patsy.predovic - 2014-08-18 17:34:33

Warning, there are constant spoilers in this review, some minor and some major. Viewer discretion is advised.

Ok, I'm just going to say this right now to get it out of the way: I really despise this anime. With a burning passion. I've never felt so violated and depressed after seeing an anime since Madoka Magica Rebellion. This probably isn't even the worst magical girl anime I've ever seen, far from it, but no show I've seen had made me this... frustrated before. Those 4 or 3 hours... I'll probably never get back :(

One of the only good things about this is its obscurity, trust me, its lack of reputation is well deserved. And I do mean that by the way...

Anyways, why is this anime one that should not be seen by anyone or even EXIST for that matter? Well let's find out...

Story: On the last day of the school year, 14 year-old Ichika Tachibana comes across an old, busted mirror in an unused campus building. When Manatsu, a mysterious girl from inside the mirror, steps out and offers her friendship for the summer, she also offers Ichika magical powers. Now, Manatsu must help Ichika unlock the powers of the 12 Djinn in order to complete her magic training... but perhaps this is something that will prove too difficult a task. Some offers may appear too be good to be true and this one just may turn out to do more harm than good.

Ok, so the story doesn't sound so bad to be honest. I like the idea and the fact that there's different magical girl transformations/outfits/powers in this and this could lead to some great development and story structure if its done right. As she slowly comes to realize what's going on and (after seeing some nice magic transformations and action sequences) maybe after a test of true friendship the two can try to solve the problem or something together and then we'd get a happy ending... at least that's what I thought would happen.

Instead we got mainly a formulaic and dull four episode structure with different genres shoved in at once. The first four episodes mainly focus on the slice of life aspects and have Itsuka and Manatsu hang out with some of their friends and they show some pointless panty shots and boob shots along the way. Then some weird problem involving their friends or their own petty problem would happen like losing some papers or an item in the beach water and then after a transformation scene they would go and solve the problem and... then it ends.

After episode 5, it then turns into a crappy romance with the main character getting jealous that her tutor Sei is hanging out with the neighbor (and antagonist) Saya and thinks that maybe he's in love with her and gets depressed about it with Manatsu feeling bad about it. It's painful to sit through especially if you hate romance stories... also it goes nowhere.

This goes on for quite some time until episode 9 where the show turns into an actual drama and tragedy. Itsuka soon later finds out about what's going on about the djinn powers as it slowly possesses her and forces her to transform without her noticing and even attempts to kill innocents against her will. Itsuka gets depressed and swears to never use the powers again and even tries to kill herself in the process when she finds that she cannot get rid of the charm [with no success].

There is a reason she still has that charm though, she was giving it from her tutor as a little trinket and vowed to treasure it, but when she accidentally(?) broke it, she now has to unleash the powers of the djinn in order to get it fixed (he said he doesn't care what she does with it so why not get rid of it earlier or just... tell him about it? Heck, why didn't Sei warn her about it since he had been through a painful experience six years ago and wouldn't want someone dear to him to suffer the same reason?). Itsuka eventually decides that she wants to get to the bottom of this once and for all... that would a very interesting plot point especially since you kind of want to know how it will all come together... we'll get to that later though... let's move on to something else.

Animation: The animation for the characters is pretty standard, its not bad but its not so great either. The movements are fluid in the 'fantasy' aspects but that's it really. The character designs are very outdated, the main two characters look cute, but everyone looks really odd and it hasn't aged well in time sadly. The eyes are ok, the hair is stock and generic, and the mouth and bodies are... eh. creepy. The background design and animation is uninspired and choppy.

Sound: The sound is one of the only good things in this, the voice acting isn't that bad, its not great but its pretty decent. The ED song is pretty sad and nice to listen to, it would be one of my favorites if not for the fact that there's this annoying sound that shows up in the song which is in modern pop songs now and its so annoying. The OP is a generic J-pop song and is surprisingly unfittingly happy-go-lucky since this anime is supposed to be a depressed deconstruction on magical girl anime, kind of like Madoka Magica, and this is one of the first ones to do so, except its wrong due to the stuff above and how the story structure is so dang poor.

Characters: Maybe if the characters were good, then maybe I wouldn't overlook this and stuff... sadly that ain't the case. These characters have next to no personality and chances are you will probably not care for any of them. The main characters are mainly characterized as someone you'd sympathize and feel sorry for, but there's a difference between sympathizing and emphasizing (someone you could relate to). I like how they at least try to develop Itsuka and Sei from being devoid of any character but after the abysmal ending it seems that they really didn't learn much and are then back to square one and it kind of makes it worse in the end (if you saw the show then you'd know what I meant). The side characters are not better and are horribly bland (Itsuka's friends), horribly annoying (The ex- childhood love interest), or are just plain horrible (Saya).

Enjoyment: Speaking of horrible, the worst part about this anime and made me hate this was the ending.

Ya see, after using the djinn powers, you are to be crucified and be given a choice: to either destroy the world or yourself. If you choose neither, you die anyway. If you choose one of the options, you still die. Itsuka and Sei kill themselves in order to break the cycle of torture and save the others... but Manatsu and Kai (Sei's mirror counterpart) don't want that and kill themselves in order to bring the two back to life. They turn into mirror shards and then everything is back to normal right? Wrong... the bad guy Saya talks to her boss and says that the experiment was a failure and they decide to move on to another girl to test it out on without the others knowing. Yep, that is how it ends. The cycle will continue on, more young kids will suffer for it and might kill themselves, and the world may possibly be destroyed without anyone giving a care in the world. Also the bad guys apparently win and suffer no consequence. We don't even know why they do what they do.

Um, HELLO? That's a terrible ending! And you might think that 'oh just read the light novel or manga or something' I did and guess what? IT HAS THE SAME ENDING TOO! Its also apparently a happy ending! BULL! Almost nothing in this is explained, the fan service is pointless, the characters are bland, the ending is one of the WORST I've ever seen in an anime, and it just wasn't worth sitting through all of that sadness to get through...

The only thing I liked were the slice of life aspects even though they were pointless and weak, I still thought it was kind of tolerable and enjoyable enough... but its overshadowed by everything else in this miserable excuse of an anime.

Overall: Word of advice, if you do happen to come across it, then I advise you to STAY AWAY FROM IT! You will not like this anime, at all :c

Thanks for reading my 57th review and... screw. this. ANIME!