cassin.dillon - 2014-05-26 22:55:28

Wizard Barristers: Benmashi Cecil is about the inner workings of a court system based in a fantasy world. It SUBTLY (har har) draws parallels between the racism minority groups face in the real world and the discrimination Wizards face in the show's universe. This metaphor might make more sense if minorities in our world had super powers but if that were the case nobody would have the balls to ask those people to sit at the back of the bus. The basic premise of Wizard Barristers is flawed so one can imagine how the rest of it fares.

Our protagonist Cecil becomes the youngest defense lawyer for wizards to ever pass the bar exam. It beats the hell out of me as to how she passed it considering she couldn't recognize a pattern if she was at a flannel convention. Her motive for becoming a Barrister is actually very compelling and is apparently the over arching plot of the show since it doesn't get resolved in season 1. In it's place, a very poorly built plot-line with an anticlimactic ending gets the spotlight instead.

I won't spoil things but it involves the summoning of Lucifer, yes that Lucifer. Which sounds fucking cool but the brass at Arms doesn't think so. WB commits to this ending and then immediately down plays its significance. The viewer is promised the rapture but instead receives the satisfactory equivalent of a confetti popper.

The sound work for WB isn't very noticeable so on one hand it can't be that aberrant but on the other hand a show's score should leave some kind of impact on the viewer. A good soundtrack builds with the intensity of a climactic scene whilst up playing the drama of an emotional one. The score for WB only exists to fill dead audio between painfully vapid dialogue breaks.

The only reason I watched this is because of its gorgeous preview. I only found out after I started watching that WB is from Studio Arms. It's at this point that I knew the budget was going to get stretched thinner than a peasant on the rack (I'm topical). The animation drops from gorgeous to decent by episode 3 barring a few insanely impressive mech fights. Then episode 11 happens. This one episode has more reused animation than the entirety of Fist of The North Star which ran for far more episodes and came out in 1983. Nothing is more appalling when it comes to animation than reusing it. I'd of preferred magic marker character models and white back grounds like the final episode of Evangelion used.

The staff at Arms seem to think that a character is a collection of quirky mannerisms or a blanket stereotype. Like how one character eats rice with ketchup and whipped cream or how another character is old and acts old. You now you understand those characters as well as anyone whose watched the show. Those things aren't substantial enough to warrant a whole character but that's about all I could tell you about them. 

There is one side character that works with our protagonist who exchanges sexual favors for case breaking info. This could of been an interesting ethical issue for the show to examine but instead her coworkers have no objections. The reason being is that to the writers at Arms it's completely expected for a female, even a working professional, to use sex as her main recourse to accomplish something. To these writers a female lawyer is the same as the house wife in a porno who can't afford to tip the pizza boy. I guess that's the mind set brought to the table after starting as a hentai producer. The silver lining here is that at least no blush educing tentacles are present (I'm looking at you Sword Art Online)

This show does no one thing well enough for me to recommend it to anyone. It manages to avoid scoring lower for not tackling the subject of racism with the same incompetence it uses to tackle character building and animation.