31.5.08

Rental Magica

An excellent series that is fitting for a variety of genre, whether you're interested in fantasy, magic, or action. Indeed, this not-well-renowned series is given less credit than what it deserves, similar to other series I've mentioned before, like Yume Tsukai. The series has an extraordinary amount of depth and detail in it, so much that it may get confusing at first, trying to read all the subtitles and translator notes during the first few episodes of the series. But the series is not all detail, and there are some pretty heated battle scenes for those who just don't care and want to see fighting and action going on. I probably can't say it's one of the best in fantasy/action/romance/comedy/whatever genre, but it certainly has a little of all and best of all, it makes sense. The series combines a whole plethora of different forms of magic, ranging from the western traditional magics to the eastern shrine type rituals. I could almost say that it's just a very well constructed anime combining Harry Potter, Touhou, Code Geass, Pokemon, a random ghost and a random Ofuda (paper magic) user together... but that sounds rather terrible, the series is actually much better than a collection of those things put all together.
The artwork is quite nice and comfortable. It's not rediculously moe as some of the series I've watched but its also cute enough to be attracted to the characters and not deem the fanservice as "unneeded" (not that fanservice is needed, but it's not annoying at the very least). There is also a good amount of male characters so that the series won't be completely directed as a harem type series, a good method to introduce female watchers since many girls automatically reject harem anime no matter how good it may be (for a reasonable excuse, its not deemed "harem" for no reason). Regardless of the character content, the story is very nice and in depth therefore anyone who's always criticized shows for their plot and detail would like this series quite a bit, I think.

The ending song is very catchy, and the chorus part of the opening song is pretty cool too.
In terms of the negatives, well, for the first portions of the series the series goes out of order, which is always a nuisance to me. After watch Touka Gettan where the ENTIRE SERIES was backwards I was no longer appreciative of WHATEVER reason a series would go out of order, whether it's symbolic or just because the creators thought it would be funny. However the latter half had the series finally going in chronological order and that was much more enjoyable. Also, there is one scene that they continously flash back to, which is understandable since its part of the story but after flashing back to the scene 4 times it gets old and annoying and makes it feel like a waste of time. :( Come on we want to watching fighting magicians in action, not the same childhood memory 4 times!!

But yes despite that Rental Magica is a good series, would highly recommend watching it.

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