Mashle: Magic and Muscles

Mashle isn't what I expected! This is the funniest anime I have ever watched. Mashle is not only funny but delivers on the action and the story too. Mash is one of the most likeable MCs I've ever seen in an anime. If you like One Punch Man, you'll definitely get a kick out of this one! I also don't find any of the side characters boring or annoying, which is kind of a surprise because there's always this one side character which I dislike even on my favourite animes. The only problem I have with Mashle is that Mash kinda befriends everyone he faces as an opponent at the end of their fights. Maybe this is intentional, but that is probably the only thing I kind of dislike about this show.

This is a combination of Harry Potter, One Punch Man, and Black Clover. Throw in some ultra goofiness and the power of friendship for a complete picture. If you're good with that it can be fun.

The above stated, it does nothing new. That's not a problem if the familiar is well done, but it isn't. From the combat, quirkiness of the hero, villains introduced and friends found, it's all very much common and uninspired. There's some okay humor but it's exactly what you'd expect for anyone familiar with standard anime tropes.

I hope there's more to this in the coming seasons, but as it stands right now Mashle is a forgettable experience.

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.

Pros:

• A lot of good action
• Very clean, no sexual content at all

Cons:

• Jokes were overly repeated and not very funny to begin with
• Overly copies Harry Potter, doesn't bring a lot of new material but does have some.

• Character personality is fairly poor and quickly felt predictable. I didn't find myself very excited for any one individual to come on screen.

• Every fight would be heavily interspersed with talking and flash backs which made things slow

Overall I was just a little bored and found myself finishing more for the sake of checking off a box and finishing what I started than anything else. If you don't mind the heavy copying of Harry Potter and aren't too critical you may enjoy this one.