Mashle

In this magical world, one is easily identified as having magical abilities by a distinctive mark on their face. Those unable to practice magic are swiftly exterminated to maintain the magical integrity of society. However, deep within a forest lies an anomaly in Mash Burnedead, who can be found pumping iron with one arm and lifting a cream puff with the other. This aloof boy with superhuman strength—but no magical abilities—leads a quiet life with his father, far removed from society.

Mash's peace is soon disturbed when the authorities discover his lack of magical powers. They issue him an ultimatum: compete to become a "Divine Visionary," which would force everyone to accept him, or be persecuted forever. To protect his family, he enrolls in the prestigious Easton Magic Academy, which only the most elite and gifted students are allowed to attend. Now, Mash must overcome his shortcomings as a magicless being and surpass the other students—relying solely on his muscles.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Burnedead, Mash Main

Kobayashi, Chiaki Japanese

Crown, Lance Main

Ishikawa, Kaito Japanese

Barrett, Dot Main

Eguchi, Takuya Japanese

Irvine, Lemon Main

Ueda, Reina Japanese

Ames, Finn Main

Kawashima, Reiji Japanese

Ames, Rayne Supporting

Kaji, Yuuki Japanese

Walker, Abel Supporting

Umehara, Yuuichirou Japanese

Razor, Abyss Supporting

Nanami, Hiroki Japanese

Eamus, Rhodes Supporting

Ban, Taito Japanese

Cute, Love Supporting

Koga, Aoi Japanese

Lu, Xiana Producer

Shimazaki, Takao Producer

Furuhashi, Souta Producer

Nakamura, Shouta Producer

Reviews

Jun 30, 2023

SpRayquaza11

Recommended

Borrow but improvise , is the best way to describe mashle, and In my opinion most fantasy/isekai should learn from this example.

It's been a while since we got a good parody anime with a good setting which was able to distinguish itself rather than try to cash in on a particular type, we have had wannabe konosuba clones and wannabe one punch man clones but they teen to forget that even if they are able to feed off of a starved for content audience they will inevitably be forgotten since there is already something similar which is in the store.

Mashle by all means is ... kind of a mixed bag of knockoffs , and its quite plain to see.

We have mash who is clearly an inspiration and closely resembles saitama in his unassuming demeanor and lack of emotions. We also have a very clearly harry potter inspired magic school setting with a very standard shounen power level defining scale with the number of face lines defining the amount of magic power/mana but the potency of the same can be honed with other methods this allows for a fairly nuanced and open ended battles with some surprising upsets also being possible. And a relatable oddball story which is loosely black clover inspired which makes for interesting and hilarious outcomes due to mash being severely underestimated.

There are several examples of anime that do this , but not many examples of anime that manage to do them ALL in a well balanced and entertaining way , most which try , make themselves over complicated or fail the parody and comedy aspect quite hard.


Plot (7/10)
Well , the start of the series is quite straightforward , there is an unusual kid in a world where your magical prowess determines everything to the point that those who cant use magic are deemed as good as dead. mash is unable to use said magic and hence has been secretly raised up by his adoptive grandpa in a remote forest in a way that ensured that he trained with muscles and physical strength enough so that he may fend for himself. Now this made him quite the emotionless and dumb guy due to his lack of human interaction and understanding the room or any of the fancy social stuff. This is basically the first two eps , now circumstances ofc lead to the academy being introduced into the mix with him requiring to earn some gold coins (you know accomplish feats means good boi coins kinda thing).now this is standard shounen story with a well defined route and endgame but it also manages to squeeze a good amount of comedy and parody of the same here . Then we get the very obvious Harry Potter inspired personality based house sorting system after which we go full steam ahead with a first major villain arc with some minor pens along the route with hints of a “mysterious third faction”. The flow of the plot is good , interaction of characters is also minimal with a mostly infodumps approach for system explanation but some comedy and parody hidden here and there to keep entertainment value fairly up.

