What They Say:
“I met her… a sempai who’s cute, but strange!” She loves magic tricks, but she fails every time due to stage fright?! She drags me into the Magic Club and makes me her assistant… and siblings Saki-chan and Ma-kun of the street performers club, and Madara-san of the chemistry club get dragged into it, too. Every day, Sempai fails in energetic yet slightly erotic ways! It’s a gag anime about crummy magic tricks that are painful to watch… but you can’t stop watching!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
While I’m not a fan of shows that go kind of vague in terms of names, especially like just Sempai and Assistant as they do here, this one does work well enough that it’s just a bit less frustrating. The opening episode provided for some good laughs and some utterly adorable fanservice that left me delighted when combined with some pretty good animation quality. It helps when the fanservice is that good looking and that’s what you’re primarily looking to get out of the show. The put-upon nature of the Assistant is also amusing because he’s just going to get worn down until he finally gives in completely and becomes one with his place in life.
Part of it is that Assistant just can’t help but to feel bad for Sempai since she’s generally a very solitary person as nobody wants to be near her. She is a bit much to be sure but she’s also an outgoing personality that’s pretty fun. So he ends up getting drawn further and further in as the simple things unfold and she invariably makes things worse in cute ways. And as he spends more time in the clubroom the more he sees that she has a lot of tricks up her sleeve but she’s terrible at pretty much all of them. That he continually gets knocked about by it only makes it more amusing. But there are sad bits as well, such as the stuffed animal she has as part of the act but comes across like her one true friend that she talks to (and rubs up against quite inappropriately).
So when we get the two of them out in public and Assistant leading the show when dealing with some kids in the park, I couldn’t help but laugh at the way he did his best to make the stuffed animal seem alive to fool the kids. He’s got such a near-deadpan approach all of this but not quite that it’s an enjoyable contrast to how Sempai handles everything. He continues to not quite succeed like she doesn’t but just in a different way. And his narration of events is pretty good as well when dealing with certain awkward situations to give it a bit more life
In Summary:
Magical Sempai is a show that I absolutely know that I’d be frustrated by if it ran for longer than it does. A full-length show would simply overstay its welcome and I’d be too frustrated by it. I do think they could break it up even more and have it run for longer and be just as enjoyable. This episode dials in with its focus on the two leads more than they did in the first and it’s pretty fun, though I’ll admit that I got a bit worn down by her in the last storyline with Assistant having not yet finalized his club pick. But that’s what happens with shows like this that are attempting a different running time and narrative.
Grade: B+
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
