Mashle

I dunno how this anime got so popular on release. So basically you have a OnePunchMan protagonist but with a brain size of a pea in a Harry Potter setting (you have your typical characters of Ron, Dumbledore, Draco and Lucius Malfoy, ect... your broom flying lesson, the house selection hat, quiddich, Hogwarts and everything else that's not original). This kind of concept already failed with Black Clover, having a protagonist being OP besides having "no magic", but somehow it fails even harder here, despite having to pass tests that require magic, the MC just breaks the laws of physics (which contradicts the challenge the anime impossed on him, which is the whole point of the anime) and passes them anyway by brute force. In the topic of the MC it's really unbearable having one being so dumb, he doesn't even follow orders or rules, and gets off scott free thanks to Dumbledore being too nice. It fails as a shonen offering no challenge to the MC both when it comes to fighting or following the rules of the school/world, and it fails as a comedy by having the same ol' repetitive jokes on how the MC can punch through everything. It serves only as a parody not worth watching

Parody anime can be a hit or miss. Tropes of various settings in anime or live action settings are made fun of, but in order to stand out, it has to nail its comedy, and while comedy is always subjective, this one just didn’t nail it, all the time. It obviously is an attempt at parody of magic academies like Hogwarts, but unfortunately, it just fails to stand out at all in most ways. Perhaps you’ll think I’m “taking a parody anime too seriously”, but when most of the characters are the most stuck-up jerks with little meaningful depth, there just wasn’t much to enjoy. To be honest, this kind of feels like a generic isekai or fantasy anime in a way, with the main character having none of the powers that the people around him have, but still ends up overpowering everyone in some way or another. Way too predictable and frustrating to watch at times, though it’s still watchable with some moments of goodness. The premise centres around Mash Burnedead, a boy in a magical world, but without any magic power of his own. People without magic are persecuted and captured, so Mash has to blend in with his environment, and pretend to know magic as he attends a magic academy. Mash’s specialty is having huge physical strength, which allows him to overpower his enemies with sheer force rather than magic. I haven’t watched One Punch Man myself, but I assume that’s what the comparison comes from, along with Mash’s overall deadpan, quiet personality. The story plays out like any shounen would, the baddies come along, and Mash and his friends conquer said challenges. Not anything special there. The animation isn’t bad, but it felt disappointing considering what A-1 Pictures has done in the last few years. This was probably the product of rushed production, mainly due to the poor schedules of Aniplex, which has resulted in many issues and delays in this year of anime already. It had a couple episodes with more standout animation, but otherwise, it wasn’t all that stellar, just okay. Shounen anime mostly have similar formulas, so the characters are huge part of how one can stand out from the crowd. Other than Mash, the rest of the cast was very forgettable, with generic archetypes and poorly written villains. In terms of its comedy, it was funny at times, but it wasn’t enough to make me dismiss the poor writing. The deadpan humour worked more than the some of the other comedy that was attempted. Perhaps this was just the beginning, and it gets better down the road, but for now, this anime hasn’t done much to keep me invested beyond a couple chuckles here and there. It’s a very light hearted anime, so maybe you’ll find some enjoyment in that though. It just wasn’t my cup of tea, but it might be yours. If this anime was an advertisement for cream puffs though, it most certainly succeeded, as I got a box of cream puffs last week.