Characters (7/10)
Mash and his gang have a bunch of nice and quirky yet unique in a way kids. They do have trope inducing kinks like the obsessed girl , the siscon , the wanna be cool mc guy and the scaredy mfer, but most of them are used for parody effect and probably designed in such a way intentionally and are able to fit their comedic roles nicely. Mash is the saiatama clone with straight face and often blunt response to standard villain jargons, however he is much of a nice and innocent figure due to his righteous and hermit like lifestyle. The characters do manage to mesh together well , individually they dont emit much of an aura and its only fun when they are horsing around / interacting with others. Villains are also slightly better than your standard punching back goon , but usually have shallow / predictable backstory with a nakama approach of changing to good from evil.

Sound and VA (9/10)
The OP and ED are both fuckin amazing and the OST is also quite the banger with mash getting quite the spotlight due to the BGMN during his cool scenes. The VA is alright with only the red hair guy being a bit of a standout.

Art and animation (8/10)
It has amazing art and background design which drive home the amazing magic school feeling which doesnt feel like a cheap harry potter imitation, the background and setting art does the heavy work for this purpose , and i am also satisfied with the uniform / house designs. The animation is really good as well with amazing sakuga for action scenes. The only problem is the usually dull and uninspiring monster designs.

This is a must watch for comedy/ parody fans who miss one punch / saiki kusou type of plot line. If you like magic school and harry potter type stories too it would be easily pleasing for you.
I can also recommend watching the first two for understanding if the comedy works for you even if you are generally not interested in this genre.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Jun 30, 2023

KANLen09

Mixed Feelings

In the realm of endless AniManga content that we've been consuming over the last 20 odd years or so, certain series have stood out for one reason or another. Take mangaka Tatsuki Fujimoto's Chainsaw Man for example: it's grotesque; it's full-on intense action; and above it, we all simp the hell out of Makima for the woof effects. Now we switch gears to mangaka Shuhei Miyazaki's Boku to Roboko a.k.a Me and Roboco, which is a parody manga that makes fun of all of the IPs that it can get its hands on. And have you ever posed this question in your mind: "Hmm, if ... there is an abridged version of the two Weekly Shonen Jump works, what will that end result end up looking like?" And boy, have I got the answer for you! It's yet another Weekly Shonen Jump work called Mashle: Magic and Muscles, made by mangaka Hajime Komoto, and while the manga is recently coming to a close, the anime adaptation...is alright, courtesy of the always-missing director Tomoya Tanaka.

This is the story of Mash Burnedead, the character most likened to Mob Psycho 100's Mob and One Punch Man's Saitama for being indifferent with a deadpan expression. However, in a world where magic is always at the centre/forefront, like Black Clover's Asta, who was born without magic (which is signified by the Harry Potter scar-ish mark on everybody's faces), it's all about the muscles and excessive training, pumping weights, and not giving a damn about his surroundings every day, 24/7. Oh, and all he cares about is his cream puff, which is his sanity item. Mash is just a young man who wants to live life to the fullest, with peace like a river overflowing deep within the recesses of his heart. He's a pure soul. But trouble comes lurking at his door with enemies threatening to kill his adoptive father Regro, and to save both him and his peaceful life, the deal is that he has to go to the region's magic school: Easton Magic Academy, to become a Divine Visionary by hook or by crook, and that says the story for the magicless young man to enter and make his way through to survive, and to make a bold statement that muscles can trounce magic.
 
