Anime: Mahou Tsukai Tai! 3m6y

Magic s Club has a charm that makes it more than the sum of its parts. Even if you aren't taken by it, you'll find that its individual parts are at least above average.

Animation
The visuals have a slightly retro look, even considering its ripe old age of 11 years. The colors are simple, and the textures a little flat. While Magic s Club's backgrounds look very boring, its character animations suffice without any bits of serious awkwardness. That alone makes it at least average. Its comic creativity, which extends past the typical SD characters and facial animations is what sets it just above par in visuals. The ability to have characters express internal emotions externally and in wacky ways is a big part of what makes animation such a great medium for comedy. While its not really punchline comedy, the chills we literally see go down a characters spine, or the crazy facial interpretations of romantic awkwardness are all gently amusing.

Sound
There's absolutely nothing remarkable about the voice acting, in a positive or negative way. The BGMs for the most part are pretty generic, orchestrated pieces that are used often and fit nicely into the background. There are a few rather outstanding tracks that remind me of the main theme from the original Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. It's melodious in a light and whimsical way. These are the really dramatic BGMs, and probably the only noticeable ones. They sound great, and the string heavy melodies lend a seriously retro feel that seems to be inspired by 70's Hollywood music from the likes of Willie Wonka or Star Wars.

Story/Characters
The X-factor of this OVA lies within its story and characters. Looking at the deepest, foundation level of its premise, it is in Miyazaki fashion about a young girl discovering herself, finding her confidence, and/or growing into adulthood in a world at least a little more fantastical than our own. Indeed the female lead, Sae, is a full time high school student and part time magician (not to be confused with an illusionist) who wrestles with discouraging failures at her beloved hobby on a regular basis. Her optimism and determination usually get the better in the end though. Personality wise, she is something of a typical shoujo lead. She's a heavy underdog; someone who could be fairly deemed a loser. Inhumanly clumsy, awkwardly inarticulate, and hilariously narrow minded, one might even call her dumb. On the up side, like all shoujo leads, she has irable perseverance and kindness.

A big part of the story of the OVA is high school life. As per usual with high school dramas, there's some love geometry, crush confessions, and general romantic cheese sprinkled liberally around. Like so many other Gainax works, sexual humor is stuck right where it doesn't belong. Innocent as the rest of the story may be, the main male character is a typical harem lead. He's good natured but can't help his perverted fantasies. From his fantasies stem accents of harem-esque ecchi humor.

The real charm of Magic s Club is that all these elements borrowed from different set genres gel so well together. The Miyazaki self discovery brand of character development is perfect for a 6 episode OVA. It lends itself to a concise story and an ending with plenty of closure. The linear plot threads of self discovery, a few rather straight forward romances, and an alien invasion are developed at an easy to watch pace without many lulls or overloads. Underdogs are naturally inspiring, and it's hard not to be taken by the ebb and flow of Sae's sense of self worth. The melodrama typically found in Shoujo and High School dramas is present, but mellowed out because of the more humorous, and light hearted approach to this OVA. Harem accents might seem like automatic bad blood, but the polar intersection of its ecchi humor and an otherwise "family entertainment" suited story is just amusingly awkward.


As a whole, there's very little wrong with Magic s Club. It won't likely blow your socks off either, for despite its charm, its characters and plot are still on the simple side. The rest is humorous fun that might have dried up had it been extended to a full TV series, but in its 6 episode state, it remains lightly funny to the end. Magic s Club is just something that's easy to enjoy and tough to pick at.

This anime is one of the best OVA series that I have seen as it is one that makes use of the timeframe and budget really effectively. As one would expect from an OVA, the animation is great and crisp.

This series goes one further with this however as it also uses bright colours, minimum still frames and detailed design on both the characters and the background. The anime does have a shoujo look and feel with the big eyes, ditsy female protagonists and such - which means that everyone is prettily drawn and pleasing to the eye. The motion is another important part of the series as the characters tend to be in flight a fair bit and these scenes are animated well. The contrast between the mecha and shoujo backgrounds (bright park, detailed school yards and the likes) give the show a very appealing feel. It also invites an audience of both males and females because of it.

The sound is very fitting for this anime as the music was appropriate to most scenes and the opening and closing songs are fun, fluffly and memorable pop songs. The voice acting was also well-executed (even in English) and the voices sounded right for most characters, though a couple here and there (including Akane and Nanaka) tend to sound like archetypes. This does not really affect the series in a bad way as the length (6 episodes) means that the characters do not get on your nerves.

The story is surprisingly very well handled, the mixture of mecha and magic is fluid and interesting throughout and never seems out of place. The execution is to thank for that as everything was paced really well. From the humble beginnings of Sae to the dark and humourous ending, everything flowed really well. The characters are also to thank for this as the focus on them made the anime this much more relatable.

They are interesting, fun and serve their purpose very well. AND there is even time to give the characters some depth. Be it in dealing with love, lust or friendship, the characters show multiple layers. A lot of the comedy falls on Takeo and Aburatsubo and those scenes are created with a lot of panache. The one to display the most depth is Nanaka in her dealing with her emotions for Aburatsubo and that is also done very successfully.

This anime has great value because I have already seen this OVA series three times and I haven't grown tired of it yet. The amazing thing about this anime is that some situations seem funny enough as they happen on screen but they are even funnier in retrospect, which a lot of comedy series do not achieve. Magic s Club shows that this is how a comedy should be made. There is also some depth here so if you like this kind of mixture and you think this series will appeal to you, it most probably will.

Even for a small 6 episodes ova, Mahou Tsukai Tai ova has enough to offer in order to enjoy it.

The animation is done nicely, and especially the characters are displayed very well. Even though they didn't pay that much attention to the backgrounds and such, the animation isn't bad at all.

The voices are done well. Although some of them sound a bit flat (Nakatomi), they fit their character.
The music is nicely done; the OP is enjoyable, the ED is okay, but starts off pretty early before the credits. Somehow that suits this series perfectly.

The story is absolutely weird. Even though it plays in the regular world, they have a club practicing Magic and those people can actually use it as well. The enemies, the Bells, are absolutely weird; A huge Bell-shaped alien descends down on earth, releasing other lifeforms like the Balls (round balls with the shape of a small house), BellCopters (iron puppets with the ability of flying) and whatever, without harming anyone.
Together with these weird additions and the extreme ecchiness, this anime becomes very funny in its own genre without getting boring.
Eventually the story becomes slightly more serious, but they always kick in some ecchi humor ;)
I can't forget to mention that the story still has a decently strong story, which doesn't make this anime in the 'ecchi-only' genre, but is actually able to keep the storyline in all episodes, without losing track of it.

Although the characters don't really evolve that much, they make an impression already. The president of the club is a guy who likes to show off to girls, even though he's pretty much of a nerd, and fantasizes about ecchi things every moment of the day. The vice-president, although it's a guy, is in love with the president - but the president doesn't want to ! To make things even more complicated, Nakatomi, Sae's best friend, is in love with the vice-president and the president himself is attracted to Sae - while Sae is again blinded by the president's responsibility - making him think that she loves him.
Adding these complicated relationships in the 6 episodes ova, these characters leave quite some remarkable impression behind, even when you've finished watching the series.

Therefor I think this series has some rewatch value; even though the story isn't superb, the crazy weirdness is enough to enjoy this anime pretty much and the ecchiness is just enough to give it a real funny touch without making it forced, or boring. And all scenes look 'spontaneous', which means that you'll be able to sit back and enjoy all the jokes they play on each other.