In this round of Spring, A-1 Pictures only has a single competitor against some of the hyped anime, fighting the likes of Oshi no Ko, Jigokuraku, Demon Slayer, and Production I.G's fantastic apocalyptic anime, Tengoku Daimakyou. So, when you hear that they're adapting a gag humor about a buff boi enrolling in a magic academy, your first thoughts are "This is just One Punch Man infused with Harry Potter lore." Welcome to Mashle, a magical action about a boy brute-forcing through every adversity being launched in the most absurd way possible. Enter Mash Burnedead, the main protagonist of this 'comedy' story, as he initially was forced to enroll in an academy where he's always at risk of being exposed as a human without magic, he would later put himself on the line to fight back against the world's limitless bigotry and cruelty towards the lower-class and those of without talent. Watch him shed blood and tears to fool every single person in the magical universe they live in. When you look back, this is a good premise and can make for a thrilling story where he has to think hard on how to successfully blend into the world of magic, almost like an escapist trying to prevent the death sentence after running away from prison. Unfortunately, any kind of mental effort would be unexistent as it is replaced with years of physical training that made him so strong he is somehow not bald. Because all of his life before the magic academy arc is just physical exercise after another, he has made minimal effort for his academics and critical thinking; Otherwise, how could you explain this man being able to read, talk, or even comprehend simple words? Instead of jokes centering around Mash struggling to fool the world, it's more interested in the actions of Mash that just defy the logic of physics and reality. It's not that I don't hate the physical jokes, they can be pretty amusing to watch, but it's disappointing the fact this potential was not tapped and would have added more diversity to the jokes other than its gag humor. Let's talk about the other main characters. They have a Siscon, a loud simp, a female simp, and a certified nobody. These characters only play one trope and never expand beyond their initial stand. Their dialogues are so obnoxious, that even the voice actors can't save these pathetic one-note characters. There's nothing else to add other than what I have just described to you. Of course, we all know the saying 'Comedy is subjective.', but these characters are just painful to watch. Not only that, they also exist to purely explain what kind of bullshit Mash has managed to pull off at the challenge of being absurdly impossible. Should I also mention every other character also act this way? It's better to let them shut up and let their actions do the talking, which fortunately does happen in this anime. As a product of A-1 Pictures, the animation is solid and serviceable to a degree, especially when it's Mash's turn to take the spotlight. Some of the action scenes are good and satisfying, so rest assured. It's not as visually impressive as some of its other competitors, but it's consistent enough to draw your attention with the wacky bullcrap this anime subjects you to. The most stinky part of this anime is the villains in this anime, and almost every character initially starts on this route. In every second, you are subjected to an exposition of their thoughts about 'being stronger and throwing away the weak.', boast about their high prowess in said skill and comment unnecessarily about their powerful skills, only to get backfired at the end. If they reappear again, they usually end up being a pawn to the bigger plot this anime heavily implies. It's very predictable and the execution is very poor, so it makes for mostly bland battles with zero stakes, to pursue the absurdity in the action for the sake of comedy. In the end, you can watch this if you want: - Dumb fun. - Good animation. - A catchy ED. Avoid this if you: - Think this is a shameless rip-off. - Hate one-note characters. - Predictable plot. - The clichè shit you'll find in every episode of this nonsense.

