nmuller - 2015-01-07 02:18:10

Only good thing from this show was the Ending theme song from Nano. otherwise, i would've forgotten i watched this!

rhianna.willms - 2014-12-10 06:17:57

Magical Warfare.. Oh dear. I suppose if I had to open up this review/rant with anything it would be that Magical Warfare is not a good show. I want to keep this short so for that reason i'll just spout what I thought of it with no transitions in-between because who can be fucked really..

The premise of this show is as generic as they come. Normal guy enjoying his normal life finds a cute girl who happens to be from another world If you can even call it that, Its basically just earth but with magic so its Fate pretty much but you know, Without the characters and writing to compensate. Anyway dude gets transported to magical realm where he is training to be a magician complete with love triangle and stereotypical main guys friend. Our protagonist is as bland as they come, Nothing about this guy was memorable even down to his character design. His female friend who is meant to be tsundere just went a little to far into bitch territory so she's unlikeable. His best friend is bland, The principle of the school is just your typical Moe badass just minus the badass factor since she gets her kicked every damn fight. The antagonist is easily the worst character in the show because his reasoning for hating the protagonist are so bloody stupid their laughably bad, He was a whiny brat through and through. The only character I liked was the other female lead Mui but it wasn't because she was a good character or anything like that she was just cute. Also every damn character in this show seemed to have a sibling complex so take that how you will..

Thankfully this show is saved if only slightly by Studio Madhouse who thanks to them at least made it watchable. Animation was good as always the fight scenes though short lived were decently animated and the OST was pretty sweet as well. Opening grew on me the more I listened to it and the ending is one of my favourite in anime. Simply put the Magical Warfare source material sucks but the adaption is okay. For that reason I wanted to say this show is just mediocre but i've always been admit in that good characters and story and more important then the show having a good budget so for that reason Magical Warfare is a bad anime, At least to someone who has seen their fair share of series to compare it to.

I would actually recommend this to someone new to anime since if they don't have much to compare it to they may actually enjoy it if it weren't for the ending of the show which is easily one of the worst endings i've seen in anime. Basically they drop a decently sized bombshell which admittedly made me interested, I wanted them to elaborate more on it and I was genuinely interested in where they were going to take the sto- Oh wait the show is over.... Fabulous. Giant plot twist.. No closure what so ever.. And very little hope of a sequel.

Magical Warfare sucks ass four out of ten. Unless you're a masochist, Don't watch this shit..

http://i1.wp.com/organizationasg.kokidokom.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/MWEP2Pic_2.png

marquis49 - 2014-08-24 18:48:24

It was going smoothly until it all go's down hill and they start smashing like 20 episodes in 1-2 eps so nothing makes sense at all. And that ending tho like wtf not even gonna try to explain something that  bad and confusing wasted my time.

heloise64 - 2014-07-29 20:28:47

This was the most amazing experience ever... for the first 2 episodes. The rest was total s***. No exaggeration here.

Story

I don't want to go here but I have to, so you know what you're getting into. You must be here and saying "It can't be that bad." Well I'm here to tell you that, yes, yes it can. I will admit, if the quality from the beginning was still in existence, it would've been amazing, but the rest is zero effort, M. Night Shyamalan quality, rule bending, episode compressing piece of s***.

Animation

I'll make this quick, the animation was good. At least the s*** story looked pretty cool during execution. It distracted me from the plot holes until they broke a world record in their monstrosities in size. 

Sound

I really liked this soundtrack. Had a awesome opening and worked with the animation to distract my eyes until much too late.

Characters

The character's all stay the same, except for Gekkou, who improves his luckiness, recklessness, power, instability and madness, at the same time, while Takeshi just gets more inclined to do things himself.

Enjoyment

I liked this anime for a time, until I recognized it for the spawn of Satan and hate that it was.

Overall

I don't recommend this as an anime for enjoyment, but for all of the future animation artists out there, I highly recommend watching this as a reference for what not to do. 

EDIT 8/28/14: I added categories, so you guys know why this show is horrible. 

keegan14 - 2014-07-09 07:15:34

Quick way to sum up how I feel about the potential that this show had, and how it took that potential and took a shit all over it.
>:((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((

dkassulke - 2014-04-09 21:50:30

For me, the first episode of Mahou Sensou was enjoyable......

The second episode acceptable....

The rest, barely watchable...

Mahou Sensou is an anime that should have been a 24-26 episode anime...It would have benefited if they did not shove several volumes worth of content in twelve episodes...

albertha.dooley - 2014-04-08 22:25:15

This is what Bleach could have been in twelve episodes. Except for the part where it's bad. I said that the first week I watched this back in January. At first I enjoyed this anime. I'm a mahou junkie. I LOVE mahou as well as mahou shojo, but no, not this.

At first, I thought this anime was going to be cool, a lot of fun and actually worth watching. It was, admittingly, until halfway through. When the brother got into the story, it just got so much worse. Not to mention, after episode six, seven, eight or nine, it just got terrible. I was a fool to think it was good, and I got sucked into it.

The thing that annoyed me the most was that everyone got magic in the first episode. That was annoying and very Bleach like. I mean, in Bleach, all his friends got powers. Same thing in this. Except that Bleach is 366 episodes, this is 12. I'll repeat myself.

