REVIEW: ‘Mashle: Magic And Muscles’ Starts The Divine Visionary Candidate Exam Arc Begin

With Mash Burnedead’s (Chiaki Kobayashi, Ragna Crimson) victory over Abel, the last season ended on a high note. Mashle: Magic And Muscles Episodes 13-17 from A-1 Pictures sets up new challenges for Mash and his friends as word spreads that he cannot use magic. To keep himself safe, Mash enters the Divine Visionary Candidate Exam. If he succeeds, he can prove he is worthy of a place in the world. But individuals who don’t like seeing the order of society disrupted are gunning for him and his friends as the exam begins.

This season’s opening begins with Mash and his friends celebrating their recent victory. This sequence brings the series’ trademark humor to fans, even as the threat of Mash’s secret getting out looms. This goofy energy in the face of impending threat is the perfect way for the show to reestablish its priorities. All the old jokes from season one start showing up here, and return in plenty throughout Mashle Episodes 13-17. If more of the same was what you were hoping for, this sequence promises much.

But Mash’s secret is out in the open, and this reality soon finds him before a judge to answer questions. While this moment is initially a one-on-one interrogation, the scene soon expands as Divine Visionaries and others arrive to weigh in on Mash’s fate. The growing argument quickly becomes more than Mash can keep up with. This leaves his defense in the hands of more seasoned minds like Wahlberg (Mugihito).

While this pivotal scene tries to establish the threats Mashle Episodes 13-17 present with a sincerely emotional moment, it doesn’t stick. Too much misplaced humor keeps the moment from becoming something with true weight. Making the situation worse is the fact that Mash ultimately gets a reprieve from execution not due to morality or any justice being rendered, but due to his physical strength.

A deadly trap sent from the Innocent Zero Criminal Organization ensnares the judge. As no mage can touch the trap without becoming a victim of it, Mash puts his strength to work despite not understanding what is going on. But luck, as always, shines upon him, and he manages to survive the danger. The judge, who was against Mash up till that point, negotiated a deal to get him a stay of execution so he might be able to prove himself.

This resolution undercuts the debate that this scene is built around. Rather than sparing Mash because he’s done nothing wrong, he is spared because he does something useful. The judge’s change of heart comes through a very personal guilt, not a desire to do right. It feels like if he was summoned to pass judgment on someone who hadn’t just saved his life, he would send them off to die. While this works out for Mash, it leaves the whole sequence feeling meaningless from a larger perspective.

Further rendering the whole scene a bit moot is the test that Mash must overcome. Namely, he must pass the Divine Visionary Candidate Exam. As fans will recall, this was the goal in the first place. If Mash doesn’t become a Divine Visionary the officer that discovered his secret in the opening of last season was going to turn him in. So nothing has really changed.

Before the test begins, Mashle Episodes 13-17 lets Mash take his friends to his home so they can meet his grandfather. Once again, an attempt at heartfelt emotion falls short in the face of dumb jokes. Mash’s grandfather is touched that Mash has such great friends. This is even though all Mash’s friends do while they are there is act obnoxious. But they are willing to accept him, so I guess that’s enough to be great.

While Mash enjoys the retreat back home, the series sets up some of the villains who will be looking to end his chance of becoming a Divine Visionary. Chief among these is Orter Madl (Yuki Ono, The Tale of Outcasts). This character is presented with a great sinister tone to him. Unwilling to see the rules change, he is single-mindedly bent on seeing Mash die. He looks to be the man behind the curtain for many of Mash’s biggest hurdles throughout the rest of the season.

Once the exam begins, Mashle Episodes 13-17 tries its best to amp up the danger that our protagonists face. Like many school tournament arcs in anime, this soon includes the possible killing of participants. While the challenges themselves won’t kill the students, the series establishes that students killing each other won’t be interfered with. This is despite a crowd of their fellows having to watch every bloody moment through magical televisions.

This excessive level of threat is just another way the series undercuts its concepts and narrative. Divine Visionaries are the leading figures of the world in this show. You’d think they wouldn’t want someone who will gleefully torture his fellow students to get what he wants holding such a place. Even Wahlberg, who often presents himself as a moral center for the show’s governing body thinks nothing of the carnage a particularly psychotic student unleashes. Rather, he simply observes how high the skill and strength of the participants this year is.

This narrative-bending violence further falters due to the inevitability of its defeat. When presented with a threat that seems specifically designed to counter Mash’s direct style of attack, he overcomes it with no thought at all. Not only that, he manages to endure what seems like it should be life-ending damage while pushing himself to great physical feats. But he’s Mash. So, I guess that is enough of an explanation.

The only element of Mashle Episodes 13-17 that delivers without fail is the animation. All the goofy attempts at humor and bloody fights are delivered with all the flair one could ask for. Even when a joke is ill-timed, the animators at A-1 do everything they can to make it work.

Mashle Episodes 13-17 get the new season off to a familiar start for Mash and his friends. The awkward combinations of humor and narrative that plagued season one continue. Whether or not the series can salvage anything from the mess as it progresses remains to be seen.

Mashle: Magic and Muscles Season 2 is streaming now on Crunchyroll.