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[series:4602#628] | ||||||
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(Nine episodes watched): Pretty ordinary. Another magical academy anime and not one which made me sit up and take notice. It doesn't take long to guess what the link between Ray and the Iceblade Sorceror is (they are one and the same). He meets a wide range of characters, who each have a little personality but not a lot. Nobody, including Ray, struck me as intriguing. Some are nothing but assholes who are nearly driven mad by the notion of a commoner attending the academy. Their resentment could have been expressed more subtly and realistically but it wasn't. The are just 2D bad guys. The concept of sorcery employed here was unusual in that it reminded me of computer programming in several ways, though I doubt if there are any surprises in store for us. Again, the primary test of the first episode of a new series is that it must leave us with one or more questions which we want answers to, and this show doesn't really do that. The obvious question is how Ray got admitted to the academy, but I can't really say I care all that much. He is scrupulously honest and polite, and minds his own business, but he hasn't really done anything to ingratiate himself with me. There's a little preamble showing some nasty business the Iceblade Sorceror once experienced, and I suppose it will make some sense at some point. I guess I will watch episode two to get an idea of why this trouble regarding Ray's admission is being taken. Episode two was a little better than I had expected, but my expectations had not been high. It was amusing to see Ray join several clubs and earn the respect of their members. He seems to be building a clique of friends to help with whatever he needs to do; the fact that his abilities in everything but sorcery are exemplary helps. Although he is hardly 'deep' he does (again) recall a troubling scene from his previous experiences, which is more than most reborn isekai characters do. So, I guess I will keep watching for now. Is Ray the reincarnation of the Iceblade Sorceror, or has the title been passed to him from the previous one, or what? I have a hard time making sense of the flashback scenes that tend to occur at the beginning of the first episode of isekai series, because I have no frame of reference, don't know who's who, and as a result can't discern what, if anything, is worth remembering. There's a nefarious group, called 'Eugenics' at work; they attempt to harvest the brains of sorcerors for an evil purpose. Definitely not nice, but I wish their intentions had been made more clear (or maybe I just wasn't paying enough attention). A person who had seemed trustworthy has in fact been working for them, and an attack is launched on a ceremony. Ray kicks ass. Episode five tells us a good deal about Ray's past, but I was not all that impressed. He's an orphan and has been scarred by combat, but we still don't know him very well other than that he's clearly a hero. Pretty generic, in other words. What marks a really engaging show is that we know the main characters enough to care what happens to them, and I got the impression that we will never know Ray or anyone else in this show all that well. It's basically the usual 'cool guy with a harem of hot girls around him' (each episode ends with a pinup montage of scantily clad female characters). As with most magic academy anime recently, there's a magical swordfighting competition with other schools coming up. And, this one is about as exciting as the others--whoever has trained the most and learned the most magic flattens their opponent easily (I wish somebody would make an isekai series in which ordinary people rebel against the might-makes-right culture of these videogame worlds). Ray (who is not competing) learns that a plot may be afoot to carry out a terrorist-sort of attack on the contest. Rose (the red-haired girl in Ray's harem) suffers a crisis of confidence because she's not the best of the best; as usual try harder is the answer. Nine episodes into this story I still had little idea who the main enemy was or what the main conflict would be. Basically, there were three magic academy anime this season and their plots were so generic and unremarkable that it was hard to tell them apart. Each had a main character who was some sort of reincarnation of a famous leader and thus was assuredly awesome without needing to struggle upwards. I watched this one not because it was good so much as because it was the least mediocre. But even this was the sort which, when time runs short, you are prepared to drop without ever finding out how the story ended. Last updated Thursday, April 20 2023. Created Thursday, January 12 2023. | ||||||||
