Not if you paid me: ViVid Strike! OVA

I could barely take it. I just about made it to the end of the episode, but there's no way I'd watch another one.

The title sequence warned me to expect a cast full of pretty boys, but for once the gender imbalance is laid down by the setting. This is the Catholic Church. This week a nun claims immaculate conception while also displaying stigmata. Oh, and we'll also wander past the Holy Lance (aka. the Lance of Longinus), while a statue of the Virgin Mary will weep. Theoretically I admire the show's total immersion in Catholic mythology, which in fairness is much more detailed and authentic than one usually gets in anime, but unfortunately they've overloaded on it. The show feels (to me) like self-parody. Watching it is like choking to death on Catholicism. "We aren't tired. Let us meet Sister Dolores... but before that, let us pray to God!"

There's also a reference to possible devil worship. "The Devil may be waiting for you!" warns Archbishop Saul. Later someone will get murdered in a pentagram.

Our two heroes are Father Kou and Father Roberto, who work for the Vatican's miracle-investigating department. Their introduction tells us that Kou has a younger brother with bone cancer, but he can't give up God!

I found it overdone, kitsch and cloying. (Also dull.) That's a completely subjective reaction, but I did. The forteana overload is stupid, like being told that a Yeti is playing poker with the Loch Ness Monster while joyriding in a UFO. The religious music is cool and adds lots of atmosphere, but it's sometimes overdone and I suspect that without it the episode might have felt cheap. The show's really getting into its Catholic trappings, but it's only using them for lurid forteana, miracles and Satanism rather than, say, anything to do with people and their relationship with religion. Personally I'm not actually religious, but I'm sufficiently interested in the subject to be annoyed by half-arsed material like this. In short, I'm absolutely the wrong person to watch this show.