Right away, ask anybody who has seen this show, and try summing it up in a short sentence, they will give you this clear and concise answer: "One Punch Man meets Harry Potter". Because other than Easton Magic Academy almost being a blatant rip-off of Hogwarts, down to the various Houses (Adler, Lang, and Orca, as opposed to Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, and Huddlepuff), and even the Quidditch matches (which are dubbed Duelo), clearly there are lots of Shonen works released every year, especially if it's one that comes from the juggernaut that is Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump, the crème-de-la-crème of Shonen works. So then, instead of just copying the once meme material that was Yuki Tabata's Black Clover, Hajime Komoto opted to go for a full fantasy showing, stating that when drawing manga, he pays attention to the size of the letters and the number of lines, and for the picture, it is important to "first include an overall picture that shows the positional relationship of the characters". In action scenes especially, he tries to capture images so that "within a single picture, the perspective is tight from the front to the back". And since Komoto himself prefers "bad" characters, he also takes the dialogue of the characters in the manga to the extreme and draws them to be "bad people for the time being" (because bad people can be good as well). In the expression phase, he even goes to the gym to relax and recover his energy, so you know that he's built for the destiny of creating the parody work that Mashle is now. Heck, his influential points were from both One Punch Man and Kimetsu no Yaiba a.k.a Demon Slayer, with the former being made very obviously clear, and with the latter, items and motifs based on the character design. Hajime Komoto is no mere simpleton, he's a certified gag parody author. 

The characters in Mashle are a fun bunch, though they are not without their quirks and features, which make them stand out. As mentioned earlier, Mash Burnedead is basically Black Clover's Asta, the magicless young man who has a knack for all things physical and is kind and selfless. However, unlike Asta, who desires to fit in with everybody else, Mash is just an easygoing boy who just wants to do his very own thing: eat cream puffs all day. His "magic" fighting style is dubbed "Muscle Magic", using physical power to perform unpredictable moves. 

Mash's crew of friends consists of: 
- Finn Ames, the roommate of Mash. Finn always plays the straight man and is a nervous wreck all the time, on top of his cowardly self, who is frightened rather easily but is extremely loyal to his friends and goes to great lengths to take care of them. Unfortunately, he's not very close with his older brother Rayne (who is the current Easton Magic Academy's exceptional Divine Visionary student) and has little patience of toleration. His magic is teleportation, being able to swap the positions of people and objects. 
- Lance Crown, Mash's first "certified" rival. Lance is a somewhat uncommon case of a double-liner magic user, in which the more lines a person has, the greater the magic the user can wield. His condition isn't anything special, but like Finn, he has a reason to fight as well, being a siscon because his sister would worry about him getting into fights and protecting the bullied, until his sister's death, which vowed him to, like Mash, become a Divine Visionary. His magic is gravity, in pure manipulation. 
- Dot Barrett, Mash's self-proclaimed rival. With spiky red hair and red-brown eyes, Dot is an extremely hot-blooded and easily irritated person with a superiority complex but is actually a good person at heart, despite being hit hard by the harsh sensitivity of falling in love and getting rejected. His magic is generating explosions, and together with the cross on his forehead, that exponentially increases his magic power. 
- Lemon Irvine, Mash's self-proclaimed fiancée. Being one to gawk at Mash's unkempt appearance at the start, her testing became one of connivance to one of love from the moment he assisted her in Easton's entrance exam. As compared to her outward appearance from the start, Lemon is a somewhat soft-spoken and kooky girl, but she's a honest-to-goodness person and seems incapable of betraying others, though like Finn, she gets scared very easily and tends to exaggerate in the conversations she has with other people. Her magic is Creation, allowing her to create cuffs and other sorts of binding equipment such as chains and manacles. 

Together with the Professor Dumbledore rip-off of Headmaster Wahlberg Baigan, Easton Magic Academy has never seen magic levels this lively and feisty, all because of an outlier in the most righteous of Houses (House Adler) that faces enemies from the likes of House Lang's Magia Lupus to unseen ones lurking behind the scenes. Mash is in for a ridiculously good time being Saitama in a Hogwarts setting.

Remember when I said that the anime adaptation of the manga was okay? Yes, it sure does and feels like such, which for a Shonen series that has moderate popularity in Japan, helmed by such a famous and high-calibre studio as A-1 Pictures (along with Aniplex for that matter), really doesn't look the best when compared to the manga. Even though this was a 1-to-1 translation, there wasn't much of an improvement, or anything that made the anime stand out despite being a moderate hit. It's just a shame that there is so much talent that ended up being unused, or rather, not utilised, which could pump up sales for the manga, but nope. For that reason, I can't quite justify giving the anime a high rating. 

