Houkago no Pleiades

This review is being written under the assumption that there are only going to be these 4 episodes as it concluded pretty well.

Afterschool Pleiades is a very simple mahou shoujo. There's no metaphors for today's society, blatant fanservice, over the top humor, nor any overlying themes. It just has magical girls and the power of friendship. For whatever length it had, Afterschool Pleiades didn't try to be anything more than your basic mahou shoujo.

Story 6/10.
The story is simple mahou shoujo stuff. A girl one day unexpectedly receives magical powers and uses them to collect fragments of a magical device. In this case, remembering the Subaru ... sponsorship, these fragments are called "Engine Fragments". There's also a rival character who wants to collect these fragments too for what seems to be a desire for power. No edgy plot twists or anything of the sort here. Just plain, old "power of friendship".

Art 8/10.
Compared to most other mahou shoujo series, the magical girl outfit designs are relatively simple. White clothing with no excessive frills or ribbons. Their transformation sequence is quite tame as well. Despite its simplicity, their clothing has quite the magical girl feel to it. The cutesy artstyle fits the mood of the show perfectly. As this show's main points take place in the night sky, the outer space visuals filled with stars can be somewhat stunning. The character sheets and fan art end cards during the end credits helped to flesh out the show even a little more. Overall, the art of this show was done quite well as to be expected of something of short length.

Sound 6/10.
The overall tone of this show is very mellow and healing. As such, the sounds used in this show for the most part were quite mellow as well. The sound did its job and set the mood when needed. It's not anything noteworthy though.

Character 5/10.
Obviously due to its short length, none of the characters' personalities were able to be fleshed out at all. That even includes the central main character who we know nothing more than "she is slow". There are some semblances of character archetypes, but that's it.

Enjoyment 6/10.
It's always nice to watch cute girls doing cute things or something like that. It's not particularly long or anything, spanning the length of an average episode of anime, so it's not really wise to complain about it being a waste of time. It was entertaining and was able to hold my attention until completion.

Overall 6/10.
As stated previously, Afterschool Pleiades didn't try to be anything more than your basic mahou shoujo. Most of its faults can be attributed only to its short length. Had this been a fully fleshed out series, it would've been much easier to find faults with this series as there would've been more time to develop the characters, story and everything else. As it stands however, Afterschool Pleiades is nothing more than a short healing story and should be enjoyed as such instead of trying to find faults with its fundamental structure.