Semi-Serious review below
Characters
You have your average main character (protag-kun). Protag-kun is a depressed ex-assasin that has the mystical ability to disable all magic, with no exceptions at all whatsoever (himsef included.) too bad he almost never uses it. There are many times in the 12 episodes where that ability would of come in very handy, but is rarley ever used. Additionally, the protag-kun has the common sense of an embryo, despite being a famous, well known assassin, whose hands are too bloody to teach children, he has absolutely no battle sense. He easily shows his back to his enemies, must be legally deaf, because two elephants having sex could sneak up on him, etc. In the introductory cut scene. at the very beginning of the first episode he is shown killing large groups of mages, but in all of his fights he struggles to kill just one. By the end of the 12 episodes, he is shown up by one of the 16(ish) year old girls in a fight against "Evil bad Guy Villain Dude".
Two other characters are average tsundere (Girl A), complimentary kudere (Girl C), and the typical large breasted girl (Girl B). You get fun memorable characters with this show, like the guy with pink hair from episode 5(?), and Generic side-character H. Essentially what I am trying to convey is that this anime has the most cookie-cutter, generic, and clichéd characters for an anime.
The villain character, "Evil bad Guy Villain Dude" is my second least favorite character in this anime. He is only truly introduced in the last half of the last episode. He's the type of, "I'm doing bad things because I am bad" villain that seriously ruins entire anime. Nothing about, "Evil bad Guy Villain Dude" makes him feel like an actual character, rather he feels more like something that was slapped into the plot because a villain was necessary and the author had nothing better. His powers are lack luster, and apparently his magic is not effected by the protagonists ability to stop all magic.
Now all the characters, though bland would at least give this series a mediocre 4/10. However I personally would give the characters a 2/10 because of, and Solely because of Girl C. If Girl C was a lamp-post than she would have been a better addition to this anime than what she is. She is a flaming hot ball of bipolar, who has no sense of what is socially acceptable, and so much of the story is ruined because of how bad her character relations are. (see bottom of the page for that)
Story
Stereotypical school-shounen-light novel anime that doesn't do a whole lot of things to stand out. Every arc of this story also is very predictable. Girl B is always the damsel in distress, Girl A is your typical tsundere, "I'm not helping you because I like you B-B-Baka." that is best friends with Girl B. She will stop at no lengths to help Girl A because of the power of friendship. As a bonus there's a bunch of side characters that are completely irrelevant to the plot, but the show acts like you know them anyways. Bonus!!!
One additional thing I should note, which falls under Story/Characters is the Characters tone. This is probably the worst thing in the entire anime. Here are a few examples, lets see if you can catch on about why it's so bad,
EXAMPLE 1: Terrorists walk into room and shoot magic capable of killing the students right next to Girl A's head. Background characters leaning forward, mouths slightly open, intensely yawning(?)
EXAMPLE 2: Bloody splattered all over the walls, furniture smashed, balcony door open revealing broken railing. Background characters walk in, and say, "Hey girl A did you see Girl B?" Other background character quizzically asks, "Did something Happen?" EXAMPLE 3*
Art
Skipable ED, and a terribly choreographed ultra-generic OP.
BMG is acceptable, probably the best "art" Akashic records has to offer.
very lazy animation, too many still shots / panorama's. Character design is, again very cookie cutter, and anyone with some knowledge of anime could accurately guess all the main character's roles just by looking at their designs.
Overall Akashic Record's art is pretty deplorable, even somehow being worse than shows like Asterisk wars.
Verdict
I certainly cannot recommend Akashic Records to anyone who likes quality anime. There are many anime that do the same thing as Akashic Records, but do it much better, like Magi and Mahōka Kōkō no Rettōsei. Akashic Records currently has a 7.5(ish)/10 on mal, however I would give it a 3-4/10. If an anime were to do absolutley 0 right, and be completley boring it would get a 3/10. Akashic Records, though it does not do much did 1 thing that was mildly entertaining, and that was explaining it's own worlds principals of magic. However, it does absolutely nothing with these principals later in the 12 episodes, returning to the point that everything protag-kun taught his students was only shown a few episodes after, then it completely diapered. The students in Akashic Records are never shown to have improved through the anime, which was the appeal of watching the teacher (protag-kun) in the first place. Instead the characters say they cant do something, through the power of protag-kun, they do it, then they go back into the sidelines, completely useless as if nothing ever happened.
So, yeah here's a score
"\sum _{n=4}^{\sqrt{16}}n / 10"
(sorry for this review being inconstant, wrote this pretty late im not exactly in the right frame of mind to worry aboud sentence structure and narative flow. expect some edits.)
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extras (*contain spoilers)
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The ending is complete garbage. Like, SAO tentacle rape levels of garbage. It tries to be really clever with a denouement, and link back to the intro cutscene but it fails. The final battle is an anticlimax to an anime that is nothing but a large anticlimax.
EXAMPLE 3
Girl C just impaled Protag-kun with a sword. Girl A knows it's Girl C, and to rub salt into her wound Girl B is attacked by Girl C and handed over to the enemies that want to kill her. Girl A, and "Alfred" then attempt to save protag-kun from threshold of death. They do so. Later that episode Protag-kun approaches Girl C and is completely cool being impaled and almost killed. He convinces her to switch back to his side, and acts like he was never impaled by a huge sword. they defeat the villain of that episode (Fake onii-san) and return. ~Says nothing to protag-kun who almost died~. Girl A to Girl B "I am glad you're back." Girl A to Girl C - frowns slightly, then IMMEDIATELY CRYING TO THE POINT THAT HER FUCKING TEAR-DUCTS DRY THEN WITHER, AND HUGS GIRL C TIGHTLY "I AM SO GLAD U R BACK" ?wat?
