REVIEW: ‘Mashle: Magic And Muscles’ Season 1 Delivers A Largely Subpar And Predictable Experience.

In a world where magic is so commonplace it is used to perform even the most mundane tasks, it is a crime to be one of the few born without the ability to wield it. That means people like the protagonist Mash Burnedead (Chiaki Kobayashi) must keep themselves hidden from public view, lest he be exposed and sent off to a prison camp with his father. But when his secret is discovered, rather than being shipped off, the police officer cuts him a deal. If he can rise to the rank of Divine Visuonary at a prestigious magic academy he will let his family off the hook in Mashle: Magic and Muscles Season 1, produced by A-1 Pictures.

If the above setup makes you think this show delivers a serious fantasy tale you would be mistaken. Mashle: Magic And Muscles Season 1 is primarily a comedic endeavor. The fact that the series sets its overly goofy toned narrative to a story that revolves around the threat of deportation to a prison camp is an odd choice, though it’s not the only one the show makes.

Most of the odd choices that come from this series center around its protagonist Mash. Without the ability to use magic, Mash has instead focused his life on the training of his body’s physical characteristics. Throughout this season, Mash punches, sprints, jumps, or simply plows through whatever magical obstacles his opponents throw up in front of him. He’s so powerful that it isn’t until the final episode of the season that he is actually given a challenge he doesn’t simply sail through. The show doesn’t even do a good job of attempting to conceal the inevitability of Mash’s victories, leading to the many action sequences the character stars in being drained of any genuine excitement.

In order to keep Mash’s awesome power from completely running roughshod over everyone around him, Mashle: Magic And Muscles Season 1 holds its protagonist back by making him incredibly dumb. And that’s by shonen MC standards. Mash may honestly be the dumbest anime character I’ve ever seen. This lack of mental ability is often used to push the series’ humor but fails the vast majority of the time. Recurring moments like Mash’s inability to operate doors without ripping them off of the hinges don’t make the character funny. Rather it simply makes it difficult to believe he would be capable of concocting even the more rudimentary plans he comes up with when facing off against the show’s many villains.

Along with being easily overcome most of the time, Mashle: Magic And Muscles Season 1 action sequences suffer from a severe lack of creativity. It seems each mage in this world generally only has one attack they use in combat. Battles are decided by spamming that attack over and over again till one side falls. While many fights are brief enough that this doesn’t break the moment too much, some of the longer clashes become wholly uninteresting. This is unfortunate, especially as the animation tries its best to bring the power of the various combat spells to life in a way that makes their impact feel imposing and powerful.

Just as the animation tries its best to save the combat, the same is true for the comedy. Though just like with the combat, it never manages to completely salvage the situation. The animation is the strongest element of Mashle: Magic And Muscles Season 1’s humor, however, with some quality sight gags and slapstick delivery. With most characters being extremely one note in their personalities, it is the sight gags that have the highest success rate on the show’s comedy side, even though it still isn’t great. Much like everything else to do with the series, repetition and predictability quickly drain the show’s humor of most of its effective qualities. While it throws enough at the wall to see a few jokes stick here and there, as it feels like the driving force behind the series, it needs to be much more successful than it is to keep things afloat.

When all is said and done, Mashle: Magic And Muscles Season 1 never manages to truly find its feet. With its odd mix of tone and narrative stakes, coupled with overly repetitive content, the show never manages to consistently deliver on what it occasionally is able to create in its best moments.

Mashle: Magic And Muscles Season 1 is streaming now on Crunchyroll.