The story is about two uninteresting (ordinary) high school students becoming mages by a half naked witch and try to avenge the killers of a girl they liked before evil mages rewrite reality. And yes, it’s as cheesy as it sounds, a typical revenge story with some hocus pocus. The presentation of course will constantly attempt to make it appear like it’s the most awesome thing ever by throwing in complicating terminology, pretentious pseudo-intelligent dialogues, and weird visuals.
PRODUCTION VALUES
But of course! The show is animated by studio Bones, which automatically means very good production values, a complicating / intriguing story, and a script written on the run without the slightest attempt to make sense or have consistency. This time in particular Bones outdid itself for messing up everything from the very first episode. Not even Eureka Seven Ao turned to shit so fast.
SCRIPT
The first thing that easily proves what a mess this show is, lies in the very pacing. Let’s look at what happens in the first episode, shall we?
The plot begins with the hero returning home and meeting his SWITCH a half naked girl is thrown at an island where she can’t cast magic through SWITCH the hero is bullied at school and his girlfriend tells him to SWITCH they are on the grave of their family where they say someone SWITCH a sexy agent is after the protagonist until he SWITCH a mysterious disease turns people to statues and the heroes go to SWITCH and then a huge cocoon hatches and the world is about to end.
Oh, wow, best teaser of a half season series I have seen in awhile. Let’s see if the actual show is as good…
What??? This was not a teaser but the pilot episode??? Jesus, why is the plot all over the place? They barely show something before they switch to something else. And don’t give me this whole “it is not wasting time in needless events” excuse. If you don’t invest time to the setting and the characters, then how do you expect the viewers to care?
Ok, maybe they just rushed the beginning so we can get straight to the point. Maybe the rest of the episodes will have good pacing and worthy plot… NOT! Bones sucks monkey balls, remember? The pacing in the rest of the episodes is EXTREMELY slow, with a lot of useless dialogues and pointless action scenes. The prize easily goes at one point where the characters are doing nothing but TALKING FOR 5 EPISODES WITHOUT DOING ANYTHING ELSE! I mean, really, all they had to do is press a simple trigger that would save the world and instead of that, they began talking non-stop. And do you think the whole thing ended when they finally reached to a conclusion? Hell no, a magic tree appears out of nowhere and saves the world regardless of what any character wanted. TOTAL BULLSHIT!
The above example is also proof of a major flaw the script has. IT IS FATALISTIC. Nothing the characters do seems to matter if all the action scenes and the dialogues are irrelevant to the progress of the plot. And the plot is literally controlled by a bunch of magic trees that appear anytime they feel like it and regardless of what the characters do. There is a scene where thousands of people are fighting each other with magic, and tanks, and missiles, and everything becomes a huge battlefield. The outcome was irrelevant to what they did; a magic tree appeared on its own and it just trashed everything. People are simply decorations when it comes to the plot! It should be the other away around, with the trees being a pretty background.
Not even its internal logic makes any sense. Despite its numerous attempts to make sense of magic, offer limitations and balance, and to present a worldview that can logically stand on its own feet, down to it, it is all about magic and teleportation! Anything can happen just because the scriptwriter thought it would be cool. So despite wasting half the show in talking and explanations, NOTHING MAKES SENSE much less being serious in its themes.
Exposition is boring as heck. They are talking for whole episodes about how magic works in this world, as if it’s complicating and hard to understand. In practice you just wear magic jewellery and gain superpowers without any training; anything further that that is unnecessary complication. It is ridiculous how much time they spent on explaining something so unimportant with such detail.
And even after all the explaining, the logic of this goddamn show is still contradicted in the second half. They say for example that you need to use something man-made in order to cast magic. Later on, that is no longer necessary for later mages that are introduced. They spend a lot of time showing the rivalry between the mages, the rebel mages, and the army. Countless people died because of their actions. In the second half and out of screen, they are now best friends, as if all the disastrous things they did to each other in the first half weren’t even important! The series literally turns from a dark action/survival/drama into a fluffy school comedy!
As if that wasn’t enough of a mess, the creators keep trying to fool you into believing this shit of a show is gritty and serious. The most glaring example is how the characters constantly quote Shakespearean works. Is this supposed to add depth to the plot? It adds nothing, makes the show pretentious, and the characters only manage to talk in a completely artificial way. It’s like they decorate an empty box with a hundred fancy ribbons.
