Story: Kusanagi Takeru is a student at AntiMagic Academy. In a world where magic and witches run rampant, only one platoon is fit for the job. No, not the top ones, this little one called Platoon 35 with only 5 people. One guy and four girls. That's...that's a harem right there.
The story, as mentioned before, follows the 35th or "Small Fry Platoon", comprising of what many in the Antimagic academy call a platoon of failures. Following a more arcic setup on account of the way that the light novels are arranged, the show organizes itself to follow the story of the LN's (with quite some variation might I add) from start to end. As a fantasy series, Antimagic requires quite a bit of explanation in order to progress the story, and that's really only when the problems for this adaptation begins.
Pacing (like every other show Silver Link made this Fall 2015) is the main issue for this adaptation. Because Silver Link wanted to do so much in so little, a lot of the content that was in the original LN was cut out to the point that most of what was happening didn't make complete sense or was made so insignificant that even if it was key to the plot, you would never know whether or not it was.
As a result of the pacing issue, the series lost a lot of its own content and became only a hollow shell of its former self. They rushed so much that I began questioning what was even going on in front of me, and that is never a good sign. The ending itself didn't really solve much of anything either because the show just...ended. It dropped everything that was happening and created an original ending that was just kinda shoehorned in there just to finish off what they were doing. That is not only a bad move, but leaves a lot to be desired.
Overview:
+ Interesting premise
- Terrible, terrible pacing issues
- Lack of explanation
- Lackluster ending
Characters: Characters in Antimagic also share some semblance of lacking quality similar to its story.
Up first we have Kusanagi Takeru, the main protagonist of the Antimagic series. As the main protagonist of a harem series, he has the 'nice' quality that almost every godforsaken one of those dense asshats have. As a wielder of the Kusanagi sword arts, Takeru spends most of the series on missions to aid the girls in his Platoon of their problems and does so with promise to share half of their burden. As such, he has built up quite a legion of potential wives just like others of his kin. (Kin being other harem protags.) He's also apparently prone to anger, but that just doesn't seem like it's in there.
Then we have the girls in the series. Ouka, Mari, Usagi, Ikaruga, and Lapis. As with all harem series, I will give a quick rundown for all of them.
Ouka: Token tsundere of the series.
Mari: A witch forced to be part of the platoon. The one with the bust complex.
Usagi: The small one with the oversized chest. Quite easy to tease and is quite the wimp.
Ikaruga: The last one to give a shit about anything. Also flirty.
Lapis: Kusanagi's Relic Eater. (Basically, a zanpaktou of sorts.) The loli/kuudere character.
The entire runtime of the series is essentially devoted to these girls (except Lapis) and their respective arcs. With each proceeding arc, we tackle one of the girls' issues, cure or take care of it, induct them further into Takeru's harem, rinse and repeat. The problem here is that the pacing issues really hamper what we know about the characters. Because it's so rushed, the explanations are either incomplete, or so pushed through that it doesn't really make sense. As such, the reason as to why or how they changed really doesn't make the most sense and doesn't fulfill the character development that they should have.
In addition, the show doesn't really focus on a lot of the other characters as much. All of the other characters are pretty much shafted to the side to be plot related more than anything else. Even going to the extent of showing you a few scenes of characters that Antimagic fans know, but never get to experience because the time they're shown in is so miniscule.
Overview:
+/- Semi-decent main characters
- Lack of character development/personality
- Other characters are pretty much ousted and/or only show up when needed
Art: Art for Antimagic is a bit of a rickety subject. For the most part, Antimagic has a lot of fairly nice animation, as the general look of the show has a moody yet bright look to it that genuinely looks nice as an artstyle. They also have quite a few magic circles and other magical bits like that that look nice and detailed.
On the flipside however, because Antimagic has power suits, mechs, and the like, a lot of the action scenes with those qualities have CGI attached to them, making Takeru's fighting form and other things in the show look like clunky bits of CG that are only semi-meshed with the background. As such, it looks quite awkward to see the CG in an animated background, creating a clash that just looks off. Especially in the last episode.
Overview:
+ Good standard animation
- Bad CGI
Sound: The OP and ED tracks for Antimagic are quite hit and miss. The OP for starters sounds so generic and one-note that I don't think it's really think it's worth mentioning. The ED on the other hand has a tone to it that connects more to the Antimagic series, as it's a more technical, more darker or melancholic tone that relates to some of what goes on in the series.
Personal Enjoyment: I heard quite a few good things about Anti-magic academy before going into it. Things about how the females were very strong despite being a harem series, there were some pretty deep and personal arcs for the characters, and there was an imouto that turned into cthulu. Well...I guess one out of three wasn't bad?
Did I enjoy this anime?
I wouldn't say I enjoyed this anime as I was intrigued by it. A lot of what was shown was ok to watch, I laughed a bit, but there wasn't really anything that made me think that this was worth more than I'm giving it.
What didn't I like about this anime?
The rushing. I had to get someone to explain to me what was going on with every passing episode, and just saw how much there was missing. Plus, the CGI is eye gouging. It's not as bad as other series' I've seen, but it's definitely not good CGI. (I don't think any CGI in anime is really that good tbh.)
Would I recommend this anime?
Not...really. I would say you're better off reading the LN. They skip over so much detail that you'll be left with more questions than answers if you watch this by itself. (Or without someone to spoon feed you information like I did.)
