So we get Zero no Tsukaima. the story of a noble mage from a magical realm and her familiar, a human from our world. Sounds like a good mash-up like Inuyasha, Shakugan no Shana, or any of the many magical girlfriend animes out there. The problem is, this series, though it combines familiar elements to make something new, it does not seem to work well. While I loved Baka to Test for combining slice of life high school drama with monster training, this simply did not do it for me. To be honest, Zero came off as cut and pasted together, with nothing really original to offer.
Plot: Louise is a mage in training in her second year who must summon a familiar as part of her curriculim/rite of passage. In what seems to be a freak accident, Louise summons a normal boy from our world in moddern Japan. Hilarity ensues?
Most of the plot revolves around Louise and the boy, Saito's relationship. Saito struggles with wanting to go home, Louise struggles to prove herself a strong and capable mage, and the two go on various missions together. Oh, yeah, and boobs. It seems at every twist and turn there is some woman with a large chest who is inexplicably attracted to Saito. Misunderstandings ensue and Louise whips Saito with a riding crop in an attempt at slapstick comedy. Besides, we've seen this in almost every other romcom harem comedy. Boy meets girl, boy sees other girl in suggesgive situation, original girl beats ever loving crap out of boy. This might be funny once or twice, but the joke repeats, and repeats and repeats on a loop throughout the whole series. Lather, rinse, repeat. And when a relationship does start to develop between Saito and Louise, Saito still seems to be interested in other girls. Rather than using this for actual conflict or drama, it results in, yep, more whipping. No development of their relationship, no understanding, just whipping. Louise doesn't even bother switching up punishments, or using other gags as punishment.
As for the magical school element, many have compared this to Harry Potter. I would sooner compare it to The Worst Witch. In a magical school, Mildred Hubble is the worst witch, unable to perform even the most basic spells and earned the nickname 'Worst Witch' from her peers, and later discovers she, in her own way, is in fact quite powerul. Sound familiar?
The story takes a turn about halfway through and tries to add in a little political intrigue. Tries. In the end, it doesn't really accomplish the backstabbing, coat and dagger politics of Last Exile or Le Chevalier D'Eon. They seem to be trying, adding in familiar, historical and mythological elements to the story. Unfortunately, they are often full of holes, poorly executed, or seem to come completely out of nowhere. Let's take Tabitha for example. The quiet bookworm friend of Louise's school rival Kirke is revealed to be a Princess from Gallia. She might have inherited the throne too, if her father had not been murdered by a faction that wanted to put her father's brother on the throne instead. Her uncle also wanted Tabitha out of the line of succession (which would not happen with Early modern primogeniture laws in which MALE heirs suceed) and one of his supporters tries to kill her via a glass of poison. Her mother gets wind of it and...alright, seriously, if someone tries to poison your kid do you A) Take the poison away from her and use it as evidence to bring the bastard to justice B) Take the poison away from her and dispose of it so everyone will be safe C) Take the poison away from her and drink it youself inducing a lifetime of mental scars for your child and leaving her to fend for herself when you become and insane vegetable. Tabitha's mother and parent of the year chose C. Political intrigue? Yes. Well executed? No, not really.
What really grates me about this series though is the History parallels. Each country has an Early Modern European counterpart. Gallia is France, Germania is Germany and Albion is England. Might be original if I hadn't seen it in Trinity Blood first. But in the Albion subplot, involving a revolution, involved elements that personally offended me as someone with Irish heritage.
A romcom with excessive panties and gags about boobs, brought up Oliver Cromwell.
Not Cromwell himself, but his equivalent in a parallel universe. That still doesn't make it acceptable to me though. Some might say I'm butthurt over something that happened hundreds of years ago, but this to me is serious. Oliver Cromwell slaughtered 25-40% of Ireland's population, and became the closest thing to a military dictator England hand, led an ultra Puritain regime that banned Christmas, staughtered Catholics by the thousands, and these people had the absolute gall to turn him into a villain in an anime romcom focusing on panties and boobies. Next time, let's imply something about Hitler, shall we?
The Sound was something I kind of liked. It was nothing special, but the European flavor brought out the exotic location well. The J-pop opening was cute, and fitting with the cutesy style of the characters and the romantic comedy premis, and the ending seemed to sum up the character's feelings as well. If you have a choice between sub and dub, pick sub. The English voice track left a LOT to be desired.
The art was reminissent of moe and seemed to have a slight influence from nineties fantasy anime like Escaflowne. The animation was nothing mindblowing, but it stayed at a consistently good level throughout the whole series, never really dipping in quality. Character designs are pretty standard. There's the flat loly, her big breasted mature rival, the book worm, the playboy, the fat kid, the old wizard, the normal boy...we;ve seen them before, and honestly they did not try to do anything really new or unique in the character designs.
As for the characters themselves, they might as well been pulled out of a stock folder. The young girl who has useless magic and turns out to be a sort of 'chosen one'. The busty and sexually mature rival to the smaller girl who's main motivation is sex/love. The bookworm with a tragic/interesting past who rarely speaks or socializes. The playboy. The perverted old man. The normal everyman for otaku boys to project themselves on. Villains whose main motivations are being evil for the sake of being evil (seriously, they take over a kingdom, and slaughter the royal family, and we have no idea WHY. Also the Cromwell reference. I won't forgive this series for that.) None of the characters seem the least bit original, and their dialogue is completely cliched.
As for Enjoyment, I know a lot of people like this series and I can see why. There's something here that almost everyone can enjoy. Girls can get into the romance, guys can like the fanservice and explosions. At the same time though, it's all usually underdeveloped, cliched, or unexplored. I suppose this might be covered in later seasons, but in this one, nothing really gets resolved. The good guys save the day, but the show's main focus, Louise and Saito's relationship does not seem to have changed since day one. Saito screws up, Louise beats him, end series. For those who like the cliches, good for you and you will probably like this. For me, I didn't, I explained why, and please respect that.
Warnings: Panties galore, boobs, boob gags, mild language, character death, fighting, explosions, abusive relationship, reference to debatably genocidal miserable wretch of a human being who slaughtered my ancestors.
