Date A Live V

Date A Live V is the fifth TV season of the long-running Date A Live anime. It aired in Japan from April 10 to June 26, 2024. Studio Geek Toys made it, with Jun Nakagawa as director and Fumihiko Shimo writing the scripts, the same main team as the fourth season. Go Sakabe wrote the music. The opening song, "Paradoxes," is sung by Miyu Tomita, and the ending song, "Hitohira," is by the group sweet ARMS. Crunchyroll streams the season in many countries.

The show is based on a light novel series by Koushi Tachibana, with art by Tsunako. A light novel is a Japanese novel for young readers with some pictures. The books ran from 2011 to 2020, with 22 volumes, and this season adapts volumes 17 to 19, which are close to the end of the story.

Here is the basic idea of the series. Thirty years before the story begins, a giant disaster called a spacequake destroyed a huge area of Eurasia. Since then, smaller spacequakes keep happening. They are caused by Spirits, girls with great power who come from another world. Many people want to fight them, but a secret group called Ratatoskr has a different plan. Shidou Itsuka, an ordinary high school boy, has a strange gift. He can seal a Spirit's power. To do it, he must win her trust and heart, go on dates with her, and get a kiss. So instead of fighting, Shidou tries to save the Spirits through kindness and dating. His adopted little sister Kotori secretly commands Ratatoskr's flying ship, the Fraxinus.

By this season, Shidou has already sealed the powers of ten Spirits, including the sweet and strong Tohka Yatogami. But his success has made him a target. Sir Isaac Westcott, the head of DEM Industries, has always wanted to use the Spirits' power for himself. Now he decides to go all in. He wants to get rid of Shidou and take the Spirits' power, so he starts a full war against Ratatoskr. Ratatoskr is much smaller and weaker than DEM, and the fight looks almost impossible to win.

One of the few chances for hope is Kurumi Tokisaki, a dangerous and clever Spirit who controls time. Shidou must seal her power too, because her abilities may let him go back to the past. There he hopes to find the first Spirit, the one whose appearance started everything. A quiet and mysterious young woman named Mio also plays a big part, and her link to Shidou and to the Spirits becomes one of the season's biggest questions. The season shows Shidou learning the truth about where the Spirits came from, and about himself.

The tone is more serious than earlier seasons. There are still funny and cute dating scenes, but there are also large battles and heavy emotional moments. Many fans liked the bright animation and the music, and the season was voted the best anime of Spring 2024 in a fan poll by the site Anime Corner. Some viewers felt the story moved too fast. Because it ends on a strong cliffhanger and depends on events from the earlier seasons, it is best for viewers who have seen Date A Live I to IV.