Majo to Yajuu

There's a good deal I like about this series. It presents an intriguing set of characters that get more interesting as the series progresses. It's got a visual style that really pops with a great deal of magical flair, and you can feel the weight of its fights. I also like the world-building and place-setting this series has done for its next season.

And that's the biggest knock I have against it: it does just seem like place-setting for the next season. It's not so much that this is a slow start - we start and finish several short arcs back-to-back over the course of this ... season, all of which have their own little intrigues as various mysteries are solved - but rather that the series seems just fine getting side-tracked as often as possible.

The first two episodes set up a central plotline for the series for us to follow: Guideau travels with Ashaf under the auspices of a larger magical organization to hunt down witches with the aim of finding a specific one that cursed her and ending her. She doesn't really know what the witch looks like (I initially thought this was a Dorohedoro situation where the lead just didn't know who his target was, but it's a little more complicated in this case), but she should be able to narrow the field, get the curse removed, and return to a powerful body that Ashaf carries around with him in a coffin similar to Wolfwood from Trigun. So, what I expected was to see them run into a series of witches, gathering clues and getting closer to their goal before having some big finale engagement. And... well, we kind of get that... if you ignore a couple of other short arcs in the middle.

To be fair, all the side-tracks the series takes are interesting in their own rights and do establish more of the rules and basic concepts of this world, particularly in who can use magic and how. In one particularly interesting aside, we follow a necromancer and get to see what a completely distinct type of magic can do. It's honestly some of my favorite stuff in the series.

But that's the problem: I don't think the central plot has gotten interesting. They've run into a few witches, dealt with a variety of magic, and bent the rules a bit with the curse so that we can see what Guideu's original form looks like. And yeah, it leads to some cool stuff. The problem is that I don't have much reason to get behind Guideau. I know next to nothing about her motivations beyond wanting her body back. Ashaf remains a bit of an enigma. Honestly, we get to know more of the side characters better than we do these two. And that's not necessarily a big deal, but there's also very little in the way of character growth for either of them, and even when we arrive at key climactic moments, they just don't have the emotional heft to make them feel terribly meaningful.

Finally, while I wanted to give this a higher score, it ended up being brought down a little by its final couple of episodes. The backstory helped establish a bit about their background together, which is nice, but it felt like an odd arc to leave us on. Combine that with an exposition dump from Ashaf that sets up some very interesting bits of worldbuilding that I'm legitimately excited to see in S2 and, honestly, it made the ending feel like more of a tease for S2 than anything meaningful to this season.

Still, I enjoyed the ride. I want to see more of these characters and learn more about them. I just wish they'd focused their efforts better in this season.

The pacing of this anime is killing me completely. I love the idea of Majo to Yajuu. Cool witches, solid world building, character designs are somewhat tolerable, but everything else is simply too weird. I understand that the biggest problem here is the budget. Or lack of it, to be more precise. But the pacing is absolutely atrocious. We're not given enough time to meet these characters. It's almost as if we're supposed to know them beforehand.
One time there's a cooler longer sequence happening, some lore drops here and there, actions bits and then boom - totally new characters enter the scene, have their ... own purpose and talk, act like we know who they are. It's up to watcher to connect the dots and make sense of it, which is awful.
What's even worse is that the manga isn't that much better neither, but that's fine. Sometimes, it's totally ok to enjoy bad media so you can know what to not watch in the future.
I will continue to watch Majo to Yajuu cause I'm a sucker for witches and magic gimmicks. Do I enjoy this? Oddly, yes? Can this be much better or actually good? YES, 100% YES! But the creators didn't bother, so should you? I say see for yourself. If you like hot guys and cool witches then this may be for you.

Good visuals and Audio hampered by terrible writing.

The first episode seemed good, every arc after that has extremely obvious or out of left field twist, the limited cast of characters are interesting at first, but shallow (this is a plot driven show so this is okay), despite this, concept is unique. It's annoying that the story doesn't seem to be able to deliver satisfying developments based on the premise, I assume this is not the fault of the studio, as this was based off a manga.

This is a product that could cater to the Agame Ga Kill/ High School of the Dead audience ... (that age bracket), despite not being as entertaining or over-the-top, it's a slower feel but there's some comedy/ character moments and it's not something as monotonous as Mars Red.

Pretty much everything (character design, animation, audio, no jarring inconsistencies etc) is good except the style of writing, but this really kills it for me.

This anime has a unique way of storytelling but couldn't keep it up, and the characters and the plot seemed overly related to it, and the storytelling needs to improve after that.
The animation quality of this anime is good, and the character design and the main protagonist don't seem to offer any specificity; they are just like a hunter whose duty it is to keep the witches in check. You will get hooked on this anime as they show you different kinds of missions as time passes. If you like this kind of anime, it's a great thing to watch. But if they put in ... some effort and try to improve, this will be a great anime.

This is an anime that will feel right at home with the likes of Hellsing and Black Butler. There's a fairly conventional human society that exists alongside a little bit of magic and monsters and secret organizations of magic and monsters fight them to protect humanity. Unlike the other two shows, the magic is a little more central to the way the society operates and people are generally aware that such things exist.

The show itself is basically power fantasy with some tragic backgrounds and an occasional attempt at being vaguely poetic or philosophical (again, like Hellsing and Black Butler). There are a few story arcs ... lasting 1-3 episodes each, and in each case an overpowered protagonist ultimately resolves the arc after goofing off for the sake of "collecting information" (or, more realistically, dramatic tension).

The main character, Gideau, is a mostly one-dimensional thug with a dark past whose only interest seems to be punching things. She stands in stark contrast to the more eloquent and brooding Alucard and Sebastian. Perhaps this character will be developed to have a little more depth in future seasons, but it doesn't seem promising.

There's nothing especially wrong with the anime. It knows what it's trying to be and it does a serviceable job of it. If you like Hellsing and Black Butler and are looking for more of the same, you'll probably like this. I'm not sure it has much to offer anyone else though.