A group of wizard lawyers defend magic users when they come under fire from prejudice.
What they Say:
Wizard Barristers takes place in the near future of 2018, where wizards and humans live side-by-side in Tokyo. While police continue to protect the rest of society, wizards are tried according to magical laws in special courts defended by wizard barristers. Cecile Sudo has just become the youngest wizard barrister at age 17, and begins work at the Butterfly Law Offices. However, unbeknownst to her, she has tremendous magical potential…
The Review
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers).
Sudo Cecil is the newest (and youngest) recruit at Butterfly Law Offices. She’s a Wizard Barrister, a lawyer who’s able to use magic and who helps to defend other “Wud” or magic users who come under fire from the police and general public. On her way to her first day of work, she coincidentally becomes witness to a bank robbery in progress, and though she doesn’t quite have the correct clearance, offers herself to defend a Wud who was wrongfully accused of the crime. Her office mates aren’t exactly thrilled that she’s overstepped several bounds before even making it into the office for proper introductions, but experience is often the most effective teacher, right?
Kohinata, the wrongfully accused, seems reticent to offer anything during Cecil’s initial interview, and the police force seems unwilling to entertain ideas of his innocence in spite of other information they have on the “No Face” gang who supposedly committed the robbery. Certain evidence places Kohinata, a former bank employee, at the scene of the crime on an almost daily basis, and he’s considered a probable accomplice. However, the explanation for his presence is cleared up by another employee and Cecil thinks she has the case in hand. While on a late-night break, she and a co-worker are attacked by muggers and Cecil proves her mettle by releasing a “diaboloid,” a mecha-like magical creature created from the environment around her. Unfortunately, this puts her at the mercy of the local police, and puts her on the radar of what appear to be very sinister forces.
Yasuomi Umetsu has been a busy man lately; not long after his previous directorial effort, Galilei Donna, wrapped up its run, he’s back again with a brand new shiny series that ought to get anyone familiar with some of his previous works – Kite and Mezzo Forte/Mezzo D.S.A in particular – excited. It’s a girl-with-a-gun, only this time her gun is made of magic and forms into a giant robot. Of course, as is the unfortunate reality when a show features a teenage girl in the lead role, this episode is not without its share of problems that offset the fist-pumping action and cool animation somewhat. However, so far this show looks like it end up being a lot of fun to watch in spite of a few issues that crop up throughout.
Conceptually the premise is likely to make viewers either laugh or roll their eyes. The primary conceit – that this series is in essence a police procedural with magical elements injected throughout, including what are essentially wizard lawyers – sounds terribly silly on paper. Aside from the action scenes, though, it’s these elements that really shined for me. The interviewing of accused criminals, the gathering of evidence, the run-ins with the local police force… all of these bits and pieces are incorporated in a surprisingly competent way, to the point that watching grown adult characters sling elemental spells and formulate giant golems from scrap metal doesn’t totally break down that reality. I’m curious whether or not future episodes will retain this more episodic style of storytelling, since by the end of the first episode it’s clear that there’s a larger plot beginning to unfold and some elements of Cecil’s past begin to reveal themselves, but it’s difficult to talk about trajectory at this point.
From the moment the episode starts, it’s clear that its production values are off the charts. Both the character animation and the special effects are very cinematic for a TV anime, and there aren’t nearly as many intentional (resource-saving) still shots as one would expect. The portrayal of the characters casting magic spells has as much character to it as when they run or speak. I do get the nagging feeling that there’s really no possible way that this level of quality can be maintained, and as with most action-oriented anime, the action focus will fade into the background until some more crucial scenes appear. Front-loading the action animation does have its purposes, though, and I imagine that fans who catch a glimpse of the opening scene will almost certainly want to see the episode to its end.
My one major complaint so far is that here once again Norio Wakamoto lends his distinctive voice to a character whose perverseness really adds nothing to the overall quality of the show (and in fact kind of subtracts from it). Wakamoto’s deep, throaty, unique style of voice acting is well-suited to the part of Naga Genie, a bizarre, frog-shaped familiar of Cecil’s, but it’s the character himself who seems to serve no useful purpose other than an occasional punching bag and Cecil’s momentary molester (in a scene which is surprisingly the only instance of gratuitousness in the whole of the episode). It’s an ill-fitting component of what’s otherwise a pretty tightly-run initial episode.
In Summary:
Fantastic action direction, moments of uncomfortable fanservice, a female cast with an epic case of same-face… it sounds like Yasuomi Umetsu is back in rare form. All jokes aside, this effort, following last season’s uneven Galilei Donna, has a lot going for it. The first episode starts out with a definite bang and keeps rocketing right ahead, faster than Cecil’s electric scooter, at least. It’s filled with bright colors, gorgeous animation, and (aside from the aforementioned female visages) creatively-designed characters. Its environment is ripe with storytelling potential, and it’s awesome to see characters of different ages working and interacting with one-another (even if the protagonist is yet another teenage girl). It’s little things that seem to trip this episode up, and as the action animation settles down to a more sustainable level of quality and the show is forced to rely more on its other merits, I worry that it may become harder to tolerate things like Naga Genie’s molester tendencies. On its own merits, though, this episode is pretty darn entertaining.
Episode Grade: B-
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment: Acer P235H 1080p LCD Monitor connected via DVI input, Logitech S220 2.1 Speakers, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560