First off wow.... Just wow.
At the start of this anime I expected nothing but generic and to be honest this anime doesn't start off the best way.
It doesn't really do much to explain what is going, why can't he use magic, why is he at a lower level, and the uniform colors felt so plain.
But if you like anime shows with action and a decent story line similar to anime series like Guilty Crown and Tokyo Ravens then this is right up your alley. At the start this anime starts off with two main characters who are brother and sister, while the relationship between them feels off you can tell its mostly on the sisters side.
This anime series is based off a world where magic exists and has been utilized as a technology for nearly a century and while explaining it would be rather confusing without watching the anime… I'll try my best to break it down in simpler terms. In the anime Mages use something called a Casting Assistant Device or CAD… at least that’s how I pronounce it. Mages use thought particles or psions to activate sequences which invoke magic spells basically. A good way to sum up this concept is imagine if you wanted to do a spell, rather than memorize each spell mentally you could save it in CAD and simply activate it with the thought of wanting to use that spell.
The plot in the anime is basically about Tatsuya and Miyuki who are both brother and sister. They are new students who enrolled at a Private Magic University Affiliated High School. In this school the students are ranked based on their test scores reflecting on mainly their practical magic ability skills. Students who score higher are put into a Course 1 curriculum and those who score lower are enrolled in Course 2.
Unfortunately, when you separate students based on a certain attribute you eventually end up with issues mainly things like bullying which this school has. The two separate courses are known as Bloom and Weed although the term is against the school policy and it's quite disrespectful.
Tatsuya unfortunately was put in Course 2 while his sister was put in Course 1. As the story progresses you immediately see the mistreatment of Course 2 students. Tatsuya however isn't on the same level as the rest of the students. He may lack skills in magic, but his stamina for what he has allows him to learn some high level Magic Spells that don't require a high amount of magic to be used. Also while he isn't good at magic all that well, he is incredibly smart and extremely good at physical combat, combined with his magic, he makes simple basic magic spells become amplified and much stronger than they were initially.
While Tatsuya is the main character of the story for the most part, his sister plays a role in sort of guiding Tatsuya and pushing him to try to push himself to prove that magic isn't the only important skill. Throughout the anime you see that to be true.
The Story itself is pretty damn good, as generic as the anime may sound it does have its own way of telling its story. At the start is does a very good job explaining a lot of the spells so that you understand how this world works, the plot for the main half of the story is probably the most exciting part in my opinion. While I left out some stuff, a lot of the good stuff I'd love to talk about contains spoilers to the anime that could down play some of the plots, but there is more to Tatsuya that really builds up his character that I didn't mention. On that note I'd love to say that the cast of characters was pretty good, while they never went too deep with those characters and their backgrounds, they never felt bland or boring at all.
Let's get to the review.
Story - 8 | Amazing!
Before I get bashed on this, the story itself if beyond amazing…. But for the first half, everything is paced out a bit too slow but at least they take time to explain a lot of the magic and go into detail about the main characters, mainly towards the lives they live and what else they work on aside from the school itself. But the second half is what hurts the anime, it sort of becomes a war without meaning, at least not well explained. I don't want to spoil what goes on during the second half, but it sort of rushes you through everything, and kind of destroys a lot of the mystery behind Tatsuya who the whole anime was based on. In a way I can say that if there is a second season the school portion part will either be a hit or miss, it can be worked into something real good or can completely be a disaster.
Characters - 7 | Quite Good
The characters in the anime are extremely good when it comes to support, they actually feel like they are part of the story and not just there to fill the gap of other students the school. The majority of the cast gets very little back story if any at all aside from one or two characters. However for this particular case I didn't mind all that much, for what we learned about the characters throughout the anime was good enough and the support towards the Main Characters Tatsuya and his sister was enough to keep the anime going strong. But while I enjoyed the characters, I did wish the relationship between the characters could've grown more, each character had some character development but it always had to be when Tatsuya was there, never anything aside from that. If Tatsuya wasn't there then there would be no character development, just a minor gripe against it.
Art/Animation - 6 | It's Okay
For 2014 the anime feels kinda dated, it not that the visuals are bad but so many anime series are pushing on towards looking so colorful and smooth, while this anime had extremely dull color pallet overall. Nothing really popped, and while sometimes it didn't matter, other times it just made some of the characters sink in with the background, if it was not for the story this anime could have fallen part cause of this. Luckily the fight scenes are pretty damn amazing, and while the colors feel dull, the animation for the fights and suspense of the story keep you sucked in enough to not care. Which proves art isn't everything.
Music/Sound - 6 | It's Okay
The OST itself was okay, mainly the one issue I had was that there was one song that always played when there was a fight scene but at least it was a good song. The sound and voice acting were good… not amazing but not terrible though it was better than acceptable. The Opening and Ending Tracks I actually liked a lot.
Enjoyment - 9 | Astonishing!
You may be wondering why everything else seemed so low and this score is much higher.. Well the best way I can put it is that this anime may not have the best visuals or even the best characters but the story and world is so good. Sure it's not amazing, but it's different from most anime shows that use magic with science. Tatsuya grows and proves that Magic really isn't everything despite him not being the best Mage there. He knows when he can win a match versus when he needs help. To be honest if it wasn't because they explained how the magic worked I would've turned away but because they explained it enough to the point where I can understand I wanted to learn more about enemies in the anime and how Tatsuya could overcome things that were out of his level in some way. This anime is likely a guilty pleasure of mine.
Final Rating: 7 | Quite Good [Exact Rating - 7.2]
Let's be clear the anime isn't the best anime to ever come to existence, it has some faults which are pretty big and my make some people not want to watch the anime like the pacing at the start, not much story for a lot of the characters, and the art being just overall okay. But the Story in the anime really holds it, the way everything is explained in the first couple of episodes and how Tatsuya proves himself out throughout the anime. Where the plot gets dull is around the end but it kind of left me wanting more and wondering what would turn out after what happens. What also kind of sucked is we didn't really learn much about the organization or gang thing that they were sort of associated with which I was left like uhhhh okay???? The characters were basically there for just support, and while that's okay maybe some story about the ones who were seen the most would have been nice, but there was some character development going on but not much since the anime was centered around Tatsuya. The OST could be rather forgettable aside from the Opening and Ending songs which I liked, but it could be cause it had LiSA's song "Rising Hope", and LiSA has had other songs I really enjoyed. Probably my main issue was the uniform colors, it just felt so boring and dull, but you get over it eventually. I will end with saying that the first 1-3 or 1-4 episodes were pretty boring because it has a lot to do with explaining a crud load of stuff and for an "action" anime there isn't much action until a few more episodes down. Around Episode 5 the anime begins to stir some interesting plots and the action begins soon after, I recommend most stick with it if you liked Anime Shows like Guilty Crown and Tokyo Ravens, but if you didn't like those anime then this won't be your cup of tea. As for me I loved both Guilty Crown and Tokyo Ravens and while it wasn't as amazing as those two, it was anime worth watching.
