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"How to butcher a decent novel", by Diomedea.

Kuusen Madoushi Kohousei no Kyoukan has all the traits to be considered another light novel adaptation from the pile. The synopsis is generic and has already been used (Chrome Shelled Regios meets Zettai Karen Children), there is a protagonist who used to be the strongest and has fallen out of grace for unclear reasons, surrounded by a group of girls, fighting against a relentless enemy that has apparently no reasoning capacity. However, it excels at doing the average.

The plot's intention is basically watching how our fallen elite re-educates the three little misfits. However, their personalities are not simple ... whims fixable by falling for a guy voiced by Matsuoka, although there are some times where the magical wand of plot comes in to save the day, the methods are as uncommon as you would expect, and hit the root of problems that are quite realistic for a magic-based series. Of course, all in time to avoid getting the team dissolved or Kanata's ass kicked out of the corps, but then again, which series has actually made an ultimatum and taken it to the last consequences?

The characters start as pretty basic. We have Kanata Age, who falls from glory because he betrayed his original team, but still maintains a bit of arrogance and aloofness, Misora, who is a no-brain tryhard, Lecty, who is extremely timid, and Rico who is a narcissistic lazy girl. I will avoid their backgrounds in order to spoil as little as possible, but they have their reasons. Their interactions are what makes the show attractive, most times comical, a few other times emotional. They eventually grow and understand where their fault lies in the continuous defeat streak that their team is suffering, showing their hidden potential (like all underdog MC on Light Novels).

I saved the art and music for last, and here is where I get to shoot the fish in the barrel. Diomedea is a guaranteed disaster as a studio. In the summer season they could use the lack of sufficient resource allocation as an argument since they were doing four series at the same time (utter insanity in my opinion), but here, they only had this. The animation is disastrous, how do you entrust a series with flying people (which means lots of fluid movement is necessary) to these guys? The first episodes, they used badly made CG representations of the characters, which were barely bearable. Eventually they didn't even have enough money for that, so they started sliding fixed images across the screen (check the first 30 seconds of the opening to have an idea). And for the last few episodes, it seems that their only computer with flash installed broke down, since they resorted to teleporting, Dragon Ball fight style. Then the series has its assortment of wonky faces, mismatched limbs and disappearing debris, but that is par for the course, not even ufotable gets away from that. The music does not coordinate with the moments, hitting an opening-like theme on a happy atmosphere, plus the opening and ending are not too good either.

Kuusen Madoushi Kohousei no Kyoukan is not an exceptional masterpiece, nor does it pretend to be one. It sticks to the generic and does its best from there. Then came Diomedea and broke everything with their wrecking ball-like quality. If you are searching for something innovative or mentally challenging, this is not for you, this is just some good moments and growth (and a bit of fanservice, especially on the first episodes). Since I am a sucker for growth and second chances stories, it gets an overall 6, that could have been one or two points higher if any other studio had put their hands on this.

If there is a generic MC with Kirito's voice, there is a way.

It is up to people who have awakened their memories of past heroic lives to stop the monsters! Or so they say, the only ones who actually use the past life plot device are the MC and his two initial love interests, in order to justify instant infatuation and "not really incest". Not a thing is mentioned about anyone else.

The story progresses as Moroha, our average, unremarkable boy, becomes self insertion fantasy incarnate. At the beginning we get the "i awakened to a strong power and won" cliche, only to turn him into ... the monster slaying god next episode. He has enough power to become the seventh S-rank savior in the world on episode 2, 2 weeks after awakening his powers. From there, it only ramps up the achievement ladder. The MC kicks ass on levels unseen even in other self insertion fantasy light novels.

As for the other characters, we got the "Not incestuous tsundere little sister", the rich kuudere, a deredere loli, the director, whose only role is being a teleportation gate, the band of Saviors from the school (you may forget there is a school after the first two episodes) who appear as an excuse to prove Moroha's absurd power level, and the other S-rank. The interactions among characters other than the harem are close to null, if there is any, it is sexual or is used to slip in breast jiggling.

The S-rank deserve an individual paragraph. Two episodes after it was stated that they are basically government dogs without freedom, they show you how they chill together watching Moroha and his crew struggle against an unprecedented beast while refusing to aid at all, followed by a whimsical fit where they impeded the only one who wanted to help from doing so. In later episodes they are never ordered by anyone, and even take trips to Japan on a whim. So much for the last line of defense.

By the way, there were supposedly many other Savior squads in Japan, but there is not even a glimpse of them, even when there are national level threats. So it all comes down to Moroha's goons to get the brunt of the attack while Moroha tries to remember what spell he has to use.

As for the animation, I will commend Diomedea on this one. It takes actual effort for it to be so bad. Inconsistency of size and distance, sudden jumps, choppy movement, Backgrounds moving at a different speed than the characters, embarrassingly bad CG, even the character design is terrible. If you are a modest studio and try to take on 4 anime on the same season, you are going to have a bad time.

I personally don't sense much of the BGM when I'm watching an anime, unless it is either truly epic or completely inappropriate. Since it wasn't much of an issue, I'm unable to accurately evaluate. Both the opening and the ending had some slightly irritating voices, but other than that, it passes as satisfactory.

This is a series that you can only watch if you are searching for a failure to laugh at. Since that was my objective all along, I thoroughly enjoyed myself by facepalming at misplaced eyes, sudden knockdowns and slashing at the void because there was no money to actually have a perspective where you can see the enemy being cut.

All in all, a series that will make you apologize for everything else you called bad. Every time I see a sword grow half a meter, faces disappearing on far away characters, or an MC being a boob magnet or crotch diver, I just laugh and say, it is still not bad as Seiken Tsukai no World Break.