Story: The story of Kuusen Madoushi is well, quite a mashup. Humanity has been pushed onto the edge of near extinction. The world has been overrun by a threat called the Devil Beetles, to the point that humanity had to relocate up into the air in floating cities. There, students go to Magic High School in order to train to become sky wizards in order to fight off the Devil Beetle threat. It is here where we have Kanata Age, a Sky Wizard who is also known as a "traitor" amongst the sky wizards, where he is forced to teach a trio of Sky Wizard failures to greatness.
Let me get something off my chest first. Oh boy, another humanity pushed to the brink of near extinction to the point they have to be put into confined places to escape a threat that kills them! Not like we haven't seen THAT twenty plus times in the past year of anime! (Ok, rant over.) Kuusen Madoshi is a plotline that doesn't particularly have an identity. While completely focusing on our MC helping out the three girls that can barely use their weapons, Kuusen Madoshi completely forgets the entire plotline involving the supposed "villains" of the series. This becomes a big hit on the series particularly because the entire threat doesn't even seem like a big deal in the end. (The beetles only appeared once.) In place of that, they change the entire focus of the series several times to the point that the entire base story becomes obsolete.
As for the story that we did get from Kuusen Madoshi, the plotline did do a fair bit better in that sense because while following the three girls on their road to Sky Wizard greatness, there was some character development that did make the show a little more interesting. But even with that, there were a few things even then that had aspects of plot holes since it just conveniently seemed like they were able to do something competent while screwing around for the entire time before that. (Very cliche development, but development nonetheless.)
In the end, Kuusen Madoshi was a story that really...wasn't concise in either way. From a story that at face value seemed like one about people fighting off an apocalyptic threat (from beetles, no less), to one about teaching kids how to swing a sword properly, to one about a stalker, Kuusen Madoshi ended without really much resolution to any of the overarching issues and stayed within solved some of the issues that the story presented. It was very cliche to the point that you could guess what was going to happen next, so as a result, nothing really came as a surprise.
Overview:
+ Some character development
- Overused Plot idea
- Inconsistent with its plot
- Plot holes
- Predictable plotline
Characters: Similarly, the characters in Kuusen Madoshi are really not anyone that is noteworthy in any way except for one character who, oddly enough for a harem anime, is the MC.
First we have Kanata Age, the main character of this entire series. As the aforementioned "traitor" to the sky wizards, Kanata is a guy that is known for being just generally lazy in nature though inversely, is oddly enough, a very good teacher. Being put to help three misfits of the Sky Wizard Academy, Kanata spends the entire series attempting to help out these girls by teaching them the power of friendship and teamwork while also fixing up any issues about them. He is very nonchalant about any sort of thing that goes on in the series, and always manages to keep a straight face anytime in any given situation. He is a bit dense, and that's about as far as his character goes, but otherwise, he is probably the only good character in this series.
Then we have the three main girls in the series; the three failures of the Kuusen Madoshi world, Misora, Lecty, and Rico. All three of these girls follow a different trope of anime that takes up their entire character. Misora is the tsundere, Lecty is the shy one, and Rico is the narcissist who has a pension for calling herself a goddess every five seconds she's on screen. They do take on the mentality of appreciating help from Kanata during the series, but aside from that, that's really all there is to their characters. They're bland, overused, and it's to the point that you don't even want to root for them because of how they act sometimes.
And finally, we have Yuri, a girl who is known as Kanata's first disciple and kouhai. Yuri is the other tsundere in the series and honestly, doesn't really make sense as a character. The tsundere quality in her is so extreme to the point that it really doesn't make sense what her motive for doing anything really is. She obviously like Kanata, but tries to get rid of him through indirect means which honestly, is so conflicting my head hurts.
As for side characters, the rest of the cast if filled with a bunch of nobodies who really don't serve much for the series, with most of them not even serving as plot devices for the most part. People like Kanata's old group, the head of the Sky wizard program, and a bunch of random girls whose names you don't even remember, don't really serve much of a purpose in this series at all. The only one in this side cast that actually mattered was one guy that you would never expect to be important, who eventually, turned out to be very important, for some reason.
Overview:
+ Decent Harem MC (This honestly surprised me)
- Less than decent harem girls
- Side characters didn't serve much purpose at all.
Art: The art for Kuusen Madoshi features two separate styles for the way the show is presented. The normal artwork, and the CGI.
As for the normal animation, Kuusen Madoshi really doesn't have anything spectacular for it. It's a very bland color scheme that lacks any sort of depth to it coupled with average animation to boot. It's just a moderately bright color scheme and doesn't really impart anything or is special in any way.
In addition, Kuusen Madoshi uses a lot of CGI in order to animate out the "dangerous" Devil beetles, as well as character models in some parts. The CGI is very glaring and overall, quite horrifying to watch. Because the beetles are made of CGI, the entirety of the creature looks very jarring to look at and...they don't really do anything. The devil beetles were made to just stay stationary and fly around rather than attack or do something threatening. It was just sad to see a someone firing shots at a seemingly unmoving and unthreatening target and it made me question how these things were threatening to begin with. In addition, they also have several character models done in CGI form. This occurs sometimes when the characters are flying. Rather than animating a character in-flight part of the time, the series replaces them with complete CGI models of the characters, which creates an instant clash in quality ad overall, didn't look good in any way.
Overview:
- Bland animation
- Poor CGI that made things look jarring
Sound: The music for this series is average at best. There really isn't anything special about it since they're all pretty generic tracks without any memorable features to it, so there really isn't much to talk about.
Personal Enjoyment: I went into this show expecting it to be bad on the basis that the synopsis was so chock full of just...things, that the series wouldn't be able to support itself. Sadly enough though, I was right, at least for many things.
Did I like this anime?
If not for Kanata's nonchalant personality and the latter half of the series focusing on a plot about a stalker, I would not have bothered to really continue this with any sort of hope. Kanata himself is a breath of fresh air for this show because he does good while also being good. While he is a bit of a dense character like a lot of other Harem MC's, he has enough credibility to him for him to end up becoming a half-decent character in my book.
What didn't I like about this anime?
Personally, I HATED the story and the characters. The story was so predictable that any sort of development that happened really didn't faze me one bit. In fact, I could guess what happens next episode without even watching it or trying. The story never settled on one thing and that's what pissed me off as well. It switched from devil beetles, to teaching some misfits, to finally focusing on a man who is obsessed with one of the females in the series for some reason. It flip-flopped so much I didn't even know what I was watching anymore. (Also, Rico is INTOLERABLE. I am so tired of hearing her refer to herself as a goddess.)
Would I recommend this anime?
No, not really. Kuusen Madoshi is a show that just goes all over the place without attempting to find a proper solution to anything it was doing really. The characters are tired tropes from every anime ever, and the whole "humanity under threat" thing is an utter lie because everyone in that series was living their lives happily sipping tea or what have you without anything within a hundred miles threatening them at all.
