Reviews

Apr 8, 2009
This one's gonna hurt, folks. My lowest review yet, but you should expect that from a series that capitalizes entirely on cliches without an ounce of originality or effort in any single field. Ladies and gentleman, I give you Zero no Tsukaima.

Getting the technical bits out of the way, Zero no Tsukaima was average in audio and visual. No memorable BGM, forgettable OP, and an irritating ED, but the performances were rather pleasing in some cases. Rie Kugimiya plays the standard tsundere role well, but shines better in scenes where she's interacting with someone that isn't Saito, where her other sides become more apparent, such as when she is with Henrietta. Unfortunately this doesn't happen often so it's mainly tsundere all the way. If you're into that, you're in luck. The rest of us aren't. Yui Horie and Ayako Kawasumi also turn in some decent though generic performances as Siesta and Henrietta respectively.

Visual is just inconsistent. The character designs are very simplistic and basic with not much detail or imagination. While its very average most of the time, it becomes incredibly fluid at the oddest moments, such as a scene early on where Louise chases Saito around in front of Henrietta, or again where Saito fights Ward. Because the animation is so generic the majority of the series, these random bits of fluidity are suprisingly pleasing, but give a lasting impression that the series has been half-assing it.

Indeed the series did half-ass it, and what better proof do you need than the characters? Rie Kugimiya typecast aside, mostly because it did work here, these characters border from stereotypical archetypes like Kirche to downright ripoffs like Tabitha, who is completely stealing from Yuki Nagato from her hobbies to the exact way she talks. It's like they told the seiyuu "okay, now for this character, sound EXACTLY like Yuki Nagato from Haruhi."

Yet the biggest offender by far is Saito, one of the most irritating Mary Sues of a harem hero I've ever come across. Not only does he manage to attract nearly every girl to him even though he does nothing for half the series, but the plot decided to give him the ability to defeat anyone he faces, and the one time he does lose, he goes off and sulks about it as if he thinks it's his god-given right to defeat everyone.

I mean, look... you have a fantasy world with magic and swords and dragons, so some special powers are to be expected, but the series actually gives Saito full deus ex machina capabilities by the end. It's disgusting how much this show gives him just so he can keep winning. The world of magic itself is no better. For a story relying a good deal on magic, the foundation of magic in this series is terribly simple. I will admit the cross-cultural "magical artifacts" were slightly amusing but even that grew tiresome.

The setting's relation aside, this series just doesn't know what it wants to do. It starts as a romantic comedy, then quickly shifts to a magical adventure without so much as a single notice. I also give no positive marks to a series that sets up a possible arc, then ends it after one episode with no resolution or purpose other than to show Louise in a bustier. Note that Louise in a bustier had nothing to do with the setup.

The best reason I can give for why this series was green-lit back in 2006 would be the boom of anime adapted from light novels and the birth of tsundere fandom, and it shows. There's so bad it's good and there's so bad I want to see just how bad it can get. Zero no Tsukaima is just bad. It's littered with cliches that have been run into the ground for years before this show, and the only new gag it can conjure up (horsewhip) just isn't funny no matter how much the series pushes them. Though Rie Kugimiya gives a solid performance and some of the world elements are intriguing, its desire to cater to every possible audience with a complete lack of direction or effort make it nothing short of a failure. If you're not a sexually-frustrated teenage boy who hasn't yet developed a distinction between good and bad anime, avoid this one.

Overall, I give Zero no Tsukaima a 3 out of 10.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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