What they Say:
“Episode 5 – Six Nine” – 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).
After Kujira, a member of the Shark Knight law offices, is taken into custody as the prime subject in a recent murder, their other employees call upon Cecil at Butterfly Law to take on the case and prove his innocence. The only problem is that Cecil is paired with Kamakiri, affectionately known as “Kiri-jii” due to his advanced age. Kamakiri takes things slow and indulges in his favorite idol groups, and Cecil can’t reconcile that with the fact that they’re working on a time limit before Kujira is indicted. They’re coming up empty in their search for evidence and interviewing witnesses seems to be leading nowhere. With each passing hour, Cecil grows more frustrated.
With time running out, Cecil would like nothing more than to be partnered with somebody else, but her co-workers and supervisor seem to have the utmost respect for Kiri-jii’s experience in the field and ability to get the job done. As it turns out, though he may seem unmotivated, Kamakiri’s powers of observation are unmatched. Just in time to prepare for trial, he pieces together a small piece of one of their interviews with a work schedule from the employer of the murder victim, which points the finger at another employee and away from Kujira. Better yet, the hunch becomes hard evidence when Cecil and Kiri-jii follow the culprit into the woods where he plans to dispose of the body, and use some trickery to get him to confess on tape.
At the trial, this ploy seems to work and Kujira gets off the hook, but the improper use of magic doesn’t get entirely overlooked. The accusation seems to send Kamakiri into shock and he’s taken into the hospital, but this is just another example of his experience; as an old man, fainting is is way of getting a case closed without too much questioning.
The intensity dials back a bit this week as we get an introduction to another member of the cast and learn of his particular charms, learning a few more secrets from an experienced Wizard Barrister’s bag of tricks. In many ways, Kamakiri falls into a lot of the more common “old man” character stereotypes, what with his enjoyment of idol groups and his fondness for working together with Cecil, who’s the youngest person at the office (and also a cute girl). On the surface, he also fulfills the stereotype of being kind of ineffectual at his job, literally “grandfathered in,” as it were. On the other hand, his existence also proves that experience itself is a valuable thing to have, and that it’s worthwhile to listen to people who might not be so young and spry but might have a more complete perspective on things.
I like the subtle sort of message this conveys, especially in terms of anime and the way that it’s often presented. Anime is a medium that’s more often than not aimed at younger people and which also mostly portrays younger people. So many anime protagonists are teenage boys and girls, with older characters serving on the periphery as occasional relatives, mentors or other minor roles. It’s kind of nice to have that thrown into sharp relief in a show like this; Cecil is very similar to many other young female protagonists, to the extent that I’d kind of rolled my eyes at first when associating the show’s overall premise with its main character. With Kiri-jii, we can see the value that age brings to the table, even if we might otherwise be trained by society and media to question or even make fun of aged people.
As for the Shark Knights, I’m still torn on whether they’ll end up being more important characters, or whether they’ll simply serve the purpose of contrasting with the Butterfly Law firm. To this point they’ve been little more than a running gag consisting of competent hot guys getting the women in the show to blush. Now that there’s a deeper connection between them, with Cecil having helped one of their members out of a tight situation, I’m curious to see whether that relationship will play out in a more substantial way.
Once again, this episode spends a short but important amount of time addressing what is clearly meant to be an important aspect of the series, that being Cecil’s overall role in the world. Without getting too spoilery, it sounds as if her awakening to multiple forms of magic has some sort of plan that’s outside of her control, though whatever end-game that might entail still remains a mystery. This show might be clunky at times, but it certainly also has the ability to foster intrigue and keep things interesting when it needs to.
In Summary:
With more snippets of information on Grimoire 365 mixed in with a nice story about the value of experience, this episode does a good job of coupling the mundane with the more substantial bits and pieces of the plot. With what we’re learning about the different members of Butterfly Law, I’m hoping that the climax of the series will somehow involve them all in a substantial way. Even if that particular desire isn’t entirely fulfilled, though, I still have to compliment this series on consistently remaining more compelling than I think it’s going to be.
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
