WARNING: The following contains spoilers for takt op.Destiny Episode 1, "Conduct -Creed-," now streaming on Crunchyroll.
Powerhouse studios MAPPA and Madhouse have come together to produce the multi-media project takt op.Destiny. As part of the project, a mobile game is set to be released this year along with the anime. The high-quality animation, along with an unusual premise of classical music, action and fantasy makes for a captivating first episode. Though the world-building isn't especially strong, with many questions around the bond between the Conductor and Musicart, as well as how any of this came to be, takt op.Destiny is certainly shaping up to hit all the right notes.
The World in takt op.Destiny
In 2047, music is banned. It has been a long time since anyone has ever heard music and many children don't even know what music sounds like. Instruments, jukeboxes and the like exist but have been sequestered away, further discouraging music performance and listening. But its not that humanity suddenly hates music. A long time ago, beautiful stones with mysterious powers fell to Earth, where many attempted to uncover their secrets.
But as more, darker stones fell, they brought with them monsters known as D2. These monsters are attracted to music and attack people whenever it's played. But the only way to fight the D2s is, ironically, through music. Musicarts are weapons that Conductors, like a conductor in a real orchestra, command. The Conductors possess the powers of the beautiful stones.
Hidden away in what looks like an empty marketplace is a piano with writing all over it. A little boy is utterly amazed when he opens the lid but is scared witless when a note is played from the piano by a young man who suddenly materializes beside him. The young man is named Takt, and he sits down and starts playing the last movement of Beethoven's "Symphony No. 5." Takt, a Conductor, yearns to play music, his fingers drumming out a melody on every surface that he can. That's all he really cares about.
Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 summons Takt's Musicart, Cosette, who looks unassuming on the outside, but can easily destroy a D2. She, Takt and her "older sister" Anna are heading to New York to the Symphonica. Not much else is known about Cosette except that she can eat a ton of food. Anna, meanwhile, constantly reprimands Takt for distracting them from their journey to New York.
When Takt and Cosette work together, Cosette changes from an ordinary girl to a Musicart, dressed in a resplendent red dress with a corset and an enormous blaster. Takt and Cosette work in tandem: Cosette can't activate her Musicart abilities without Takt sacrificing his arm (without much of an explanation as to why this has to happen). And Takt can't maximize Cosette's strengths without his baton, which can only be created after Cosette changes into a Musicart. Their life force is connected: if a Musicart gets hurt, then their Conductor does as well. Usually, the Conductors just feel weaker, but if their Musicart is severely injured, the colour of their dress starts spreading across their skin, as seen with Takt when Cosette is thrown into a building.
The dynamic between the three is very sibling-like. The banter is comical with the three of them constantly ragging on each other even though Cosette is usually the more robotic of the three. There's a hint in a brief flashback that Cosette wasn't always like this and it's possible that something devastating happened that might have led to her current state as a Musicart. As of now, there's not much of a goal for the characters to aim for other than to get to New York, which makes the premiere feel a little aimless, but leaves enough intrigue to look forward to the upcoming episodes.
