Review of Akashic Records of Bastard Magic Instructor
Spoiler free review I welcome feedback on my reviews We've all had at least one bastard in our life. May they be a classmate, work colleague or a friend of a friend, a certain someone will just appear out of nowhere and make you instantly despise them. It's an unspoken rule that we can't like everyone we meet, but the individuals that grind your gears to a state of disrepair are the unforgivable worst of the worst. Akashic Records of Bastard Magic Instructor is pretty much about the second half of the title. A new teacher joins Alzano Imperial Magic Academy, and he's a bastard. Big surprise. You'dexpect a kind of School Comedy with maybe some Action thrown in since they are learning Magic, but Akashic Records decides to give us much more. Too much. The story jumps from arc to arc, which all follow the same boring predictable formula. Obvious villain appears, (like come on could you be any more conspicuous?) pull out some cliches, Glenn and co proclaim their friendship and love as teacher and students, defeat villain. Sure the try and explore some of the main characters and add some suspense inducing drama, but they just fail at keeping us invested or entertained most of the time.
Our main character, Glenn, is a bastard, or at least he tries to be. His act is so forced due to the fact that he's actually a decent person, he just chooses to hide behind his trope shield so the premise of the anime doesn't become irrelevant. The other two mains, Sistine Fibel and Rumia Tingel. aren't much better. One is a tsundere and the other has a heart of gold. That's it. All they're there for is to be damsels in distress so Glenn can save the day. Although we see a couple of times where they help their teacher defeat the bad guy, it just comes down as plot convenience instead of "strong female characters" that can hold their own. Looking past other characters, a sword-wielding kuudere who's also a damsel in distress and an old buddy of Glenn's who helps provide us with exposition and battle support, everyone else is pretty empty. You have an entire class of students, a few teachers, and some more friends of Glenn's, but barely any of them get a hint of exploration. At most, they're all just props for the generic comedy skits the show puts on. (Although I can't deny that I did chuckle at parts of the show)
Now you could say the action is nice. At first, it was pretty amusing watching Glenn use his limited skills to defeat others, but soon it just went downhill. You already know Glenn will defeat them after overcoming a small obstacle, (Power of Friendship everybody!) and the anime makes no effort to try and compensate for that. It just becomes another layer added onto the show as it tries to make up for its run of the mill story.
The title also mentions an "Akashic Records" in it's first half. What is this record you ask? I don't know. They mention it once or twice and just kinda forget about it, and that's how most of the plot points go. We don't find out much about The Researchers of Divine Wisdom, or the Alzano Empire Royal Family, or the Imperial Court Mage Corps. They're just thrown in during different arcs to keep shit interesting. This anime had a decent amount of material they could explore, but it decided to just screw it and hope what they do present is acceptable. (It's not)
Akashic Records of Bastard Magic Instructor is not an enjoyable show. It had its fun moments but they were overshadowed by everything else Akashic did wrong. Maybe if you don't mind all the predictability and cliches, you could probably have fun with this mess, but if you perhaps want some that doesn't dig itself so deep into the norm that it becomes unbearable, avoid this show. Don't be a Fool.
P.S. Just wanna rant about the uniforms the girls wear. Why do they show their lower body for all the world to see? And those skirts. Might as well just force them to dress in nothing but their panties cause you're gonna use them for fanservice either way. What kinda bullshit school lets their students dress like this? What the fuck?
End Rant