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Mahou Shoujo Ore Anime Review
Aug. 12th, 2019 12:47 pmMahou Shoujo Ore is a pretty eccentric show start to finish. It's a satire of the magical girl genre, but it also does follow a plot throughout the show as well with some more serious moments. The gist of the premise is that Saki, a 15 year old, becomes a magical girl that looks like a muscly man to save her crush, Mohiro (who is the older brother of Saki's best friend, Sakuyo) from demons, which are just muscly squirrel looking people. Mohiro is targeted again and again, while no one else seems to be, making Saki and her yakuza fairy mascot wonder what the demons want from him. Things are also complicated by Sakuyo becoming a magical girl to protect *her* love interest: Saki. (Right from the beginning Sakuyo knows Saki likes her brother, and Saki learns real fast that Sakuyo likes her, so it's just constantly a little awkward for both of them. Mohiro, a kindhearted ditz, doesn't seem too aware of any of this) Oh right, and Mohiro is in love with Saki but only when she is Magical Girl Ore.
Now time for some opinions. Broadly speaking I enjoyed the show, the character dynamics were certainly fun, and the plot in the last few episodes actually had a few twists. Mohiro really spends the whole series either singing or being kidnapped, which was kind of amusing (that guy, really is completely dense but also one of the kindest characters, it would have been fun to see more from him/his perspective), and Sakuyo, while her crush on Saki was sometimes comically aggressive, also had its genuinely sweet moments and I kind of figured Saki would fall for her by the end? No one really got with anyone in a clear cut sort of way which was actually pretty interesting, and there really wasn't much drama about no one having clearly requited feelings by the end of everything. I thought that was kind of interesting since usually shows with such an emphasis on romance have all the main players definitively paired up by the end, yet this show left it ambiguous without going all Tragic or Bittersweet. I also enjoyed Saki as a protagonist in general, she was pretty feisty despite her initial timidness, and yet still stayed true to the traditional magical girl message that kindness is a strength.
A few negatives for the series was one, I thought episode 5, which just followed the cyborg vigilante dude instead of our heroes, to be pretty boring. There wasn't any real reason for the episode and it could have been better spent on developing our main characters more. Also, and this is just personal taste, there were definitely several moments where I had the strong 'I'm Too Ace For This Pls Stop' reaction to the more sexual jokes/gags (mostly in the hot bath episodes, unsurprisingly), which made the middle section a little more boring for me, but the rest of the stuff around it I quite liked so it wasn't a devastating drawback.
Aside from that though, the series was quite funny (I enjoyed a lot of the more self-aware jokes, and I loved how most of the fairies were just yakuza guys who kept their human heads in chibi form for no reason), and also fairly emotional at certain points (especially towards the end), so I'd still generally give it a decent rating, probably 7/10 ish. The characters were fun, and so were the relationships, and it was darkly funny how the magical girls didn't really fight with magic most of the time and just violently beat the demons to death with their bare hands, and I thought it had a solid ending! It was decent and a fun way to kill a few hours, and had some quality content as well as some meh content. But I'd be willing to watch it again with someone if they wanted to see it, even if I wasn't Super Crazy about it.
Now time for some opinions. Broadly speaking I enjoyed the show, the character dynamics were certainly fun, and the plot in the last few episodes actually had a few twists. Mohiro really spends the whole series either singing or being kidnapped, which was kind of amusing (that guy, really is completely dense but also one of the kindest characters, it would have been fun to see more from him/his perspective), and Sakuyo, while her crush on Saki was sometimes comically aggressive, also had its genuinely sweet moments and I kind of figured Saki would fall for her by the end? No one really got with anyone in a clear cut sort of way which was actually pretty interesting, and there really wasn't much drama about no one having clearly requited feelings by the end of everything. I thought that was kind of interesting since usually shows with such an emphasis on romance have all the main players definitively paired up by the end, yet this show left it ambiguous without going all Tragic or Bittersweet. I also enjoyed Saki as a protagonist in general, she was pretty feisty despite her initial timidness, and yet still stayed true to the traditional magical girl message that kindness is a strength.
A few negatives for the series was one, I thought episode 5, which just followed the cyborg vigilante dude instead of our heroes, to be pretty boring. There wasn't any real reason for the episode and it could have been better spent on developing our main characters more. Also, and this is just personal taste, there were definitely several moments where I had the strong 'I'm Too Ace For This Pls Stop' reaction to the more sexual jokes/gags (mostly in the hot bath episodes, unsurprisingly), which made the middle section a little more boring for me, but the rest of the stuff around it I quite liked so it wasn't a devastating drawback.
Aside from that though, the series was quite funny (I enjoyed a lot of the more self-aware jokes, and I loved how most of the fairies were just yakuza guys who kept their human heads in chibi form for no reason), and also fairly emotional at certain points (especially towards the end), so I'd still generally give it a decent rating, probably 7/10 ish. The characters were fun, and so were the relationships, and it was darkly funny how the magical girls didn't really fight with magic most of the time and just violently beat the demons to death with their bare hands, and I thought it had a solid ending! It was decent and a fun way to kill a few hours, and had some quality content as well as some meh content. But I'd be willing to watch it again with someone if they wanted to see it, even if I wasn't Super Crazy about it.
