If you're a fan of more realistic art in your animation, however, be warned that you won't find it here. It's a style that grew on me when I watched Shana. Staff, and to a lesser extent Pani Poni Dash. It's ultimately a surprisingly cohesive fantasy setting, and one to which I wouldn't mind returning.Īrt: Zero's art is reminiscent of Shakugan no Shana, also produced by J. This world maintains interesting links to our Earth, but I'll leave it at that for fear of dropping spoilers. This becomes clear when we see a map of the fictional land. Though the central country of the show is fictional (apparently located roughly in the Aquitaine region of France), several real-world European powers have fantastical equivalents, often bearing the Latin names of the modern countries they mirror: Gallia is France, for example, and Germania is Germany. Setting: Our story begins in your average Harry Potter-inspired magic school, complete with magic wands and quirky professors, but soon expands outward to encompass an alternate-history, magically-endowed Europe plagued by the class politics of magocracy - that is, magi over non-magi. Not that he's relegated to the role of lecher he has his human and hero moments, too. We get the impression that he checks out every girl who crosses his path not because he's hopelessly desperate, but because he's a healthy teenage boy. Saito's personality is what makes him simultaneously hilarious and divergent from the usual harem romance/datesim beta-male loser. Sure, the cast seems a bit crazy at first, but give them a chance. What's more, many of these characters actually change over time, as characters in a story should.

As in Love Hina, however, we discover that these characters have histories and unforeseen connections, sometimes in far darker ways than I expected of this show. Exactly how it develops is for you to discover, but rest assured that it does not remain stagnant for long periods of time, at least in this season, as in Shakugan no Shana and its sequel.Ĭharacters: The cute, borderline-sadist lead the busty, libidinous rival the surprisingly forthright maid the bookish, quiet Nagato Yuki clone - these may seem like stock characters pulled from the harem romance pool, and they certainly begin as such. This thread smoothly escalates into a significant driving force of the show's events, perhaps more powerful, even, than the central romance.Īnd speaking of that central romance, it moves along at a nice pace - neither too slowly nor too quickly for a 13-episode series. Despite an early focus on slapstick comedy, ecchi, and outright silliness, Zero quickly introduces a thin political thread, providing bits and pieces of flavor to make the world seem more alive. It isn't quite as simple as that, however. Plot: An incompetent mage summons as her familiar a young man from contemporary Japan, and hilarity ensues. was something more akin to the comedic romance and character development of Love Hina supported and sustained by the political intrigue of Last Exile or Simoun. I went in expecting another Nanoha, or the first season of Shakugan no Shana all over again, and what I got (Yes, for all my talk about artistic integrity and such, I do watch things for pure and simple fun sometimes.) Zero has most of that, but only to a point, and in the end I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of depth this show manages to pull out of nowhere. I decided to watch Zero no Tsukaima because I wanted a leave-your-brain-out-of-the-equation sort of show, one I could sit back and watch without worrying about a negative outcome or depressing and/or disturbing complications. Wild, adventurous, and explosive, Zero no Tsukaima follows Saito as he comes to terms with his new life and as Louise proves that there is more to her than her nickname suggests.

But when an unfamiliar brand is found etched on Saito's hand from the summoning ritual, it is believed to be the mark of a powerful familiar named Gandalfr. Now Louise's familiar, Saito is treated as a slave, forced to clean her clothes and eat off the ground. When the first year students are required to perform a summoning ritual, Louise's summoning results in a catastrophic explosion! Everyone deems this to be yet another failure, but when the smoke clears, a boy named Saito Hiraga appears. Although she studies at Tristain Academy, a prestigious school for magicians, she has a major problem: Louise is unable to cast magic properly, earning her the nickname of 'Louise the Zero' from her classmates. Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière is a self-absorbed mage in a world of wands, cloaks, and royalty.

Magic school anime