Animation / Art / General Visuals - 7/10
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There's nothing wrong with the show per se, but it doesn't really impress in any way either. Everything is pretty standard for a moderate budget adaptation.
Sound / Music / Voice Acting - 7/10
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The show has some cool battle themes, but ultimately nothing overly noteworthy.
Story - 7/10
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While full of common fantasy tropes, the story is fairly interesting. A young man who studied magic and adventured for 10 years with countless friends and colleagues, gets sent back in time when a catastrophic event destroys the world.
With his knowledge of the future, and some extra skills at his disposal, he will attempt to rewrite the events that lead to the catastrophe and save the world, along with all his friends and allies.
And pretty much the entire runtime of the show, he will attempt to do just that. Recruit his friends and allies, and help them train to become stronger than they were in the previous timeline, in the hopes that it will be enough this time.
The story doesn't much innovate, but it's more interesting than most.
Characters - 7/10
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The cast doesn't receive a whole lot of attention. A lot of their personalities and motivations, and personal history are left unexplored save for a few short flash-backs.
Still, the protagonist is quite well done. Having come back with knowledge of the future, he is more composed, confident and capable than his age would assume. Having such an adult like teenager be the main character in what's essentially a school training arc anime in Season 1, helps to do away with a lot of the common cringe tropes like the main character feeling like they're not strong enough, being all depressed, no knowing how to make friends, or not knowing how to talk to girls and whatnot. This is not a problem in this show, which is nice.
Other characters are fairly nice as well, if a tad annoying at times.
Nothing too remarkable however. A pretty standard cast for a teenage school anime.
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Total - 7/10
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Returner's magic is not particularly impressing, but it doesn't really drop the ball anywhere either. The visuals are fine, sound and music fine, story fine, characters fine. It's fine across the board.
You could do a lot worse than watching this magic school focused, time travel themed, fantasy story.
