the story were left undiscovered, and others seemed to only be there to try and throw you off, or in this series' case, give you hope of a decent reason.