Furthermore, if you REALLY think about it, the main two dudes would have no reason to do anything in this show, if any of the villains had told them the truth right away. Yet instead of just saying “Well, heh, you know, the witch can’t really help you and your plan will fail no matter what you do” they just chase them around and fight for no reason. Even when they get ready to achieve their goals by pressing a SIMPLE TRIGGER they instead start talking for 5 EPISODES while the world around them is being destroyed. And eventually what happens? Nature does what they should have done 5 EPISODES AGO, thus rendering their whole mission pointless yet again. The whole plot is one big troll.
CAST
Even when the show tries to flesh out the characters with numerous flashbacks, it still fails to make them interesting. They are blunt and simplistic, they have no control over the events, their goals are petty, and to the most part they are just walking around and talk. And they also don’t seem to give a damn; everything is in ruins and all their loved ones are dead, yet they act like nothing much happened. How can you feel any sympathy for these uncaring assholes? Occasionally they fight but even that is boring as hell and could very easily be avoided altogether. Here is the roster to know what you get.
We have the Pussy Boy, someone who is following the Bad Boy for not much of a reason. He loved his sister and they are buddies but other than that he can’t do anything right SO WHY DOES HE TAG ALONG?
- At one point he is fighting Slutty Spy for a whole episode. He defeats her all the time and instead of talking with her or finishing her off, HE RUNS AWAY! As a result she keeps attacking him with more and more powerful weapons, until he gets fed up to kick her around and asks for a truce… And gets it. Damn, a whole episode was wasted on these useless spars before they form a truce that could have been achieved right away. Lame excuses for wasting episodes.
- He then starts arguing with Bad Boy for some misunderstanding that lasts for 5 WHOLE EPISODES the result of which is zero since that tree they were trying to destroy gets destroyed by some superpower from the planet itself.
Then we have Bad Boy, who leans magic in order to avenge his family and NOT to save the world; great motivation there fellow.
- He fights a much stronger opponent and the whole episode is wasted on spars with no tactics or even a resolution. And the lolz part is how the enemy could teleport anywhere he likes, yet the injured hero outruns him and escapes by running in plain sight. DERP!
- He then creates a super weapon that can destroy the bad guys’ magic tree and he is willing to use it right away, but then just talks for 5 EPISODES while pointing the gun. Planet Namek blowing up was at least thrilling. This was shit.
We also have Naked Witch, who doesn’t do anything besides sitting all day long on an island and stuffing items between her boobs. She is there only as an excuse for infodumping and fan service. She constantly tries to offer a logical explanation to everything that is going on in the series. Too bad it’s about MAGIC and after awhile it’s just random crap where logic has no place being there.
- She later falls in love with Pussy Boy for no bloody reason at all and completely turns from a dynamic super woman in command of a huge clan of mages into a 10 year old girl who can’t even express her feelings for him and acts like a complete klutz. Deep … character … development! Or perhaps plain misogyny?
Slutty Bitch, the girl they are trying to avenge. We get to know nothing about her besides being constantly naked, talking about sex, and seducing boys for fun. And she is as good as dead, we only learn about her in flashbacks which fail to make her any more interesting. And apparently, this slut is far more important to be avenged instead of saving the world.
- Later on she is revealed to be alive all along and the whole thing was actually a prank to make the world be destroyed for the lulz. But by then nobody cares anymore and she is just a troll that is dealt with in 2 episodes.
Evil Boss, who plans to save the world… by destroying it. Okey… He is constantly trying to pass as mature, wise, and always prepared, plus he is supposed to be a master swordsman. Yet as soon as he meets the main characters, he totally flips and acts like a complete loser who cries, panics, crawls on four, and just bangs the sheath of his sword on the ground instead of pulling out the sword and fighting them. LOSER!
- In the second half he turns into a comic relief who has no real goal or dignity anymore. All his cool image gets completely ruined and becomes yet another lame idiot.
Gay Blondie, a boy with super martial arts. He can beat anyone is a fraction of a second, yet instead of joining the other two main heroes, he stays home and talks to himself without offering anything to the plot. I mean, seriously, he could beat the evil boss in less than a second, thus saving the world. He has nothing important to do in his home, and the world is about to be destroyed, and all he does is TALKING TO THIN AIR! Obviously done as an excuse for more infodump, but it could have easily been avoided if he had internal monologues and a good excuse to stay behind. In the meantime, the world is about to be destroyed and he is doing nothing to prevent that.
