In this world, magic existed once back in ancient civilization until it was sealed by a circle of mages who sacrificed their lives to do so, but apparently they didn't do such a good job since there are still magic users on Earth and they are able to use magic powers, in and out of the separate world. Despite this magic originally being used by the oldest civilizations of Europe and West Asia, all of the current magic users happen to be pubescent Japanese girls. It would've been much more interesting if it used Japanese history or folklore as to explain this, but alas the writers must've realized that would take effort.
Mecha battles within the magic world consist of characters winning based on how many times they say "envision" or which character remembers their backstory and motivations the hardest. There are also other asspulls such as characters randomly triggering super powers that allow them to win based on how angry they are or random magic powers that weren't ever used prior. The constant back and forth rivalry of Shingetsu and Anna becomes tiring when you realize Shingetsu is just a Mary Sue and Anna is your designated character to hate for that part because she's a pompous yandere that would likely just stop being that and become a good person in the future. Unfortunately it's not like we can really know because it drops it almost immediately after it reaches its crux to instead turn back to Shingetsu and the alternating path of bullshit.
Conveniently, these mecha called "ARMANOX" are the "reflection of the user's soul" or some drivel like that as to explain why characters don't ever have to be any good at using the mecha and can just rely on the writers to decide how it should all go. They then proceed to do this for other magical manifestations because yes.
The wish granting macguffin of this magical world battle royale only involves the most basic motivations when it comes to character's reasons for obtaining it. It's not like I was expecting something on the level of the movie Stalker when it comes to philosophy surrounding such a wish granting device but it's like they didn't even want to try, their motivations never really change or are questioned, they simply exist. It's not like there is any room for characters to even philosophize because everyone that is on the "good side" is a complete yes man for Shingetsu while every villain is just a crazy woman that lusts for power.
There's also some conflict between Suishou and uhh the other white haired girl over her sister which is so poorly conveyed that it's laughable. This conflict is also poorly concluded before it's vestiges are used just to power Shingetsu's motivations. At least the creators were smart enough to realize how boring and forgettable the characters were so they color coded them.
My initial predictions at the start of the show were aiming for a more "generic pseudo-deep" approach and while the show is certainly trying too hard to be deep, I did not account for the sheer stupidity of the writers and their infatuation with PLOT TWISTS. It showers in these plot twists to cover up for a lack of depth to the story, characters, and the narrative as a whole. It actually makes everything worse as it feels like they made it up on the spot with build up to it and roundabout dialogue just being for the reveal itself. Mangetsu's reveal encapsulating this with everyone going "MANGETSU IS...." and constantly reminding you that Mangetsu indeed is. It's soap opera tier of writing. Why do people know of Mangetsu's true identity? They just do. What purpose does it serve the characters to reveal this information? None, it's all done for the sake of a plot twist. Chalk it up to more shallow writing about "the soul" or something if you really want to.
As stated twice before the story has this really good trait of building up arcs, concluding them awfully, then adding the characters involved in it to the Shingetsu motivator waste dump, Mangetsu included. She goes from protagonist that is a Shingetsu worshiper to just a Shingetsu worshiper, and quite literally exists to be a useless motivator character because goddamn if anime characters always need someone to pepper them with platitudes across the show before they actually succeed. Then of course, every scene with Mangetsu doing so has the most manipulative music like they really break out the violins when characters are saying "The world is filled with feelings" as if it's some grand revelation, my god.
The artstyle and design is ultimately "whatever." There's a lot of "same face" which also explains the color coding and they over utilize the exaggerated faces for the sake of portraying someone as crazy or mad. Also the mecha have awful designs that look like toys more than anything dangerous.
If someone looks at this as a "dark magical girl" show and begins referencing Madoka then that's when you know it's bad. If you want "dark magical girl" just watch Utena. If you want mecha, watch Gundam. If you want a story with plot twists and character intrigue, read Dostoevsky. If you want an anime with a cast of bright haired anime girls then go watch whatever waifubait show is on this season. Don't watch this, it's a complete waste of time.
