At 7:07 PM, the occult club members are holding a ritual ceremony to summon “Master Salt” in Kamono Girls' High School in Tokyo to help one of the members, Nanako (Saya Fukunaga), who has been struck by mysterious incidents. They draw a pentagon and a circle with purified salt and burn a sealed envelope with a written wish. Out of nowhere, the divine protector, Master Salt (Rin Kijima), appears with a blast of wind. She sees through the identity of the spirit that cursed Nanako and repels the curse. After that event, Nanako and her friends Miki (Kokoro Nishiwaki) and Rino (Hikaru Hoshino) ask Master Salt to repel the curses that bring misery to people. They discover that this world is full of people who curse others. What will Master Salt and the girls encounter in the battle against a powerful enemy?
Overall, “Divine Protector” is enjoyable enough for what it is. One of the stronger aspects is the film's setup from writer Sayaka Okawa which provides a somewhat engrossing universe. On the surface, the premise about the girls performing a spell and summoning Master Salt, a witch doctor specializing in stopping curses from the spiritual realm, sets up the tone and approach here quite effectively. As this relies heavily on magic and spell-casting to get rid of the afflictions surrounding those she runs into, the setup employs a dark atmosphere that evokes the teenage witchraft films that serve as a heavy inspiration for the movie. That is aided along nicely by the summoning sequences that bring the occult atmosphere to the forefront with some ritualistic imagery and decent effects-work that touch on the supernatural. However, the general vibe remains firmly planted in the fantasy realm which keeps the tone light enough to be enjoyable.
What also keeps “Divine Protector” in the fantasy genre is the series of confrontations with the devious spirits. The episodic style of Nanako and her friends discovering something suspicious happening, summon Master Salt to take care of it, and then dispelling the evil entity at the root of the situation allows for a solid series of engagements. From the confrontation with the devious student to the demon controlling the call-center scammer and the abusive husband among others, there are some rather fun moments here that center on spiritual combat between Master Salt and the force attaching themselves to the human causing the strife. While it might be slightly problematic to have each of the confrontations center around religious teachings for each of the afflicted after everything is over, these do generally add a special touch to the confrontations that make for a likable enough time.
There are some issues that keep “Divine Protector” down. The main issue is also found in Okawa's story, for while it provides a fun universe to inhabit, there's also the lack of diversity present in what happens. Everything here follows the same formulaic pattern of someone experiencing a difficult situation, tells their story to the club who brings forth Master Salt, she confronts the spirit controlling them, and performs the same spell in the same manner to beat the spirit. This pattern is incredibly easy to spot and makes the finished product resemble episodes of a TV show edited together into a feature-length project. In turn, that causes a sense of redundancy to set in, which can cause plenty of viewers to check out long before the finale. While this section changes the formula slightly by trying to solve the mystery of Master Salt's identity, it doesn't do enough to change the rest of the issues here.
Set up with a great concept and impressive visuals but some drawbacks with the storyline, “The Divine Protector: Master Salt” has its moments that are somewhat undone by an overly familiar and easily dragged-out approach. Viewers who are unbothered by those factors or are still intrigued by the film could still do well by looking into this one.
