Rokudenashi Majutsu Koushi to Kinki Kyouten
Short Synopsis: A clearly mentally unstable girl challenges a boy to a fight after he sees…her…naked….well, if at first you don’t succeed, try ad nauseam.
“I wanted to be a mage of justice” Don’t you mean hero of justice? Might as well rip it off wholesale. You got to wonder who designed these school uniforms. For the people around them appear to be wearing normal attire when the girls that go to this school are wearing something that suggests they are ready to strip rather than learn magic. My initial assessment of this series still stands as it pretty much is a bargain bin light novel story. But it does annoy me how the story makes pretences of subverting cliche only to adhere to it. For example our protagonist walks in on the girls changing and then proceeds to point out how cliche it is. Thing is that he ends up getting beat up anyway so you didn’t subvert the cliche. You just openly admitted to using one. I felt like light novel writers tend to confuse subversion with calling out tropes. Made all the stranger here as I don’t believe manga and anime exist within this world so how would this guy know about the cliche in the first place? The ending seems like it subverts cliche but trust when i say that’s going to get negated later on. What really bugs me about this one is the slapstick comedy for it’s unfunny and just obnoxious. Otherwise not much to say about this one. It’s pretty much your standard light novel story. Would say it differentiates itself by having the main be a teacher but well that’s happened before with Kuusen Madoushi Kouhosei no Kyoukan. If you happen to like these kinds of stories like Chivalry of a failed knight or others like it. If you don’t like those kinds of shows then this won’t change your mind.
Potential: 20%
Mario: Oh my sweet lord this show is unbearable. Other lesser shows usually go for familiar cliché plot, but this bastard manages to up that ante by being extremely annoying as hell. I know they point out all the cliche to bring out the laugh, but am I the only one who wasn’t smiling here? That’s what I dislike the most about shows that aware too much about its tropes; because it sounds incredibly lousy. There’s a line to separate characters from quirky to irritating, and that teacher crossed that line completely. Remember few seasons back we had same types of LN adapted high school magic shows where the boy sees the girl undressed and had to duel with her in the end? By some leaps of logic, this one ends up in the exact same situations, but leaves a bad taste in my mouth. When characters interacting with others by shouting at each other at full volume, you know you can’t take them seriously. The settings, the dialogues, the witch’s motivation, the characters are all poorly constructed that can’t even qualified as homage or satire. I actually feel this one is worse than the first episode of Hand Shakers (in Hand Shakers I can still see the real efforts being putted in there, this one is just lazy), which can inform you about the quality of this show. Terrible.
Potential: 0%
Busou Shoujo Machiavellianism
Short Synopsis: A boy fights against a tyrannical female school council that demand boys crossdress.
I thought as much. As I said in the preview, this show would require the right tone for it to work and this didn’t really deliver on it. I believe the main reason is that the animation is just cheap. The character designs and overall animation is just minimal. I don’t really think this show is bad as it is watchable. But the story doesn’t bring anything you haven’t seen before. It even has the old shounen syndrome of people over explaining special attacks. I do at least appreciate that instead of the usual harem lead pushover, we got a confident guy with some attitude. These shows become a whole lot more bearable when the lead has some actual personality. This show embraces it’s ridiculous setting to the full and is basically going to be our main fighting off the girls while winning their hearts. It’s fun but forgettable.Might make for a nice show to tide you over between weekly releases.
Potential: 30%
Mario: Am I the only one who feel uneasy about the boys being bullied to the point they have to wear makeup and act like girls? I know the show doesn’t take that seriously but that exactly how bully works. This show offers a lengthy but exciting combat, where I can get behind all those techniques but everything else just falls flat. It has all the cliché, well-worn plot convenience with its incredibly ridiculous and straight-forward premise. The other girls are generic (but I love their swords’ choice) and for the love of God bear even makes an entrance here. This show is a dumb fun show so It’s hard to fault a series when they embrace themselves completely to its ridiculousness; and I do have a bit of entertainment watching those fights and how they execute its stupid, bizarre ideas. But at the end of the day, this show is one of the glaring examples of poorly-written shows with lazy execution and lack of identity that sadly plagued the current trend of anime industry.
Potential: 20%
SAGRADA RESET
Short Synopsis: A boy who can remember everything and a girl who can reset time work together to solve people’s problems.
Now here’s a great idea killed by execution. The overall plot seems interesting enough but there is something inherently wrong with the dialogue of this show. First, no one emotes. At all. Everyone talks in a deadpan monotone with stone faced disposition without exception.Second, conversation is really disjointed. Characters can jump to weird topics without really any warning and nobody talks like an actual person. For example we have a girl who is getting these two to team up for what looks like to be ulterior motives. She says they should all hang out together and when asked for a reason she says they should pretend one of them is a android and they need to figure it out which one of them is the android by the end of the summer. Considering how I don’t think any of them blinked throughout the entire episode I would say they are all androids. It’s just really jarring how this conversation moves to that and it’s present throughout the episode. Lastly, the dialogue doesn’t make it clear what exactly is going on. When the girl is explaining her ability of saving and resetting, it’s just really unclear as to how it works and honestly I have the question that if she never remembers resetting then how does she know these rules in the first place? And suddenly they are bringing back her memories from when she was five years old for some reason that was never specified. I feel there is something interesting here but the way it’s presented just kills any intrigue and renders it remarkably dull. I think maybe if the characters get more developed and the story kicks into gear it might become something. But as it is now it’s just not a interesting show to watch.
Potential: 50%
Mario: One of the main problem of Sagrada Reset is it’s trying too hard. They want to squeeze the most out of its premise about special abilities and rewriting the past, and out of the main characters’ own philosophies, so they end up making characters having big talks that bother on too much exposition and pretentious. They want to squeeze in too many ideas that the end results are inconsistent and emotional distant. Then I don’t feel the song right at the beginning fits the show, and characters motivations are all over the table (remember that android talk?). But I can’t deny this show is one of the most ambiguous show so far this season, and many of its themes have real meats. I agree that the notion of using the girl’s ability to reset in combination with the guy who can remember the past feel like an exploitation towards the girl. The main theme of fixing the past is touched in this episode, but surprisingly leave no emotions involved. Sagrada Reset is a hard case to crack. On one hand, it explains too much of its concepts to the point of incomprehension, and leave out any emotional attachment it should’ve transferred across in the process, but on the other hand, it never fails to be intriguing. This show has potential to become great, but can they manage to reach that potential? Let wait and see.
Potential: 60%
“Am I the only one who feel uneasy about the boys being bullied to the point they have to wear makeup and act like girls?”
Disregarding the weak setup, the explanation seem to be that a lot of those boys were trouble makers from reformatories or expelled from other schools which in turn apparently seemed to be bothering the girls (which may also say why all of them carry a stun stick). I don’t think the show will do much with that but I suppose the intend is to remark a gender power dynamic, which to be fair for the most part comics and manga can be more icky than clever with putting women with submissive men.