Cecil and friends travel to Boston for a knowledge exchange, and get involved in matters there.
What they Say:
“Episode 7 – Maple Leaf in Canada” – 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).
Cecil and several of the other wizard barristers from Butterfly Law Offices head overseas to America for a look at the similarities and differences between the magical courts of their different countries. When their training finishes early, it leaves some free time for sightseeing, so Cecil and Natsuna, who’s recruited for the task unwillingly, take the company car for a spin to the natural sights up north. The trip starts out on the wrong foot. Natsuna wants little to do with Cecil, who she sees as a young upstart who outshines her. Cecil just wants to share a conversation, but can’t break through Natsuna’s icy exterior. When the car breaks down the tension builds, but luckily Natsuna knows how to fix their problem, and even seems to soften up a bit in the aftermath.
As darkness creeps across the landscape, Cecil begins talking about setting up camp in the woods for the night, a prospect that Natsuna doesn’t find appealing in the slightest. Just as they’re beginning to discuss it more seriously, the car is forced to a screeching halt to avoid a young woman who’s standing in the street. She’s a Japanese girl named Kaede who needs a ride, and wants to become a wizard barrister to boot, so they take her into the car. After a long night of getting to know one-another, Cecil reveals her reasons for wanting to become a wizard barrister at such a young age.
After crossing the border into Canada, the three stop at a diner for breakfast and are confronted by a wanted criminal. A strategically-used smoke bomb confuses the criminal, but several shots are fired from elsewhere. The owners of those guns are a couple of people who Cecil would never have expected to see so far away.
After last week’s dismal episode of the show, I’m glad to be able to say that things seem to have gotten a bit more on track this week. This episode spends some quality time giving Natsuna a bit of the limelight, which is great considering how much of a bitter, one-note character she’s seemed like from the very first episode. If there’s one thing to be said about this series, it’s that it’s taken good care to introduce the characters one-by-one in order to give the audience a good feel for the type of people that they are (and perhaps how they’ll play a greater role in what’s yet to come). Now that Natsuna has been featured a little bit, it’s a lot easier to feel affection towards her instead of feeling like her bitterness overrides every other aspect of her personality.
This was also a real breakthrough episode for Cecil in that she was able to share with others her reasons for becoming a wizard barrister. Prodigies are really common as far as anime characters are concerned, so it’s very satisfying when one of them receives at least a semi-plausible explanation for their skill and intelligence. Though we as the audience were at least partly aware of Cecil’s goal to help free her mother from wrongful imprisonment and the death penalty, to know a more complete version of the story, to know about how Cecil’s mother used her magic to help defend her family, and then to relate that story to the other tales of injustice that have already flowed across the desk of the Butterfly Law Offices, makes the scenario feel a lot more complete.
Really all that I would like to happen over the next few episodes is for the show to maintain its momentum and focus, and not get derailed by a lot of the problems that seem to always be nipping at its heels. Whether it’s the spotty use of humor (which is often sort of uncomfortably perverted in addition to being tedious) or its tendency to introduce interesting tidbits and then shelve them right away until some unidentified future moment, with less than half the show left it’s time to cut the crap and get to business.
In Summary:
It’s another cliffhanger this week, but considering how episodic the show has been for the past several installations, this comes as a pleasant surprise. There are a lot of questions to be answered in addition to the over-arching questions that keep cropping up about Cecil’s importance to certain shady groups of people, especially surrounding the presence of the Shark Law Office members in Canada of all places (locked and loaded, no less), as well as whether Kaede will serve some greater role. I’m also antsy to see what type of person Cecil’s father is next week, and how that might have shaped the person that she became.
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
