THE PROTAGONIST IS THE ONLY DECENT ELEMENT IN THE STORY
The protagonist, Glenn Radars (what an awful name!), is first introduced as a low-rank magician who was just hired as an instructor in a prestigious magic academy thanks to his weirdly-clothed female friend who pulled strings so that he could get a job and stop sucking out her money. In the first episode, he is portrayed as a disastrous teacher, as he is super lazy and constantly mocks his students, instead of helping them, or just doing his job properly in general. Doesn’t that sound comical? It does sound comical. There’s no way something like this isn’t comical.
UNFORTUNATELY! This show is neither a comedy nor a slice-of-life, it has an actual plot – by plot I mean one female character fondling another female character’s breasts in the girls’ locker room – and soon after episode 1, what appeared as a somewhat better than average anime, turns into your generic fantasy anime. Glenn acts like an asshole? Well actually that’s because he knows how much magic is dangerous, and doesn’t want to give teenagers the power to kill people! Glenn is a lazy clown who doesn’t know how to do magic? You fool! He’s just hiding his power level! He’s actually a former elite magician who became disgusted with the use that is made of magic! Glenn goes on a field trip to a beach resort with his classroom right after a terrorist attack? You imbecile! He does that to keep his students out of danger! Glenn is a pervert who enjoys staring at his teenage female students’ breasts at the beach? Let me guess, is that because he’s actually pretending to be a pervert to catch his enemies off-guard? No! He’s just a regular pervert! Great!
GENERIC AND UNORIGINAL
Generic anime magic school, generic European-stylised buildings seen hundreds of times in the medium, generic and plain character designs, generic clothing. In terms of world-building, nothing stands out. It’s just your run-of-the-mil anime fantasy universe where magic can do everything, from teleportation and healing wounds to… phone calls and computers? This is just re-branded SF at this point.
Same thing for the characters. On the “good guys” side you have the tsundere catgirl who acts like she hates the protagonist but is actually in love with him, for some unknown reason. Out of all the characters (not including the protagonist) she is probably the “least worst”, because she is the only one who has some kind of objective.
Then there’s the “too young too simple, sometimes naive” girl with big boobs whose only purpose in life is to be abducted or attacked by the bad guys and then saved by the protagonist like the damsel in distress she is. It’s not supposed to be comical, and it happens three times in total. Three times! In a 12-episode series! Predictable! Repetitive! Ridiculous!
And lastly, there’s the generic inexpressive and shy teenage anime girl template who adores the protagonist and is very powerful despite her childish appearance. Tina Sprout in Black Bullet, Sasami Saya in Gakusen Toshi Asterisk… you have seen this boring character template dozens, if not hundreds of times in recent anime.
What about the “bad guys”, then? Ah, don’t worry – they’re worse! They are part of some sort of secret society of evil mages. All of them are cartoon villains with overly distorted faces who just can’t help bursting into evil laughter every five seconds, and then yell angrily at the protagonist when they realise that their very evil plan has failed. How original!
A DUMB AND INCOHERENT SHOW
Let’s talk about the blonde girl again. She is abducted by the evil organization on at least two occasions, and on both on these occasions, the protagonist comes to save her, tries to break whatever magical spell is restraining her, fails and then collapses on the ground. On both of these occasions, the bad guys could have used this opportunity to strike him and finish him off. But they did not. Instead, the bad guys stayed in the corner of the room, watched him as he stood up, and let him beat them up. So much for the members of a secret society who are supposed to be plotting against a whole empire!
At another moment, the evil organization does some sort of terrorist attack where they take the queen hostage with a magical spell, because they want her to execute the blonde girl. Glenn is first beaten by the bad guys, but then comes back in perfect health two minutes later to save both the girl and the queen. Now, try to guess what the next episode is about. There has just been a terrorist attack and a hostage situation… what would happen after such a serious and terrifying event? A beach episode, you say? That wouldn’t be dumb enough for this anime. No, what would be fitting for such a ridiculous series is a 3-episode beach resort arc where the blonde girl gets abducted again!
And lastly, towards the end of the series, another magic instructor appears to steal the protagonist’s favourite catgirl. The protagonist then turns very edgy and dark – he has the overly edgy-looking anime eyes, I’m sure you know what I’m talking about – and comes to the catgirl’s rescue. And then they run around the town fighting zombie drug addicts. Yeah.
GOOD MONARCHY VS EVIL SECRET SOCIETY AND OTHER QUESTIONABLE POLITICAL MESSAGES
“What the heck man? It’s just a random 12-episode fantasy anime, what does it have to do with politics?” Not much actually. It is clear that this series is mostly about a quirky protagonist teaching in a magic academy. HOWEVER! Anime or not, fantasy or not, the political content of a work must always be analysed and criticised.
The story takes place in what appears to be a feudal society since there is a powerful nobility, the country calls itself an empire and is ruled by a monarch. The political system is never challenged by the “good guys”, at most some character will be disappointed by the fact that some people use magic for evil goals. But the monarchy or the nobility are never questioned – most of the time they are even portrayed in a positive light! Some examples: the monarch is a very kind and understanding woman, most of the characters on the good guys’ side are of noble blood, and at some point in the show the protagonist says that the life of the nobility isn’t actually as easy as we think… holy cow! If History taught us anything about the nobility, it’s that they are parasites who must be either forcefully abolished as a class, or executed by the hecking guillotine as my ancestors did back in the day!
Oh and by the way, the only people in this series who actually challenge the empire are the bad guys from the evil secret society, and they are called terrorists by the good guys. Sure! I too, love stories where a feudal empire are the good guys and an organization of people who see the current political system as corrupt are the bad guys. Doesn’t look like monarchist propaganda at all!
PRODUCTION-WISE, IT’S ACCEPTABLE
As I already mentioned earlier, character designs, clothing and backgrounds in this anime are generic and unoriginal. The faces are very basic and lack detail: male characters’ faces are single-coloured, and female characters’ faces only have a bit of pink on their cheeks to make them look cuter. Character designs are also incoherent. Glenn is clothed like a normal person from our world, not like a fantasy character, which feels out of place. The background music was forgettable, but not bad enough to hinder the show.
On the upside, even if the art-style is generic, it is clean and doesn’t look ugly. For once, characters’ faces aren’t inconsistent. There are some landscapes and buildings (such as the flying island) that aren’t completely generic and look good.
CONCLUSION
Except from the fairly decent first episode, Roku de Nashi Majutsu Koushi to Akashic Records is a bad anime series and a waste of time, even in terms of entertainment value. So my advice would be to watch only the first episode and then move on to something better, as the rest of the series feels like a completely different show.