- Oh wait, later on eventually joins the battle against the bad guys! The problem is, instead of going to beat the evil boss and destroy the tree, he only fights his underling. Why? Because there was Slutty Spy with her huge boobs near by and he wanted to show off so he can fuck her! What a responsible and mature guy!
Slutty Spy, a completely worthless woman who walks around half-naked and gets herself beaten by men with ten times her strength. I mean, seriously, she clearly has no fighting skills and constantly challenges males who are clearly more powerful. TOTAL BIMBO! And more misogyny.
Fail Idiot, a guy who acts like he can’t even walk without tripping and who can use magic without a material component JUST BECAUSE. He pretends to be a brave superhero that protects the world, as if he couldn’t be bipolar enough as he was. He is just a Power Ranger parody and completely useless to the plot.
So just imagine how less interesting is everybody else in this show.
- We see thousands of people tuning to statues. Should we feel anything about them when the series only bothers to show them for three seconds and then forgets them?
- There is a scene where the army destroys the exits to the town so nobody can come in or out, plus they hide the fact from the rest of the world. It is supposed to prove the army exists and cares to intervene, plus a lot of world shaking events are kept hidden from the public. That sounds so serious, right? Well, in practice all you see is a few helicopters throwing missiles without a single soldier inside or around them, and then some woman talking and saying “we will hide that from the world”. Great presentation you guys; we really see the grave importance of all these events… NOT! Where are the military officers talking about it? Where is the media cover up? Where is anything else in general besides the main two characters? THEY SHOW ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! You can somewhat excuse it by saying the plot is presented only through their eyes, and many events are revealed only through dialogues. That still doesn’t save said events from being impersonal, distant, and eventually makes you feel or think absolutely nothing about the show.
- Later on, the army tries to save the day by attacking the evil tree and again it fails to achieve anything because another magic tree does all the work for them… And also kills them despite the fact they were its allies. How nice; all the struggles and the battles ARE RENDERED USELESS! The moral of the story is “Do nothing and let the world be magically saved by hax powers. If you try to help, YOU WILL DIE BY THE VERY PLANET YOU ARE TRYING TO SAVE!”
- This show also has the privilege of taking phallocracy to new heights. Remember how women in shonen shows are completely useless? Well, this anime goes further by killing all the main heroines right away and leaving them there only as annoying memories and sidekicks. LAME!
* Of course, BONES’ complete incompetence couldn’t bother to deal with such issues; they were too busy explaining how magic works for half the show to deal with character motivations. Are they really trying to save the world or just have a stroll, talk, and go to save some chick by a villain? It’s presented in such a boring way you just have nothing to care for.
LEGACY
A total fail of a story that may have some interest as themes but is otherwise shit in terms of plot and cast. The production values are ok but who cares if nothing is important? Only BONES knows. Easily the second most badly handled anime of the year, right after Eureka 7 AO. Which to nobody’s surprise, is also made by BONES.
And now for some excused scorings.
ART SECTION: 8/10
General Artwork 2/2 (looks nice)
Character Figures 1/2 (sexualized archetypes)
Backgrounds 2/2 (those funky trees stand out; otherwise rather typical)
Animation 1/2 (basic)
Visual Effects 2/2 (lots of pretty lights)
SOUND SECTION: 6/10
Voice Acting 1/3 (corny and full of pretentious Shakespearian quotes)
Music Themes 3/4 (not great but fitting with the feeling of the series)
Sound Effects 2/3 (ok I guess)
STORY SECTION: 4/10
Premise 2/2 (interesting)
Pacing 0/2 (super slow)
Complexity 1/2 (outside the concept of the trees, it is nothing complicating)
Plausibility 0/2 (none)
Conclusion 1/2 (cheesy)
CHARACTER SECTION: 4/10
Presence 1/2 (generic)
Personality 0/2 (cheesy and retarded)
Backdrop 1/2 (generic and simplistic but it’s there)
Development 1/2 (overblown but it’s there)
Catharsis 1/2 (overblown but it’s there)
VALUE SECTION: 2/10
Historical Value 0/3 (none)
Rewatchability 0/3 (no reason to rewatch)
Memorability 2/4 (the tree and magic systems are nice ideas but it’s otherwise too BS to bother remembering)
ENJOYMENT SECTION: 3/10
Art 1/1 (looks nice)
Sound 1/2 (ok music, pretentious talking)
Story 1/3 (good ideas, horrible execution)
Characters 0/4 (they are retarded)
VERDICT: 4.5/10
