So Date A Live doesn’t even try to ease you in. Episode 1 basically looks you in the eye and goes: “Hey, what if the only way to stop world-ending disasters was for a regular high school guy to date the monsters causing them?”
And yeah, it’s exactly as wild as it sounds.
We follow Shido, a pretty normal student living with his loud, energetic little sister Kotori. Their city is used to random Spacequakes popping up and wrecking everything, so when one hits and Shido ends up right in the middle of the destruction, it’s not exactly a normal school day anymore. That’s when he meets the first Spirit: a beautiful but dangerous girl in fancy purple armor who clearly has no idea how the human world works and is ready to fight anyone who looks at her the wrong way.
The action kicks off fast when the military shows up (including Shido’s cool and slightly terrifying classmate Origami), and the whole thing feels big and flashy. Then the real hook drops. Shido gets dragged into a secret organization run by his own sister, and they hit him with the news: he can seal the Spirits’ powers… but only if he makes them fall in love with him.