This is what Bleach could have been in twelve episodes. Except for the part where it's bad.

And what the hell was with that ending? Let me tell you, there was none. That's a pitiful excuse for an ending.

This anime had all this hype. All down the drain. Because of this anime, I've lost faith in the next magic academy anime that just came out named Mahouka or something. This is just as bad as Pupa, Mahou Sensou.

Maybe if the ending wasn't so bad, the anime could have been better.

All that hype for nothing, to be honest, all down the drain.

christian62 - 2014-04-01 08:41:23

Well..although out this I was wondering what the hell was going on and by the end I simple became acceptance. Hopefully the light novel will fill me in on what I'm missing but the anime not only portrayed the story poorly but it felt veary choppy.

qmorar - 2014-03-28 07:33:02

Wow... I don't even know where to begin after watching that ending...

So yeah... Magical Warfare. The story of a group of friends who get involved in a magical conflict in a parallel world and train to become magicians. I'll say right off the bat what the biggest problem is: The story and characters are not unique or interesting. It feel like a hundred other light novel adaptations and very little stands out. I started getting suspicious when the author publicly stated he felt his work didn't deserve an anime...

Wait what? What writer on this planet wouldn't love the chance to see an anime adaptation of their work? I know I sure as hell would. Well it seems to me that this is an author who decided to start writing a series of magic-based light novels because they are trendy and sell well. It flew under the radar for some time but when the anime starting airing, he started acting defensively to cover his own ass in the face of criticism.

Even most bad shows have some kind of creative spark to them. Or some kind of feeling that someone, somewhere wrote it with the best of intentions. Magical Warfare... really doesn't have that. It feels kind of soulless. It feels generic and cookie-cutter, like it was made by some otaku-pandering supercomputer rather than a human being. And the author's statements don't exactly build confidence either.

The characters are all stock archetypes. The bland hero, his platonic not-girlfriend, the girl we all know he'll get with in the end, and his happy-go-lucky boisterous best friend. This is literally the most generic and simple main cast I've ever seen, and they have about as much chemistry as four different brands of soda sitting on a counter. If that analogy makes no sense, I apologize... I'm still utterly baffled by the ending...

So why is it only below-average for me? Because there are some salvageable ideas here. I like some of the moral ambiguity going on, the villains have some legitimate reasoning and grievances despite how they're usually portrayed. The main "good guy" organization isn't as squeaky-clean as they first appear and even the heroes act selfishly at times. Not much ends up coming out of any of that, but it does add some realism to the show.

I like some of the ways the magic works, even if the rules are kind of inconsistent. I actually found myself liking Gekkou as a villain despite how ridiculous he is. (I think his personal vendetta and petty villainy has a certain charm to it. Not saying it's good, but I found it fun to watch).

The animation was done by MADHOUSE, and it's pretty good most of the time but can slip up too. It's actually a bit disappointing coming from such a high-tier studio, but I guess they're pouring all their money into Hunter x Hunter, so it can be forgiven. The music is alright, especially the ED, which is awesome.

So yeah... the ending. Or should I say lack thereof?

It pulls out a bunch of plot twists at once and resolves nothing. It doesn't feel like a series finale or even a season finale, it just feels like another episode. But apparently, this is all we're getting so... what the fuck? Like, what the fuck just happened? Are they doing a second season? Is it a blatant "buy the light novels to find out what happens!" ending? Were the creators high on paint fumes and nutmeg? What the flying fuck was that ending about!?

I can't recommend it in this blatantly unfinished form. Wait for a possible second season announcement before even attempting to watch this show and even then only when you're bored enough to accept something so sub-par.

Rewatch Value: No (Based on a Yes/Maybe/No scale)

kailey.stokes - 2014-02-21 22:43:41

Some shows are great, some are good, some are bad, some are terrible. Magical Warfare is neither. Instead it is just plain old generic and bland.

Mr generic protagonist, AKA "Just an ordinary high schooler", discovers his has become a wizard and he and his friend join a school of magic where they fight evil wizards who want the world for themselves and want to kill all the muggles.

Basically its Harry Potter but less charming, witty, British and well... good. If you're looking for depth, this is rather shallow. The character are quite bland and generic who's names are difficult to remember, much like their personalities. As a result, they're very forgettable and difficult to care about. The first 5 episodes were also spent on the obligatory love triangle between the main character and the two female protagonists, even though its blindingly obvious who it will be (just as a clue, chances are that it will be the girl at the front of the poster and the girl who gets the most screen time). A bit like a soap opera.

See what I did there, anyone? No? Well OK then...

There isn't much to talk about when it comes to the animation apart from the fact that I often ask myself the question "Where are their noses?". The soundtrack itself is rather bland and only one song manages to catch your attention, and that is the ending song. Nano's "Born to be" is genuinely worth listening too, but it's better to just buy it off of iTunes.

In short, this Anime isn't bad. However it doesn't excel at anything, or stand out really. This causes Magical Warfare to suffer to become just time killer if you're procrastinating at best.

I wouldn't recommend this show to anyone really as frankly you'd instead be better off re watching a series you've already seen.