MAND4

Every once in a while you’ll come across an anime that’ll literally help you grow as a person, help you understand some things you may have misunderstood, and when you do come across such anime you hold it in such a high regard that nothing else can even come close, and, on top of that, you begin believing anime to be the best entertainment medium there is. Such is the case with Sky Wizards. Welcome to a large, steaming pile of crap with literally only 1 decent thing in it: girls are kind of cute. No, seriously, that’s literally the only reason I gave this thing2 instead of 1. I bet that if you wanted to, you could write seminars depicting just how bad this thing is. You could teach young people, not just writers or directors, how NOT to live LIFE just based off on this anime. It packs so much ‘bad’, that if unleashed, it would corrupt the entire world and make everyone next gen Hitler. And, what’s so bad about it you wonder? Well, I already said. Everything. Story is an incoherent mess. Plots get introduced out of nowhere, some are never resolved, there’s no underlying, or rather ‘main plot’ whatsoever, there is 0 world building, and nothing of even remote interest occurs. Story is just a huge, steaming pile of mess. Even if I wanted to, there is literally nothing to spoil. No, I’m not joking. You watch the 1st episode, and you KNOW how it’s going to end. There’s 0 debate there. Whatever underlying themes you think exist in this anime, you are wrong. And no, it’s not my opinion, it’s a fact. What underlying theme? Of growth? Overcoming your weakness? Suddenly becoming the most OP trio in the history of academy just by becoming ‘better friends’? Don’t judge book by its cover? If I were born a dumpster by any chance, and someone tried to throw away DVD’s of this anime, I’d throw them right back out. Is there some epic plot that spans the worlds? Nope. There’s nothing epic about it. The entire thing occurs in a small city in the sky. Well then, for sure, that city must have gotten some major world building, seeing as it’s the only place seen throughout the anime. Nope. I couldn’t even bother remembering the name of the city. Nothing is given relation to something else. You don’t know who lives here, you don’t know what happens here, and you’re not even sure just how big the city is. Well then, for sure, seeing as how condensed the story and world is, it must have some mysterious, heart-throbbing plots that eventually lead to a satisfying conclusion! Nope. There’s nothing mysterious, heart-throbbing within this anime, and trust me when I say that the ‘conclusion’ is EVERYTHING but satisfying. I could write a book on just how terribly this show is written, but it’d be a waste. Exposition is given abruptly, at random times, and even when we get it, they still don’t explain anything. Who the hell are these bugs? Who controls them? Why are they attacking humans in the sky cities? Why are the human lives so important for them? How come some of them are bigger than others? Are they intelligent? Why can one of them speak? Is there the big bad guy somewhere controlling them all? How are they in such huge numbers when you show our characters kill literally thousands of them at time? How come some people can use magic and some don’t? When did we evolve to the point of being able to use magic? Where did the magic come from? How are we even using it? Who created weapons that are catalyst of magic usage? Are they a necessity or just a helping tool? How come everyone is able to learn whatever everyone else is able to learn? Is there a set number of magic available and you just use whatever fits you? You wanna know? Yeah, well, too bad. You won’t. Art, sound, animation … honestly, I can oftentimes overlook this – and I do. If the show is gripping in any other department, I’ll simply overlook it and say ‘well, their budget was limited and they did the best they could with what they had’. But in the case of this thing, I can’t. Art is as generic as anything you’ve ever seen. Nothing sticks out. No character design, no building, no creature – everything is just … boring. And now the animation … oh sweet Satan I offer thee my soul to save me. When animators can’t be bothered to animate a character LITERALLY just floating left and right, and instead use jump cuts of said character at left, middle and right, and dare REPEAT it 3 times, you know no one wanted to do anything with this thing. Calling animation stiff would be insult to every other anime with stiff animation. When things are animated, they’re animated in such low framerate you just wish they didn’t even bother animating it. Battles? What?! What the hell was that? I get more excitement from watching bonefire burn out than this thing. Throughout the entire show, you’ll see STILL people flying through the air, swinging things in, and I swear, like 5 frames per second (it can probably cause heart attacks to faint hearted), seeing generic things shoot generic, dull-colored things, and the other things firing slightly bigger, differently colored generic things. There’s no excitement. There is no battle in this anime you’ll even remotely remember – no, not even “the final showdown”. Nothing. Sound is just another thing where the generic side of this anime just shows its ugly head, and it shows it with pride. Same theme is repeated over and over again, at times even louder than anything else happening, as if creators were actually proud of it. Voice actors are … dull. They don’t bring life to the characters – and, when they try to, they fail. I swear, Senyuu. had better art, animation, sound, story and characters. Let that sink in. Speaking of characters … oh boy. I’m not gonna even bother listing their names and will call them by their most defined trait: hair color. You have red-haired girl; she’s your generic semi-tsundere who wants to grow stronger and grows feelings for our MC despite treating him like crap generally. Development? Nope. Interesting dialogue, quirks, banters? Haha, good one. Then we have blonde-haired girl; she’s your generic shy, tense, unable to look people in the eye type of a girl. She also, obviously, quickly grows attached to our MC and trusts him nigh unquestionably. Development? Haha … hahah … Then we have our blue-black-whatever-colored girl; she’s your generic ‘I’m a goddess, treat me as such’ character who never fails to annoy the crap out of you. She, of course, also grows attached to our MC, and her supposed ‘issues’ get addressed 2 times in one episode (well, rather than ‘addressed’, it’s just shown she has them; they’re never actually ‘addressed’). Development? Man, you never learn, do you? Speaking of our MC. He’s your generic look-at-me, pump-up, all-thee-mighty character with questionable but working methods of improving people’s skill by simply showing them following: 1.1 special move 2.Become friends 3.Work together So, all of you out there – all of you who participate in sports or any kind of group activity, those 3 things above are ALL you need to become the very best, even though you were literally the worst like 1 month before. Hard work? Why? Sweating blood and tears for years and years in order to even slightly improve? Why? You can just become friends and boom, you can wipe everyone out. You’ve seen his character time and time again. He’s your generic ‘Oh, everyone treats me like crap but I’m actually a nice guy’, and he never deviates from that. In the first episode, he’s shown to be blown up by an overwhelming attack (I’m using that word quite loosely by the way), and I just assumed he was dead. But nope, he lived. How? Ah, who gives a crap! Look at just how cool he is instead! There are also some other characters out there, each as generic as you can possibly come to generic: random psycho who falls in love with a girl and wants to kill everyone to prove something, tsundere girl in love with our MC but constantly throwing spiteful things at him, supporting duo of friends you know nothing about that pop up once in awhile just to tell audience that our MC isn’t as bad as everyone is calling him, and so on and so forth. Being completely blunt here: this is, quite possibly, one of the worst anime ever created – hear me out here, okay? Yeah, there are other anime out that are just as terrible, just as painful. But, when it comes to them, you can just laugh at how bad they are. You can point at something and say ‘That doesn’t make any sense’ or ‘That’s just terrible’. Here? There is no pleasure from doing that. You’re just reincorporating the idea that you actually DEVOTED THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE to watch this. Not only is it generic on every single fathomable level, it goes beyond that. It makes generic look masterpiece-like. If you ever felt you underappreciated certain anime, watch this. You’ll not only appreciate said anime more, but you’ll also begin appreciating your life and your time. In case you hadn’t noticed, no, I didn’t enjoy this anime, not even the slightest bit. There’s nothing clever about it, and even when the exposition inevitably hits, it explains nothing (making you wonder why was it there in the first place). Stay away from this, you’ll have nightmares.

