Mashle: Magic and Muscles

Those who see this work will first see the "Harry Potter" work. To that extent, the stage of this work was taken directly from the stage of "Harry Potter." Sports, hats, capes, etc. That are given out during admission! This work very kindly tells us all about the characters' past and motivations through dialogue. There is no character explanation or directing, just "Ah!" "That person is that famous so-and-so." Ah... The only thing expected from the video production is action. The main character is the setting of the main story of "One Punch Man." The main character is so strong and dull that we just get away with it. So I have no expectations at all. It is a character from the "Harry Potter" stage and "One Punch Man," but there is something really disappointing about it. The directing is just action and the dialogue is just setting up the characters. If it had been directed a little more deeply, it would have been 8 points.

At first glance, you think it's another anime where you have to defeat someone, but after watching the first episodes, you understand that it's something new.

In summary, it's about a boy who has no magical abilities, but instead he is very strong. The protagonist is not very smart (nicely expressed) and is forced to go to a magic school to become the best mage, without magic skills.

The genre is comedy, adventure and fantasy. The jokes are like in "Onepunchman". The story is not perfect and is often silly but it fits the story quite well.

I advise you to watch it if you like "Onepunchman" or "Mob psycho 100".

Everyone has their type of animes they tend to enjoy most and mashle is definitely my type. It's got a little bit of everything- silly humor, protagonist with good morals, the entourage that has every personality type, evil selfish villains, and a unique story driven by a simple but heart-felt plot. Mash has no magical abilities and yet to go back to his peaceful life with his adopted father in the woods, he needs to obtain the highest achievement of becoming a Visionary in a school of magic. I really hate comparing animes cuz I really think they each have their own uniqueness to them but if I had to, I would say Mashle is a mix between one punch man and a spoof of Harry Potter. Even that itself doesn't sum half of it up. It has its own story so I would definitely recommend ppl watch it for themselves but at least watch 5 episodes before coming to your own conclusions. It starts out decently but gets pretty good a few episodes in. I myself am fully invested. 8/10.

The premise to this is fine, you've seen it 1000x, "I gots no power, in a world of power." THOUGH, this tries to be very subversive.

PLOT: Simple; boy is born without MAGIC, denoted by a line (or two) on ones' face. THOUGH, in this society, eugenics is the name of the game, and if you're not born with magic, you're literally as good as dead. A man finds Mash, after overhearing him crying in the bushes near the cliff he was about to jump from, to end his own life.

So, it starts out similar to My Hero. It is VERY MUCH structured like Harry Potter, and they're not even shy about it, which is great. It's part of its subversion gimmick.

Where this shines is in the beginning, watching a magic-less user just completely hulk out of any problem that would require magic. At times it's played for a gag, and at other times, it become annoying plot armor. Especially when you notice the pattern.

Most of the fun in this anime comes from watching the writers create "logical in universe" work arounds for Mash's lack of magic. Since he comes off as a dumb character, but you realize he's quite brilliant and extremely inventive. HOW? I don't know? They kind of use the whole, "he had to be clever to go undetected and unmurdered for so long", explanation. It's another one of those, don't think too much about it.

That's the problem, it wants to poke fun at shonen, but also falls into a lot of its trappings. Unearned power-ups or revelations, in Mash's case. Most of the Magic on Magic fights are meh, save for one near the end between two double liners; Orca guy vs Eagle guy. And it does do that thing a lot of these animes do, especially shonen, which is more of a fault of the audience it aims for. Almost every enemy becomes Mash's friend, or learns to respect him.

I like this anime, but season 2 ends with setting up the final boss, this manga has a definitive end, that end has been reached like 2 years ago now... So you can spoil it for yourself if you want. It's as fairytale and predictable as you'd expect.

My biggest issue was by the end, Mash's creativity didn't make much sense especially at the last encounter, where Mash is "flying" by running in place very fast. He does this gimmick during the "Not-Quidditch" match to fly his broom, which worked as a one-off gag, but to try to pass it off as a legit tool in his arsenal is weird.

Without getting too much into it, and spoilers, the last 4 episodes kind of lost me.

Review for Season 1:

This show didn't quite work for me towards the end.

It's at its best when it's trying to be a parody of a magic anime. Whenever it does so, it's very funny because of the voice acting and A1 Pictures' editing. The plot setup itself is obviously funny.

But it's at its worst when it tries to be a serious action shounen, using the most mediocre shounen tropes out there. For instance, Mash's character was supposed to be funny because he was very dense yet ridiculously strong. But towards the end he sort of changed his enemies into good characters (another shounen trope) and it just made no sense to me.

In the end, I was looking forward to a magic parody anime, instead of just another action shounen (this plotline just doesn't fit a serious shounen story). I'll still watch season 2 but I hope I get to see the parody moments a lot more.

Edit: Enjoyed it more on a re-watch once I knew what's coming.

Review for Season 2:

Mashle picks up from right where it left off and everyone's favourite fitness freak is back! He has returned to entertain us by outsmarting magic in all different, hilarious ways.

Season 2 is more of the same and I definitely did enjoy it plenty. Just like Mash, it's offbeat and stylishly funny. I'm actually very impressed by A1 Pictures' work for this anime because the animation was very good. And I love the editing because it makes this anime even more hilarious. The soundtrack is again great and there were some new tracks this time that I admired.

The friendship between the main characters is wholesome. Finn Ames actually gets some moments to shine this time and I like his character more after Season 2.

But whenever Mashle becomes serious and it goes into some sad flashback or a serious shounen action scene, it loses me completely. Because this is a parody setting and it doesn't fit at all. Whenever Mash arrives and does Mash things, that's where this show regains my attention.

Overall though, this is another fun season. This is definitely a unique and entertaining comedy. Hopefully we'll get a Season 3.