Kinsou no Vermeil: Gakeppuchi Majutsushi wa Saikyou no Yakusai to Mahou Sekai wo Tsukisusumu 金装のヴェルメイユ ～崖っぷち魔術師は最強の厄災と魔法世界を突き進む～
Synopsis
Vermeil in Gold is about Alto Goldfilled, a diligent student at the Ortigia Academy of Magic, aspires to become a powerful sorcerer. But he is unable to become one as, despite his excellent grades and strong commitment to his studies, he fails his summoning class. With the threat of repeating a year hanging over his head, Alto tries following an old, worn-out grimoire in a desperate attempt to resolve his situation.
To his surprise, he succeeds and summons a powerful demon named Vermeil. As a sign of gratitude for releasing her, Vermeil agrees to become Alto’s familiar, sealing their relationship with a deep kiss. Little does Alto know what else he is capable of and what Vermeil’s past hides.
Review
Kinsou no Vermeil a.k.a Vermeil in Gold of the spiritual sequel to Zero no Tsukaima… and truthfully, I would rather just re-watch the former series all over again than hobble over this decent-to-good show, because it’s playing with my feelings like a boobs see-saw as the fulcrum.
I have a very heavy bias for (Rest In Peace) Noboru Yamaguchi’s Zero no Tsukaima a.k.a The Familiar of Zero. Heck, this was the very first anime I’ve ever watched back in my teenage years of adolescence, and still to this day it’s immense classic nostalgia even after a decade and years to come.
The reason why I say this is because mangaka Kouta Amana’s work is just an exact copy of it, save for the gender swap where the male becomes the master, and the female becomes the familiar that’s summoned from wherever the magic foretold creatures to come forth and make a contract between master and familiar. And truth be told, this is just the overarching story that’s just copied and pasted from the similar source, from being an undulated harem magnet to fighting evil with good’s magic powers, and this concept while groundbreaking at the time (before it was even called Isekai) certainly got stale as time passes, and such stories like these are considered bland now with no room to spare for originality. Honestly, I don’t know how the dude got his influence, but there is an inference point, and sad to say that it’s kinda a generic, shallow one.
The most important focal point is the interactions between the master and the familiar, and I would say that between the genius student Alto Goldfield, whose constant A stars earn the admiration of the entire Ortigia Academy of Magic, and his familiar of a voluptuous boobies succubus female demon named Vermeil that’s sealed in a grimoire for 200 years, the fateful moment of rapture with her release certainly brings color to Alto’s life, both externally and sexually with the innuendos.
Alto has a harem, and that only exists in the form of his childhood friend Lilia Kudelfeyt, who tries her best to designate herself as his “lover” by surrounding Alto and scaring the other girls off, including Vermeil. Truth to be honest, Zero no Tsukaima does the formula much better by being in the same ecchi, fantasy realm of interest and entertainment, though I’d reckon that this show also done the same tried-and-true, only to end up having a mixed result. Of course, Alto himself is a wimp who does what he does best: being a pushover to the point of edge where he’s just like a fanservice character awaiting to expose either Vermeil or Lilia’s ecchi moments.
But when it comes to the guidance of magic, he becomes a different being altogether, being able to channel all that mana that’s thanks to Vermeil’s demonic powers that hasn’t been seen since the calamity days. And this is not without merit, for Alto turns from the annoying to the selfless character, understanding that he is fighting on Vermeil’s side and also loving her like just how a master would to its servant. So, there is both good and bad sides to the MC. And while the motive is just stereotypical for the time given the formula, it’s almost insulting now that there’s no depth to it. Everybody else seems stereotypical for its premise, even the villains, so it being based on a tried-and-true formula that’s actually well-paced to the manga’s first 4 volumes, likewise, there’s good and bad when you can see it.
For a first try at the scale of TV anime production, Staple Entertainment did surprisingly well, and I would say that the decent effort actually rivals many other low-budget studios and pitting against quality that it puts these low-tier studios to shame, that’s speaking volumes for a predominantly Hentai studio for a start.
There’s actual work being put through its paces, and even if the production staff team are a bunch of no-names, they actually captured the essence of the manga and adapted it to the T, which is great to see. Even when there’s sakuga being planted in the action, it doesn’t waver, and as I’ve said before, for a very new studio with only a single Hentai work to its name, the hope that more people will be aware of this studio source exists to request to do more contractual work on anime, please. It’s better than what we bargained for in its genericness.
Song-wise, this is one of Kaori Ishihara’s better efforts, given that she’s helming 2 songs this season: this show and Isekai Yakkyoku. Both songs are decent as per her quality of average-to-decent songwriting, and I would take it or leave it. The surprise however is Mili’s ED, which comes in a foreboding tone of solemn and relapse of anchoring the torments of Vermeil’s life from young till her current days. But I still think that the OST is so-so, so let’s just leave it at that.
I would say, if you desire the days of Zero no Tsukaima, but don’t want to tread through the seasons from start to finish nor want to actually watch it in the first place, this is a somewhat decent alternative that unfortunately doesn’t stand out for more than just a guilty pleasure that can make you feel deep at times. It’s as if it’s trying to bring back a trend that was once popular that with the invigoration of the Isekai genre (that killed this trend) that made it fall. This ain’t so much a rarity nowadays, but clustered into the fantasy genre that no longer goes well with the times. It’s an acquired taste, I would pretty much summarize it that way.
