magikano 7 and primer
Categories: anime, episodic review, magikano, meido
Tagged: magikano
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Anytime an anime episode features two meido trying to seduce a poor sap and gohobis are involved, I must blog about it. It’s that simple.
Sadly, that pretty much sums it up. A mysterious intruder takes over Yoshikawa’s household, and the sisters are no match against the intruder. It turns out that the intruder was Ayumi’s meido, Rika, back in the magical world, and now she has been sent to take care of Haruo. The two, of course, take to extremes to win his affections. While Ayumi has a very transparent reason for doing so, Rika is a bit more of an enigma. All round, good fun episode… it kinda makes me sad that they’re trying to force a plot into this show.
Magikano has been a guilty pleasure, but since others have been coming out of the closest, I might as well come clean as well. It has the right level of comedy, fanservice, and general craziness for a harem series. It doesn’t break any new ground in the harem genre, but it does everything well. If Magikano were a dungeon crawl, it wouldn’t be Diablo II, but it would be a solid Dungeon Siege.
Using my Harem Genre Primer as a reference:
The “Hero”: Haruo. I use hero loosely as it seems like he’s pretty useless. I’m not sure what he does well, yet all the girls fawn over him, which normally doesn’t bother me… except this guy is completely useless! Mesousa is slightly more useful than him. Yet, he seems to have latent magical powers (a la Maburaho) and the heroine thinks that if she can make him a man, these powers will come to fruitation.
The Heroine: Ayumi. A lot to like– she’s slightly (okay maybe more than slightly) evil, slightly unstable, a meido, a witch, and a lot of her plans involve either stripping or stripping other girls. I wholeheartedly approve. Great character, and I especially like her evil side (when she gets angry, reminds me of Dizzy for some odd reason). A bit impulsive… pretty much a horny anti-Belldandy.
The Gimmick: Ayumi will lose her powers unless she sleeps with Haruo. Or something like that. I’m not sure. All I know is that she ends up becoming his meido in an attempt to save her powers. The gimmick is incredibly weak, and witches from another magical world has been done so many times before (Girls Bravo; Okusama wa Mahou Shoujo). But I don’t exactly watch harem comedies for plot.
The Harem/Onii-chama: Unfortunately, in Ayumi’s way are Haruo’s three sisters, who are also witches. Of course, Haruo looks nothing like them making me suspect something is afoot. Two are relatively harmless, as they can be bribed with food and cash. The oldest, Maika, has a major onii-sama complex, and actively battles to keep the other wicked women away from her beloved onii-sama. She’s absolutely hilarious.
The Harem/Student Council President: Yuri secretly likes Haruo, and they have this awkward Kagemori/Tsubaki thing going. Only she’s a witch, and he’s the opposite of a reliable ninja. Her hair changes colors when she goes into battle witch mode.
The Harem/Sempai: Nijihara is a priestess (?) / witch hunter, kinda like Ciel. Only she believes that Haruo was sent from the heavens; poor, confused child. Carries around the Longinus spear that she stole from Eva 02. She doesn’t like Ayumi and the other witches, but she cooperates with them to keep Haruo out of harm’s way.
While some parts of the show are beyond ridiculous (like the panty-eyedropper test for witches), the interaction between all the characters provide good level of humor. My favorite parts have been when Ayumi and Maika start getting ballastic towards each other, and their antics always lead to hiliarious disaster for Haruo. There is a developing plot based on Ayumi’s problem, and there’s definitely pieces coming into play, but that’s not really the strong suit of the show. Magikano is definitely a guilty pleasure, but it’s a good guilty pleasure.
6 Responses to “magikano 7 and primer”
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You forgot the big reason people (like me) watch this show – the ‘plot’ only serves to explain why Ayumi does all the outrageous things she does… and they never get into the messy, angsty details about what will happen if she doesn’t get Haruo to ‘become a man’ – although they’re starting to hint at it by introducing Ayumi’s younger (and more evil) sister Miteru. The reason I watch this is because the character interactions are hilarious – Ayumi’s scheming is of the ‘evil villain’ type; or, to put it more bluntly, full of holes and lacking contingencies for dealing with interference… which will always happen due to Ayumi’s incredibly developed protective/obsessive complex towards Haruo.
Which, of course, doesn’t prevent her from hammering him into oblivion the moment he starts suspecting there’s anything odd about the world (like witches). :D They’re all unashamed cliches of various character types in harem shows…. and the way they all get along around Haruo is what makes the show worth watching by itself.
It’s not high art… but it’s not Otome or Gundam SEED Destiny by a long shot. It’s one of the more enjoyable shows this season.. which says something about the season as much as the show.
One thing to note – Rika’s arrive in Ep 7 is supposedly to ‘support Ayumi’ in her quest to awaken Haruo, either to bring out his latent magical talents… or to help suppress/control the others in the household, but it’s never explicitly stated. Miteru does believe that Rika’s presence means that Haruo may realize his magical abilities… which may break Ayumi’s curse… but Ayumi herself is suspicious (and probably with good reason) about Rika’s presence and what that means her family’s up to.
Hongou-sensei’s the mystery figure here – she appears in almost every episode, and seems to know what’s going on… and facilitates it, for that matter (Ayumi’s and Merin’s transfers). She’s probably manipulating things in the background.. but since I’ve yet to get a good start in the manga, I can’t even say what it is.
But it’s not often I see a harem done this well, especially since not everyone in the house is after Haruo (who seems to drop in IQ with each hammering he gets), for once.
Magikano is very well crafted for an anime. Perhaps not in the plot, but the interaction betweens the characters and the comedy is very well done.
And I totally agree with it been likened to Dungeon Siege instead of Diablo 2. Lol.
Man, I love this show and Kage Kara Mamoru (both of which are great examples of harem comedies that are done correctly). Copious amounts of comedy mixed with just enough plot to not be completely random. Plus, it knows what it’s shtick is and it doesn’t try to get out of it. I wish more shows would try to be more like Magikano (solid examples of their genre) rather than trying (and usually failing miserably) to innovate.
It’s not that it doesn’t try to stay WITHIN its schtick, so much as it knows what it does well (harem comedy) and focuses on that, with a few twists to keep things interesting…. such as Rika and Miteru being (very unlikely) to be interested in the hero, so they interfere with those who ARE interested in him. Plus, they focus on the character interactions… which, in a comedy, is king – the situations are the setup, but the reactions and interactions are the meat of the show.
By Jove I am not alone, it feels so good to come out. No one should ever be ashamed of what they watch. I have no idea what’s more unsettling that given my prudish nature that I actually find this funny or that I understand your Diablo II and Dungeon Siege comparison.