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If you take a good look at the poster image you'll get the summary of the show - a low budget generic magical academy fantasy harem show with a protagonist that is way too strong (and maybe a bit edgy?) but hides that face from others. This alone is enough to inform that you shouldn't have any expectation other than lower than average generic fantasy, yet it is an endearing mess with quite some heart, that most will overlook. A dark donkey. Not a horse, a donkey.

This show is based on the first publication and this can is quite visible from the adaptation. While nothing ... in the story, setting or characters is innovative enough to make it its own thing, the narrative and character dynamics are quite competent. It feels as if the author tried its best to avoid technical mistakes than have any ambition with this first work, only doing a bit more than the baseline requires. Even more impressive as none of the ideas and cliches used have been poorly executed. There's even a fight where the cast has to coordinate to defeat an enemy, and for once, it isn't the main character doing the planning, instructing the party nor taking most of the work.

At the same time we don't get that much out of the supporting cast, which may be an issue exclusive to the adaptation. They do have fun interactions and exist outside the protagonist boundaries though. Bonus points for having a male support and girls that aren't all head over heels (hopefully it won't degenerate into that). More commendable than that is the fact that background characters don't treat the protagonist as the core of the show universe, in fact it takes quite some time for them to form an opinion on him. It's a decent package overall.

Regarding the adaptation itself, its weaknesses are quite evident. Art and animation are around the industry standard, it has some bad CG VFX. There were two particular occurrences, regarding the "romance", that felt like big stumbles. At the first episode we get a long sequence to introduce the supporting cast individually, and in every interaction the protagonist and the support will do a full introduction and tell each other to use their given names instead of family names. None of the characters has a japanese name and the academy is clearly western inspired, which makes this detail pointless. The second episode does things worse as we two fillers in the shape of date intermissions, breaking the whole flow of the episode. I do have to admit that a certain thing happens at the first date that makes the segment a bit interesting, yet it's no enough. In fact, it is possible that the way "romance" has been handled may ruin the little the show has going on, but only time can tell.

So, what does this show has to offer if it's a bit over average at best? It's the heart put on it.

I may be wrong but none of the variables in the production could make this show a great watch. This isn't a masterpiece from a popular author being adapted by established prestige studio, in fact it wouldn't be unfair to say that this is a debut adaptation of a debut light novel. Most people wouldn't care if this was made with as little effort as possible, yet if you look closely you'll see a lot of small details that could be cut out completely, that act as sneak peaks for what is to come in a near future. It's not like they are important building to bother with.

To be a bit more specific (yet vague), a certain concept is mentioned at the first episode, and this starts this soft thread that connects the protagonist to the introduction of a supporting character, that acts as a bond between them, then introduces us to a new character dynamic with a third and comes back as an element in a conflict, over the spam of 4 episodes. Most adaptations wouldn't think twice before cutting all of this to focus more time into making the protagonist more appealing to the audience or to promote the bachelorettes further. This opens a precedent for anything to be a potential soft thread through its runtime, and a significant part of them have been explored by now in some degree. The same can be said of side characters quirks that have no apparent role aside giving them some characterization. Kinda feels like a nice puzzle being casually assembled.

There no deny that the show isn't technically good and it certainly won't blow up anyone's expectations. However there is some charm to see a staff doing its best to make something that has everything to be unremarkable into the best show it can be, against all odds.

It can be quite enjoyable watch if appreciate approach it in that way. Again, we're talking about a donkey, not a horse.

A novel adaptation that uses a simplistic art style implies in an a show with a good backbone and fluid animation, two elements that, in theory, ensure it should be at least good. Unfortunately, the execution fails in many ways.

We have a semi-industrial world that suddenly was afflicted by a sudden change in its natural laws. Fire has gone rogue, and any human that comes too close it it will spontaneously combust. They discovered that the blood of demons can be used as a substitute and have been forced to hunt them as a mean to survive. An interesting mix of early industrial and mysticism.

