Mahou Sensou

What does everyone thinks about this show?

For me, it could slow down a little, but aside from that I find it rather interesting.

It's not the most original premise ever. I didn't hate the characters and the plot seemed interesting. The first episode was just setup/info dump, so its hard to say a whole lot.

The only thing that bugged me was If just being near magic at a young age is all that is needed to turn people into mages....why hasn't anyone taken advantage of this? Just seemed like there should be alot more of them around.

All things considered, things could have gone much worse. Had there more people in the school, or had people from outside heard the commotion, half of the teenagers in the city could have been turned into magicians before the end of the day.

It seemed boring, and I was thinking of dropping it, but then once everyone started getting magic at once it suddenly became "entertainingly stupid".

I'll be honest, the first episode did not get a lot of love from me. I hardly find the premise interesting and the messy execution makes it even less palatable. If I had access to the script I'd maul it something fierce.

kiukiuclk also brings up a good question, and that's just one of several questions I have about the show, which I hope will get answered. (Except for "how did the shinai last against the metal sword" because that was just dumb)

That said, the protagonists are okay. The lead guy even has family problems and a girlfriend(!), and I suppose you can call him competent (though I'd say it's more that the mages that attacked them were incompetent. Worst villains I've seen all week).

I never thought I'd say this, but the girlfriend getting a magical bust upgrade was the best part of the episode, purely because of how out-of-place funny it was.

edited 14th Jan '14 6:04:50 PM by fillerdude

Second episode is out:

Exposition time! The back story is fairly interesting and damn, those are some hax spells right there.

We also learn about Aspects and true to form Takeshi gets a really powerful one.

I find myself enjoying Mui character. She's such a nice polite girl.

Nice example for "corporal" magic.

Miu's reaction when they went to get the aspect was great.

I guessing the lady in the ending is the owner of the sword?

edited 16th Jan '14 3:09:40 PM by kiukiuclk

Yeah, I though so too.

Also, I have to question the point of getting in a car if you are going to teleport anyway.

Just... Too much exposition.

Doubtful. She seemed to still be a magician.

Here's a hint, though. The war was one year before the protagonists were born. In short, they were born the following year. The protagonist shares his passion for kendo and magic type with the owner. The love interest, who had spent her entire life in the magic world, thought his mother looked familiar. The anime is based on a light novel.

Clearly, the sword wielder is an unrelated civilian living peacefully abroad.

Nooo... Yhis actually makes sense.

Episode 2. In which they join the school.

Yeah, they're so much a couple you barely notice it.

Seems kind of odd to send students away on an errand in the middle of class. That can't be handled after? I mean, I don't think it's absolutely vital that he has an aspect during class, to the point where it would be useless otherwise.

It was kinda cute when she accidentally got hit with the sword.

Louise would fit right in that class.

Yeah, that's kind of the first I thought. But I'm going to refrain from reading too much into it.

Episode 2:

• Delicious exposition!
• The classifications of magic are unique, I think.
• Academy of Adventure? Check.
• Naming their Aspects... I wonder if doing that also makes them stronger?
• So Takeshi's Aspect's a Legendary gunblade. Cool. Also, the former wielder's still alive, but a human. I wonder if she'll appear...
• Since they teleported, was the car necessary?

They needed to do the cliché of something appearing like normal, but behaving like not normal. However much or little sense it makes.

Episode 2: Even worse than the first one. The headmistress actually asks Mui to recite the classifications of magic at one point. Just... horrendous exposition. And generally bad writing. I'll stop there.

Random thoughts:

• Poor girlfriend. She might as well not be a girlfriend.
• The previous wielder of Twilight is the protagonist's mom, isn't it? I would consider it a wham moment if this was not the case.
• Is it just me or is the animation sorta janky?
• I don't think the Gift spell is all that effective at getting mages duking it out in the Living World. You just have to be creative, really.
• Mui is actually kind of cute.

Less "entertainingly stupid" than last episode, but it wasn't boring.

When the author himself stated that an anime adaptation wasn't such a good idea, you know it isn't.

You know, I kinda feel bad for Isoshima. Takeshi won't even call her by her name but has no problem with being really informal with Mui. She got upstaged by a girl he knows for like a day.

x4 The manga implies that they're not actually going out, but pretending to because the girl doesn't like being asked out (She's a lot more hostile too, as best I can tell.)

Naturally, she's in love with the protagonist because of course she is. It's not like males and females can have platonic relationships or anything.

I think it's pretty obvious what the intent of Gift was. Turning magicians who attacked magicians into Muggles, but leaving magicians who attack Muggles be? In other words, the anti-human lobby can slaughter Muggles wholesale, and if the pro-human folk intervene, they're made powerless.

Sure was exposition heavy in this episode, and naturally the protagonist gets a legendary weapon nobody has, and its a sword.

Man, Takeshi is the worst boyfriend ever. He barely acknowledges Isoshima, yet he's only known Miu for less than a day and calls her by her first name already. Love Triangle abound, because those are popular.

And Gilgamesh(Yes, I'm calling him that), which means he is my favorite character.

You know, for a show ostensibly about "Magical Warfare" we get surpassingly little magical warfare. Instead we get an episode focusing on the love triangle.

You know how I said I felt sorry for Isoshima? Not any more. She's really overbearing and self obsessed. Mui is superior in every aspect.

... meanwhile at Cave Misery... Uh I mean Takeshi's home, we learn why Takeshi is conflicted with his brother... short story: His brother is a little bitch.

Thankfully, it seem next episode will finally focus on actual Magical Warfare

Okay, well, now Mui is the only character who is neither an idiot or a jerk. More specifically, I came out of this episode hating Takeshi, Isoshima and Takeshi's brother; being ambivalent to that other main character, and gaining respect for Mui.

I mean, I generally don't drop shows, and I'm low on stuff to watch this season, but I'm coming dangerously to dropping this.

Episode 3. In which Kurumi runs.

First they show a huge, tentacled monster, and then a girl trying to preserve her modesty. Are they trying to hint at something here? And none of the other flying girls seem to have a problem...

What is she wearing? And I'm really glad she didn't follow his suggestion wearing that...

"What's dorsal stretching?" I'm not sure I've heard that specific term before either, but it's kinda funny. And I normally don't like such blatant fanservice and/or focus on the issue, but it was actually pretty funny when she started imagining herself.

This is not a series that's subtle about exposition.

He's confiscating all of those. That's going to end well...

Rather unusual to tell fortunes with regular playing cards. Not that that's not where it began in the first place, though. And as for the actual fortune, I think it was rather vague, and absolutely true. There's definitely going to be problems for them, and he's going to notice a certain someone else. In other words, I thought it was a pretty lame way of avoiding any actual fortunetelling.

Actually, it did end well. Kurumi's being very reasonable and understanding. And then she went up to being awesome and teased him about it.

"Who do you like?" Now that's a very good question. Usually answered when there are one or two episodes left. If it's answered at all... Try asking him. For better or worse, an answer might be better than worrying about it. Depends on the individual, though.

I actually like Kurumi here. Mui's sort of short and cute, and that's about it, but Kurumi's actually interesting.

Isoshima is kinda awful really. She's abusing Takeshi's kindness to create a delusion that she almost started to believe and gets really angry when he want to end it. She could use a good slap to the face or maybe a therapist.

I think that's selling him short and diminishing his agency by victimising him. And it's not really unreasonable to be upset if you think someone doesn't want anything to do with you or dislike you. She's hardly deserving of a slap in the face.