KaiDestinyz

Back in Spring 2015, when I was looking for potential animes to watch. Kuusen Madoushi Kouhosei no Kyoukan caught my eye. I read the synopsis. It was as follows: The story is set in a world where humanity, driven off the land by the threat of magical armored insects, now live in aerial floating cities. Thus wizards — aerial combat mages who fight the insects with magical powers — came into being. Kanata Age (Eiji) is a young man who lives on the floating wizard academy city of "Misutogan." He was once celebrated as the "Black Master Swordsman," the elite ace of the S128 special team. However,he is now despised as the "traitor of the special team." I thought to myself, this sure sounds it could potentially be the top contender for the Summer 2015 anime season. I could not be more wrong. This is probably the worst anime of 2015 and one of the worst anime I've ever seen. This is exactly how I finished watching the series: 1. Hmm, the girls are somewhat cute. 2. Why am I still watching this? Nvm, it's just a 12 episode series. And I still need to know why he called a traitor. 3. Holy shit, this anime is freaking terrible. 4. That's the end? It's over? Wait... What was the whole show about again? Story: 1/10 (I would give a 0 if I could.) What plot? What story? Who needs that when you are watching this crap!? Awesome fights with beetles!? None of that sort! Just forget about what you read in the synopsis!! No explanations or backstory to the beetles or its origin. Everything is in a mess here. I could try to spoil you but I can't, since there is no plot at all!! But, I will try anyways!! Episode 1: Generic Introduction! Episode 2 - 5: We need to train! Let's spend the next 4 episodes training for the match! Episode 6: HA! You don't even get to see the match they spent 4 episodes training for. Episode 7 - 11: Let's train! Episode 12: Fight scenes so amazing, I rather watch Goku charge up his Spirit bomb. This is how it went for the final showdown. Float left, float right, still images, more still images. Boom, it's over. There, I spoilt it for you! Ha! Art: 2/10 The only redeeming factor, girls are somewhat cute. Animation: 0/10 (I don't care anymore. I don't care if the lowest score I can give is 1/10, because it deserves a 0.) The worst action/battle I've seen EVER in anime history. I get more excited watching 2 still images hitting each other (Even Pokemon Battle animation in Pokemon Yellow in Gameboy colour is more interesting than this crap!!) I rather watch Goku charge up his spirit bomb and go AHHHHHH for 3 episodes. Stickman animations have 100x better fight scenes than what you will get here. Sound: 2/10 Nothing special to talk about. Gets a 2 because the op is not bad to me. Character: 1/10 There wasn't any character development other than Misora but even then it was cringy and uninteresting. Enjoyment: 2/10 To be honest, the first episode started off pretty decently for me. It got me interested. Then everything went to hell real fast from there onwards and you spend the remaining of your time wondering why the heck am I still watching this. The reason why this is a 2 is because I enjoyed wondering how bad an anime can get and was amused at how bad this anime is, it made me appreciate every other anime out there. On behalf of everyone who managed finish this series, only 2 things kept us going: 1. Girls are cute. 2. WHY IS HE A TRAITOR!? STOP CALLING HIM A TRAITOR!! JUST TELL ME ALREADY. The worst anime of 2015 by far, and one of the worst anime I've seen. Absolutely disgusting. Overall: 2/10 (Literally given a 2 because the girls are cute.)