The music...is rather so-so, to be honest. Taiiku Okazaki's OP "Knock Out" gets lost in a myriad of similar songs composed for the oversaturated Shonen market, and as you've probably guessed, it just sounds as averagely Shonen as it could. But what I can praise is Philosophy no Dance's ED "Shuu Cream Funk", which is much better, lively, and engaging, because it was intentionally composed for the anime if you watched the girl group's YouTube MV and referenced it back to the anime's ED visuals, shot by shot. This is definitely a song that is on my radar as one of the best EDs of the season, bar none.

All in all, almost every other Shonen series can be justified for a sequel season nowadays, and Mashle is no exception to that rule. But how well the anime will perform depends on its staff team. And in the long run, I've got to tell you that Hajime Komoto's story will be the only thing holding the anime adaptation together, everything else is up for debate.

It's good, but the manga is still the superior version. See you in Winter next year for Season 2.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Jun 30, 2023

Mcsuper

Not Recommended

Parody anime can be a hit or miss. Tropes of various settings in anime or live action settings are made fun of, but in order to stand out, it has to nail its comedy, and while comedy is always subjective, this one just didn’t nail it, all the time. It obviously is an attempt at parody of magic academies like Hogwarts, but unfortunately, it just fails to stand out at all in most ways. Perhaps you’ll think I’m “taking a parody anime too seriously”, but when most of the characters are the most stuck-up jerks with little meaningful depth, there just wasn’t much to enjoy. ... To be honest, this kind of feels like a generic isekai or fantasy anime in a way, with the main character having none of the powers that the people around him have, but still ends up overpowering everyone in some way or another. Way too predictable and frustrating to watch at times, though it’s still watchable with some moments of goodness.

The premise centres around Mash Burnedead, a boy in a magical world, but without any magic power of his own. People without magic are persecuted and captured, so Mash has to blend in with his environment, and pretend to know magic as he attends a magic academy. Mash’s specialty is having huge physical strength, which allows him to overpower his enemies with sheer force rather than magic. I haven’t watched One Punch Man myself, but I assume that’s what the comparison comes from, along with Mash’s overall deadpan, quiet personality. The story plays out like any shounen would, the baddies come along, and Mash and his friends conquer said challenges. Not anything special there.

The animation isn’t bad, but it felt disappointing considering what A-1 Pictures has done in the last few years. This was probably the product of rushed production, mainly due to the poor schedules of Aniplex, which has resulted in many issues and delays in this year of anime already. It had a couple episodes with more standout animation, but otherwise, it wasn’t all that stellar, just okay.

Shounen anime mostly have similar formulas, so the characters are huge part of how one can stand out from the crowd. Other than Mash, the rest of the cast was very forgettable, with generic archetypes and poorly written villains. In terms of its comedy, it was funny at times, but it wasn’t enough to make me dismiss the poor writing. The deadpan humour worked more than the some of the other comedy that was attempted.

Perhaps this was just the beginning, and it gets better down the road, but for now, this anime hasn’t done much to keep me invested beyond a couple chuckles here and there. It’s a very light hearted anime, so maybe you’ll find some enjoyment in that though. It just wasn’t my cup of tea, but it might be yours.

If this anime was an advertisement for cream puffs though, it most certainly succeeded, as I got a box of cream puffs last week.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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	Poll: Mashle Episode 6 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) rasterman7 - May 12, 2023	130 replies	by welcome2atlantis »» Jul 23, 2:45 AM
	Poll: Mashle Episode 2 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ) Stark700 - Apr 14, 2023	227 replies	by welcome2atlantis »» Jul 22, 11:17 PM
	Poll: Mashle Episode 10 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) Stark700 - Jun 16, 2023	116 replies	by httplatte »» Jul 19, 4:55 AM
	Poll: Mashle Episode 5 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) Stark700 - May 5, 2023	137 replies	by DreamAnimeCatch »» Jul 9, 2:49 PM
	Poll: Mashle Episode 12 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ) Stark700 - Jun 30, 2023	235 replies	by rumbleid »» Jul 1, 4:50 PM