Consistently throughout the show, I expected it to fall into derivative story telling habits akin to others in its genres - girls love, isekai, and fantasy. I try not to bring bias to a new show when I start, but sometimes it's an unconscious feeling. Anime, like most things, has as sort of language that you learn the more you interact with it. I'm speaking beyond tropes and the like, to be clear; tropes are essentially unavoidable.
No, I'm speaking about the unwritten language of this medium. It's in the way episodes are paced, how dialogue is structured, the mise en scène, plot decisions, and the nuanced cultural attitudes frequently found in Japan. There's a rhythm to a standard episode of an anime, with some allowance for genre changes, and it's very easy to take it for granted.
In the same way that people with normal hearts (not me lol) don't notice their heartbeats until something is off, we tend not to notice the way the rhythm of anime changes until it does.
So when I say that Magical Revolution kept catching me off guard, it was in these little ways. Episodes were frequently paced in a way that's more like a Netflix live action original and less like a standard anime episode. Plot decisions - characters, fates, conflicts - all happened in decidedly abnormal ways, at least to my expectations. The tact with which Magical Revolution handled its own themes - the way it showed respect for its characters - genuinely surprised me.
Please don't misconstrue; I'm not surprised that a show could be "good." The quality of how Magical Revolution bucked orthodoxy isn't the focus insomuch as the fact that it *did* - even more so because of the ways it chose to do so.
Magical Revolution is a show for people who really love girls love, isekai, or fantasy as much as it is a show for people who are burnt out of those genres or don't engage with them at all. It's weird! This show genuinely stumped me and I respect it a hell of a lot for managing that.
If anyone checks this show out on the basis of my review, I'd love to hear your thoughts. I hope I'm not the only one to notice the way Magical Revolution changes those small things that it does in the strange way that it does.
