Season aired: Fall 2024
Number of episodes: 12
Watched on: Crunchyroll
Translated by: ?
Genres: Fantasy
Thoughts: The Stories of Girls Who Couldn’t Be Magicians was an anime I looked forward to. Taking place in a world with witchcraft magic, the story follows Kurumi who fails to test into the Magician’s class and is instead relegated to the basic Class A. There, she meets a motley of other quirky students and learns the secrets behind ancient magic. It’s a series that reminds me of Little Witch Academia and Iruma-kun, two series I really love. Accompanied by fairytale aesthetics that look straight out of picture books I read when growing up, I thought surely this series was made for me.
Unfortunately, despite the similarities to two great anime, The Stories of Girls Who Couldn’t Be Magicians can’t compare because of a major flaw that the other two series don’t suffer from: lackluster storytelling.
The premise itself is a common one in anime. Kurumi meets a magician who casts a spell to magic away the rainy weather, and she becomes inspired to become one. Unfortunately, her results claim that she has no actual talent for magic, and she spends the rest of the series trying to prove herself with her other classmates that they can use it and become magicians. Underdogs like Kurumi who harbor a secret talent but are otherwise rejected by the greater society is a tale as old as time. However, different anime series have different creative spins on this conflict through worldbuilding, how the protagonist reacts to their predicament, their supporting characters, and the mentors that guide them in bad or good ways. The Stories of Girls Who Couldn’t Be Magicians, unfortunately, does not manage to stand out in any of those elements.
Kurumi is one of the series’ biggest problems. There’s nothing to her outside of her desire to become a magician. She’s optimistic and nice, but those are traits one can commonly prescribe to a lot of the supporting characters. As a result, her stereotypical journey of losing confidence before regaining confidence feels flat because the character had nothing else for me to root for. Worse, her relationships with the surrounding characters feel inconsequential because they are bland and boring.
While I don’t usually like to compare a series incessantly to other successful ones, I couldn’t help but think back to what made Little Witch Academia and Iruma-kun work. In both series, their cast of supporting characters were, yes, outcasts and quirky, but they were also three-dimensional outside of what makes them “weird” in the universe. Iruma’s classmates in Iruma-kun not only had demonic flaws, but actively contributed to the plot and conflict through their unique powers and fighting abilities.
In this series, Kurumi’s classmates could be summarized by their hobbies. One likes to cook, one likes to sing, one likes to dance, and one likes fashion. Outside of just two episodes where the classmate with fashion designing skills actually contributed to the plot, the others had nothing but random one-liners to emphasize how weird Kurumi’s class is and re-emphasize why everyone bonded so quickly. Kurumi even gets her anime rival in the form of Yuzu, a girl of high standing who’s cold and dismissive of Kurumi’s dreams. Despite being the most fleshed out of all the other characters, I still wouldn’t be able to tell you anything about Yuzu outside of her role as Kurumi’s enemy-to-friends storyline that every anime has.
Due to the flatness of all the characters, it was inevitable that the voice acting sounded the same. I got actively annoyed hearing a lot of the characters speaking their unfunny one-liners, and the only voice acting I didn’t mind was Yuzu’s. Even with that, I only preferred Yuzu because her character is more soft-spoken and less humorous, sparing me of the loud, grating, and overdramatic dialogue that other characters shout out.
These issues extend to the plot and the antagonist. What first seems like a whimsy story about magic randomly going out of control at the academy turns into something more sinister. I expected this to happen, but even with that expectation, the turn seemingly came out of nowhere. A character revealed as the big bad with an extensive backstory is glossed aside and doesn’t even suffer consequences despite multiple witnesses having seen his wrongdoings – one of which was attempted murder.
By the end of the series, the characters state that a chapter of their lives has finished, but it is instead riddled with unanswered questions that should’ve actually been resolved. The two characters who seemed to be causing mischief and have some connection to Kurumi ultimately didn’t even do anything, so why were they even there in the story? It turns out Kurumi did have a connection to magic, so why didn’t it work? Why was the villain so obsessed with his mission in the first place, to the point that he was willing to murder innocents? The series moves too slowly and quickly at the same time, and I’m left wondering if this is an actual flaw of the original source material or if the staff had trouble fitting the first arc into a 12-episode series.
It’s disappointing because this series did have one positive: the visuals. Animated like a watercolor picture book coming to life, the few moments where characters used unique magic stand out gorgeously with their bright colors, wondrous and magical animation, and enchanting music. This anime was clearly directed with the intention to invoke the atmosphere of magical fairytales that the viewers consumed when growing up, and the team would’ve succeeded if not for the plot and characters sinking the greater story. It got to the point where I would watch the episode each week just to enjoy the aesthetics more than the actual content.
This leads me to my biggest question. Why dedicate such an artistic and unique art style and direction to an anime that had no story foundation to stand on? Without actual characters and an intriguing plot, the hard work put into the animation and aesthetics is wasted, leaving one of the most visually interesting anime this season unwatched and unsuggested.
Rating
Plot: 5 (Multiplier 3)
Characters: 5 (Multiplier 3)
Art/Animation: 8.5 (Multiplier 2)
Voice acting: 5
Soundtrack: 6
FINAL SCORE: 58
