Nanatsu no Maken ga Shihai suru

I think Nanatsu no Maken ga Shihai suru has everything that a magic school anime needs. Interesting characters, mysterious world, duel scenes... Most characters are unique in their personalities and abilities, developing relationships with each other. We can say the character development is dynamic. All characters are grey, there is no such thing as a villain or ally character. Every season they publish dozens of magic school animes, everybody likes them excluding me. This time, it's the opposite. I can't guarantee whether you'll like Nanatsu no Maken or not, but I'm pretty sure that it's better than most magic school animes. If you like others, you probably will like this one too. I'm not a fan of magic school animes, but it was nice.

Harry Potter and the Magical School That Might Kill You. Suppose you’ve grown into an adult and crave a Harry Potter-esque story with a wizarding world that isn’t completely vapid, a story that hasn’t aged poorly over time due to retcons and sometimes thoughtless writing and wasn’t written by a Terf fascist who fully fell down the right-wing nut job hole due to being unable to take Twitter criticism over the many things she's says and does. In that case, I can’t say that Reign of the Seven Spellblades will fully check off all those criteria. Still, it absolutely does a better job of creating a more intricate, whimsical yet dangerous magical world inhabited by a likeable group of friends who aren't just three Brits being assholes towards each other, and I say that as a Brit. Reign of the Seven Spellblades is set at Kimberly Magic Academy. A castle that's much bigger on the inside where the heirs to prestigious wizard families and the gifted children of non-magical families come to learn about magic and the magical world. To graduate from this Academy means to go on to have a prosperous career and in some cases change the world whilst those who don’t are usually the victims of the arcane forces that haunt the academy halls and the dungeon dimension below. The show follows a group of six friends brought together seemingly by coincidence. We have Guy, the son of magical farmers, Pete, the child of nonmagical parents and a Reversi, a rare human who can switch between genders, Katie is an exchange student, a magical country bumpkin and an activist for the rights of demi-humans and magical creatures, Michela, the eldest daughter of the prestigious McFarlane family, Nanao, a magical samurai from the east who is very used to combat, and finally Oliver, a magical prodigy on a secret quest to avenge the death of his mother by the hands of the Kimberly staff. I can’t quite believe I’m saying this, but this is probably the first anime which introduces a core cast of six characters which doesn’t suffer from what I like to call ‘too many characters syndrome’. Not only are their introductions fairly balanced, but they all get relativity substantial character development over the season (except Guy). They’re all incredibly likeable too. They go out of their way to look out for and help one another which makes them feel like a tightly-knit group. It’s rare to find a believably written group of friends in light novel anime who also have good heads on their shoulders, but I found myself enjoying their camaraderie. The world-building is another strength the anime shows off. We’re introduced to a ton of magical creatures, plants and phenomena, spells which require proper magical sounding incantations instead of lazy “flame”, “fireball”, “wind cutter”, y’know, light novel isekai magic, and a ton of different characters and concepts that makes the world feel lived in. Of course, you have your classic wizard nobles being dickheads to students of non-magic folk, but there are debates over the rights of magical beasts, the ethics of magical research and little things like school clubs for people like Reversi and my personal favourite, a gourmet club that explores the dungeon to find, Barbecue and eat different magical beasts. I love the amount of detail the show goes into. The animation is also solid… for the first half of the season. The McDonalds of anime studios J.C.Staff had done an incredible job with some excellent magic action and little animation touches that make the show really pop, but it doesn’t last and by the end, it feels like the animation budget just ran out. There are some things about the show that bugged me, unfortunately. Because of the story's emphasis on how dangerous not only the magical world is, but also the students around our core six there's an air of suspense that never goes away. This wouldn’t be a problem if the show had some points where the characters feel safe, but those moments are few and far between and it results in Spellswords being exhausting to watch. Although it is a bit cringe to watch every girl develop some form of romantic feelings for Oliver his magical skills feel balanced until he whips out a special ability which is so broken it defuses the tension from every other fight he's in. I won’t spoil what it is, but let's just say he might as well be end-game Yhwach from Bleach. I also think the season finale was disappointing. It felt flat and unsatisfying considering the build-up the main antagonist received throughout the season. Oh yeah, and some of the students look like adults pretending to be teenagers and that always bugs me. Reign of the Seven Spellblades has quite a few flaws, but I think they're offset by its strengths. I had a great time with it. It's nice to watch a light novel anime which actually feels magical. 7/10 Good

Nanatsu no Maken ga Shihai suru is not great. It could have been a lot better than it is, but it doesn't explain its world well enough nor give itself time enough to cook through. What it is though is compulsive viewing, it has a soap-opera quality to it where you want to see what happens next, even if you know it's not going to be good. So don't think too hard about it and just slide on through. If you want to think about where it falls down (and I wouldn't bother...), then it sets up a dark fantasy world with elements of the tedious "don't trust anyone murder your classmates" type shows with an Attack on Titan or Lost fixation on adding new mysteries into the mix... Then it tries to power of friendship its way through the setting with the central cast trying to show the world a new path (while there's obvious grounds for a giant heel turn at the end), it could work, if the show tried harder to make it work. But it's too fast and too superficial. Maybe the light novels are better having more time to grow. tl;dr: watch, no thinky

What I'm gonna say is it's a waste potential. You have a genius unrefined spellblader who wants to seek revenge and a young spellblader who fought in a war since she was young. If they focus solely in these two it could have been a great show. You can make him taking care of her since the teachers set on killing spellblader while seeking revenge at the same time but nope. Friendship power ah plot coming in. What is this school for anyway? Why would you attend it if you are a normal person? You get to be someone important? Not sure. Even the rules are stupid. No fighting without magic defense but killing is normal? Even the identity of the school is inconsistent. Is the mc powerful or not? I couldn't tell. At first he goes toe to toe with the samurai but later he seems weaker than he should be. I get it that his spellblade are unrefined but during the first swordfight he seems powerful though.... Sorry just have to rant somewhere because such a waste potential.

There are three things to say about it to summarize my thoughts. Firstly, the anime had a fairly good opener, first couple episodes were solid, giving it a good hook that definitely piqued my interest. Second, the revenge plotline is what caught my interest, and many other peoples interests too, however, it dropped that storyline almost too suddenly, making it almost feel rushed for the plot you're there for, and steadily becoming mildly boring, following a story that almost feels forced, even after showing another side of the main character, which isn't seen again afterwards. Finally, it feels like an anime version of Harry Potter, which you will find no shortage of people also expressing this. Overall, 6/10, art was great, world building is good, music was good, action scenes were almost lackluster, the plot was good at first and then quickly fell short. It has great potential in the revenge plot, but I get the feeling we might not see that, as I don't believe it'll get renewed for a second season. Will update if more information surfaces though.