The ... show starts with an impact scene where we see one of these hunter after a battle. He dies after slaying a demon as he tried to protect a young girl, Touko (our first protagonist). As an indirect responsible of his death, she is assigned to the quest of returning his belongings, a sickle and his hound companion, to his family and informing of his death. A train-truck long trip from the boonies from the capital, through hostile lands. Around the same time, the hunter's wife passed away leaving the two children on her own - a son, Koushi (our second protagonist), a promising student from humble origins, and a daughter, frail due a disease that afflicts her from birth. They are fostered by their father's friend under the condition that the son has to develop a weapon based on a volatile variant of demon blood. The setting is incredible, worldbuilding is cohesive and complex, characters feel realistic and conflicts feel natural, however these strengths are elements inherited from the novel, and not the adaptation additions.

Most of this is done in the first episode which gives us a clear signal that those plot points will converge eventually, and push the story into full motion, however the pacing is going as slow as it can let itself be. Up to episode 4, we get a lot of build up with decent lore and characterization. While all of it is interesting and well written, it barely gets the plot moving nor give us any idea on how long will take for both protagonists to met. Given the circumstances, it won't be surprising if the studio will be forced to crunch the story to fit in or not be able to finish the full story, which may be the end of the adaptation given other issues the show has.

There's also a particular issue regarding introductions as a whole. Whenever a relevant element is brought up, the show will get a short cut for a black screen with the said element written (as kanji) in white. Part of this seem to be a nod to the novel and a bit of a treat for the linguistic aficionados. This turns significantly worse when said cut is followed by a sub-scene with a narration, which isn't uncommon. This resource is also used when we shift protagonist focus. As an end result, each episode gets multiple of these cuts that do little to nothing to the show experience. At most, they save some work from the animation staff at the expense of being mildy annoying.

As for the most questionable choice in the show, we have high detailed illustrations. Those are known the be used to highlight key moments and/or build hype, most commonly at the end of an episode or before a commercial break, or to push a joke further. However, this isn't a comedy anime nor a long running series show (at least it doesn't seem like one). This feature haven't been used in the first episode at all so having it to occur multiple times in the second episode felt like a big shock, specially as they were chained as a slideshow. The third episode handled them significantly better by focusing on a specific event and as an episode ending card, just so the next episode can throw that restrain in the thrash bin. While the artwork is gorgeous, it felt out of place, as if it was taken from another source just to fill in a missing segment of the show (likely a production issue).

Regarding art and animation, it is lackluster to put it nicely. Great shows made the call to simplify the art and character design in order to deliver outstanding animation but we get the worst of both worlds in here. The pure dialog scenes have as much going on as the average show but don't look nearly as good. There's so little acting to be seen that it feels like the studio relied heavily on rotoscoping (though i can't be sure it was used), which is a big issue when action is sparse. Dialog scenes don't require motion to work yet this show feels stiff, even uncanny sometimes.

Actions is even worse. Episode 2 in particular has taught me that dogs can ignore gravity if they have enough adrenaline in their blood. If that wasn't enough, we don't get to see the final blow in that scene. There were also some panel overlays over a static image in some shots, as if it were a manga composition. Again, it doesn't feel like they had any purpose aside lifting animation workload. Unfortunately, it seems like this tool will be used more often, expanding to non-action scenes as well, as it is seen in episode 4.

On the bright side, is quite modest with CG use. There is one particular ambience shot that has been reused in different episodes (with no change at all) that is out of place but at least has the decency of being full CG. We do get some machinery CG later that is moderately blended and a crowd shot that is too close to the ground to let it slide, but those became the standards for average anime take nowadays (unfortunately).

When you assemble all those elements along a desaturated palette, you get a show that looks and feels lifeless half the time. It is fair to say that all of these choices could've been taken to create this sterile aesthetic and reinforce the how hostile this world can be but it doesn't land when we don't get contrast for cozier scenes. Same can be said of combat scenes. It would be a clever artistic choice to animate them as wonky as they are to communicate how nature warping they are but the show doesn't tell us if they are somewhat artificial or not to support this approach.

The only thing that gives this anime any staying power is the story, but it is hard to recommend it to anyone when it has this many rough edges. Given that this is an adaptation, it is fairly possible for the story to be gutted as well at some point (if it haven't been already). Betting on the build up payoff is a big gamble given what we got so far. Most the audiovisual value you get from the show is the soundtrack and pretty background art. Better read the novel if you can get your hands on it.