Review of Akashic Records of Bastard Magic Instructor

Warning possible Spoilers As I delved more into the spring 2017 anime's I decided to check out one of the more popular anime's of the season and after finishing it my feelings about it are pretty mixed. The story begins at the Alzano Imperial Magic Academy where Sistine and her friend Rumia end up having a new substitute teacher called Glenn, however he is a lazy douchebag who doesn't really give much care for magic, despite this these people end up getting involved in matters that are beyond their normal school days. Now as stories go this was pretty average mainly the usual kind of stuff I've seenbefore, true it's magic which I haven't really seen a lot of as a main concentration for an anime though it just didn't get to me mostly. It was fun seeing Glenn's character develop though the show as he starts out looking like a lazy douchebag character yet overtime he does start to warm up to the students of his class and the main female characters while also acting like a badass when bad things start happening.
The magical aspect of the show was alright, but I have definitely seen this type of magic with colourful, well detailed circles plenty of times at this point, at least the spells were pretty good.
The show does start out slow as we get introduced to the characters, then the situation does start to get a bit more dire and we get introduced to some of the characters backgrounds which are kinda dark, then some characters that are introduced do pick the show up a little bit like Re=L who certainly hepled the show out a little, but after her little tantrum the show gets a little bland again as they put in a forced marriage situation which just reminded me of High School DxD and even the final battle was pretty meh too so in some cases the story did disappoint me.

The characters were mostly bland apart from a few that kept the show going for me.
Glenn the MC is definitely a good character and his douchey attitude towards the girls was a nice change instead of a harem or romantic aspect even though it tries to do that, nonetheless he acts like an unreliable person however he is certainly a badass when it comes to fighting his enemies and even starts to warm up to the students once he gets to know them although his constant jokes always put him on their bad sides.
Sistine, Rumia and Re=L are the main female characters and each of them do vary, Sistine is the main one and is your typical Tsundere girl yet for once she didn't annoy instead she was just a bit boring and whined quite a bit sometimes saying she isn't strong enough to help anyone although you gotta give her determination some respect.
Rumia is the kind and innocent girl of the trio or as I like to call her Princess Peach because she gets kidnapped about 3 times in this show and it was kinda annoying how easy it was for her to get kidnapped although she was an important figure in all of this so it is understandable, she can be pretty strong though which for a character like her is surprising which is shown during the tournament episodes.
Re=L is introduced later on in the show and used to work with Glenn in the past, but she was by far the best of the three main girls and is a Kuudere and a pretty damn cute one because even though she hardly express's any feelings you can just look at her face and see the adorableness however the last thing you want to do is piss her off because not only is she good with a sword she also has a dark past where her brother was murdered which does make her go to the bad side at some point luckily this only lasts for about an episode making her character still very enjoyable.
Celica is an immortal mage that is a professor at the academy and a friend of Glenn, she is very powerful and can be quite easy going although if Glenn gets on her nerve's she does shift into a Tsundere tone, she isn't really in the show much during the second half, but I still found her more interesting than most of the characters.
Albert who like Re=L is an old friend of Glenn and a very powerful mage who mainly uses magical sniping, but even in close quarters you shouldn't underestimate him, much like Re=L he doesn't show much emotion although he does care for Glenn's well being and does help him out a few times during the show.
The villains weren't that great and mostly just seemed like a nuisance although Eleanor was definitely one sexually crazy woman that you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley or on the streets at night.

The artstyle was ok, I liked the way the city looked which reminded me of something out of Lord of the Rings which seems pretty odd and the magic that was displayed wasn't too bad either it was definitely strong enough to cause some mayhem, the uniforms that the students wore was pretty mixed reception they looked nice, but the girls uniforms just looked like they were made to make them look sexy which just didn't feel right this time considering I getting no sexual attraction from them.

The action was actually pretty meh and even when it picked up it didn't impress me hell the final battle didn't make me feel amazed either and the show was surprisingly bloody which I was expecting to have in droves and I was also surprised to see guns which don't usually pop up in these settings plus seeing Glenn beat up enemies with his fist's was actually refreshing to see when people mainly rely on magic they forget that fist's are also an option.

There was certainly comedy in this show and it was ok especially the relationship between Glenn and Sistine made for some decent entertainment like when Glenn would get on Sistine's nerves and she just shot him up in the air with her wind magic and the way Glenn acted around the students was also really funny and made me think that the way he acted made sure there wouldn't be any forced romance, but I was mostly wrong even though Glenn doesn't have romantic feelings for the girls Sistine looks like she kinda does by the end and honestly it just doesn't feel right.

Overall this was a pretty average anime with some surprise's and funny moments here and there, but it surprise's me the most how this is one of the more popular anime's of the spring season.