Magic-kyun Renaissance – Ridiculously Magical!

• Genre : Reverse Harem, Supernatural
• Episodes: 13
• Studio: Sunrise

 

After her mother’s death, Kohana strives to follow in her footsteps and become a first-class magical flower arranger (yup). To her great joy, she is accepted into the same magical artes (not a typo) school that her mother attended and can finally set about making her dream come true. First on the agenda, planning the school summer festival (of course) with an assortment of dreamy artsy boys (sounds legit). Did I mention her new school uniforms are just straight up anime prince cosplay? And sparkles, so many sparkles.

My very first thought when watching this show was: Did I somehow sleep write this? My second was: Maybe I should change the name of my blog to “I watch bad anime so you don’t have to”… or the more honest “I enjoy bad anime, please help me”. My third, and arguably only relevant, thought was: This is an otome right? Wiki said – uh huh, totally an otome.

For this being nothing more than a commercial tie-in, the animation and art were both surprisingly good. I have not played the game but from the little I saw the visuals seem to be very faithful to the otome and remain fairly detailed and consistent throughout. The animation is decent and does not resort to stills or chibis and the backgrounds and settings are absolutely beautiful. I particularly enjoyed the **council house**. The designs are in line with the genre but the ridiculously intricate uniforms were a particular source of glee. Also – I really liked Monet’s (yup) hoodie and I wish I had one just like it. The only sore spot in the otherwise surprisingly impressive production values, was the voice acting which was generally wooden or just lacking in depth.

Like I said this show screams otome from the very first frame. Even the bubbly opening theme somehow belongs in a dating sim. I’m not sure how faithfully the plot was adapted to the anime but it seems there was some dearth of content because almost every episode includes a non plot specific music video which can only be described as absolute gems of modern anime arts. These videos not only had me glued to the TV but inspired me to come up with such terms as: kitchtastic and sappyrific! My life needs more of those amvs – the World needs more!

The show follows much the same structure as a lot of VN adaptations, the first episode establishes the setting – and can we just take a minute to appreciate that this is not only a super exclusive art school that does not seem to have any classes and only one professor, but also magic, and the magic is limited to the creation of “sparkles”, which seem unrelated to the actual quality of the work! i ran out of breath typing that. It’s brain hemorrhagingly stupid fun. Most of the meat of the show introduces us to the supporting characters, each getting one or two dedicated episodes and the finale purposefully tells us that they all lived just rapturously happy ever after! Honestly, I’m having a real tough time not ending every single sentence with an exclamation point!

Likewise, the characters are your boiler-plate of assorted otome pretty boys with sensitive sides. Of all the games I’ve played, this reminded me most of Tokimeki girl’s side. The only archetype missing was the sweet and reliable megane senpai and the jerky borderline abuser (and I’m thankful for the omission of the latter). Our heroine Kohana, being an otome heroine, can be completely summed up as pretty and nice. Since she’s supposed to be an empty vessel into which the player can insert their own personality and have some degree of vicariousness, she was never meant to be a fully established independent character. This may work reasonably well in games but doesn’t translate all that well into anime. The actual plot is completely irrelevant, it’s probably more or less exactly what you’re picturing right now.

The show may be a few episodes too long. The main storyline essentially wraps up in episode 9, when they have their prom or whatever,  without too much trouble I may add, and then we are left with 4 episodes, two being very clearly filler and 2 being a weird dramatic twist right at the end. The shift is very clumsy and completely out of left field but I did appreciate that they made the climax of the series about Kohana and her hang ups rather than the usual go take care of some emo boy and tell him he’s perfect the way he is or sumefin. I also liked that episode 13 was in fact a sneaky clip show. It was well done and a good way to stretch resources and pad runtime.

Pretty much all the notes I took while watching this, end in: so stupid – I like it! If you happen to be lactose intolerant, I would stay away from this show as it 100% cheese. Actually no, it’s super sugary cheesecake covered in whipped cream and edible sparkles… It did make me want to play the game too (I couldn’t find an English patch – I looked…a lot). I think my favorite routes would be Rintaro (loves me a deredere) or possibly Todo but I’m afraid he had a thing with Kohana’s mom so that would be creepy…

Favorite character: Todo Sensei

What this anime taught me: There is no way to make a serious sounding sentence which includes the word “sparkles” in any language.

If your drinking to forget than please pay us in advance

Suggested drink: French Sparkle

• Every time Kohana mentions that the sparkles are lovely – enjoy your drink
• Every time Kohana’s mom is shown – enjoy your drink
• Every time Ichijoji sings – enjoy your drink
• Every time Aoi smiles – cheer
• Every time Anjo says “Little Flower” – enjoy your drink
• Every time Hibiki is super optimistic – enjoy your drink
• Every time Aoi sits like L – enjoy your drink
• Every time Rintaro feeds Monet – have a snack
• Every time Kohana plays secretary – roll your eyes
• Every time someone has a ridiculous dilemma – deeply enjoy your drink 
• Every time Hibiki says senpai – enjoy some water
• Every time Hibiki redresses Anjo – boo