Borrow but improvise , is the best way to describe mashle, and In my opinion most fantasy/isekai should learn from this example. It's been a while since we got a good parody anime with a good setting which was able to distinguish itself rather than try to cash in on a particular type, we have had wannabe konosuba clones and wannabe one punch man clones but they teen to forget that even if they are able to feed off of a starved for content audience they will inevitably be forgotten since there is already something similar which is in the store. Mashle by all means is kind of a mixed bag of knockoffs , and its quite plain to see. We have mash who is clearly an inspiration and closely resembles saitama in his unassuming demeanor and lack of emotions. We also have a very clearly harry potter inspired magic school setting with a very standard shounen power level defining scale with the number of face lines defining the amount of magic power/mana but the potency of the same can be honed with other methods this allows for a fairly nuanced and open ended battles with some surprising upsets also being possible. And a relatable oddball story which is loosely black clover inspired which makes for interesting and hilarious outcomes due to mash being severely underestimated. There are several examples of anime that do this , but not many examples of anime that manage to do them ALL in a well balanced and entertaining way , most which try , make themselves over complicated or fail the parody and comedy aspect quite hard. Plot (7/10) Well , the start of the series is quite straightforward , there is an unusual kid in a world where your magical prowess determines everything to the point that those who cant use magic are deemed as good as dead. mash is unable to use said magic and hence has been secretly raised up by his adoptive grandpa in a remote forest in a way that ensured that he trained with muscles and physical strength enough so that he may fend for himself. Now this made him quite the emotionless and dumb guy due to his lack of human interaction and understanding the room or any of the fancy social stuff. This is basically the first two eps , now circumstances ofc lead to the academy being introduced into the mix with him requiring to earn some gold coins (you know accomplish feats means good boi coins kinda thing).now this is standard shounen story with a well defined route and endgame but it also manages to squeeze a good amount of comedy and parody of the same here . Then we get the very obvious Harry Potter inspired personality based house sorting system after which we go full steam ahead with a first major villain arc with some minor pens along the route with hints of a “mysterious third faction”. The flow of the plot is good , interaction of characters is also minimal with a mostly infodumps approach for system explanation but some comedy and parody hidden here and there to keep entertainment value fairly up. Characters (7/10) Mash and his gang have a bunch of nice and quirky yet unique in a way kids. They do have trope inducing kinks like the obsessed girl , the siscon , the wanna be cool mc guy and the scaredy mfer, but most of them are used for parody effect and probably designed in such a way intentionally and are able to fit their comedic roles nicely. Mash is the saiatama clone with straight face and often blunt response to standard villain jargons, however he is much of a nice and innocent figure due to his righteous and hermit like lifestyle. The characters do manage to mesh together well , individually they dont emit much of an aura and its only fun when they are horsing around / interacting with others. Villains are also slightly better than your standard punching back goon , but usually have shallow / predictable backstory with a nakama approach of changing to good from evil. Sound and VA (9/10) The OP and ED are both fuckin amazing and the OST is also quite the banger with mash getting quite the spotlight due to the BGMN during his cool scenes. The VA is alright with only the red hair guy being a bit of a standout. Art and animation (8/10) It has amazing art and background design which drive home the amazing magic school feeling which doesnt feel like a cheap harry potter imitation, the background and setting art does the heavy work for this purpose , and i am also satisfied with the uniform / house designs. The animation is really good as well with amazing sakuga for action scenes. The only problem is the usually dull and uninspiring monster designs. This is a must watch for comedy/ parody fans who miss one punch / saiki kusou type of plot line. If you like magic school and harry potter type stories too it would be easily pleasing for you. I can also recommend watching the first two for understanding if the comedy works for you even if you are generally not interested in this genre.

Spoiler-free review So... Mashle isn't the worst comedy-focused shonen I've seen. That's the highest praise I can give it honestly. The anime is fine... the humor is OK for the most part (many jokes miss though). It's the same repetitive gag over and over and over though about how ridiculously strong he is and about how he shocks everyone constantly. Which makes the show kinda one-note in my opinion. Nothing is shocking or surprising or keeps me guessing, which is why this show felt kind of dull for me. The qualities that had the potential to save this show for me are the pacing (it's very fast paced... thank god for that) and the memeability of the protagonist, Mash. He makes many faces that can be used as reaction images, and that's honestly the main draw for me. Which isn't great for a tv show, which has the goal of entertaining you and making you want to watch more. Okay, I've been beating around the bush. There's one major glaring issue with this show that I feel is not talked about nearly as much as it should, and that's the absolute flop that is every female character. This author either hates women, or does not know how to write them. There is one female character that is a part of the main group, and her whole purpose of being there is to have a crush on our beloved stale af MC. Yep. She is there to fangirl. That's it. As a female viewer, it's honestly insulting to see. I'm waiting for the day that female characters are written as people and their own unique individuals, that aren't tethered to the MC. Just... why??? It's very infuriating and actually made me want to drop the show (I probably should have, but alas, the sunk time fallacy strikes again). Another thing that's really unfunny and out of place is one of the side characters having an obsession with his little sister. It's really offputting and just... weird. I know this is a common gag in anime, but when can it end? It's not funny, it's not endearing, and the author basically just wrote this character into a gag that he's going to be repeating over and over indefinitely. I get that humor is subjective and someone may find this funny, but even if this is supposed to be funny, the sheer repetitiveness ruins any potential humor in it. The OP and ED are good, if you care about that (I do). The VAs are great. But these qualities aren't enough to save the show. This anime is meant to parody the generic-ness of the shonen genre, that's pretty clear by how in-your-face it is. But there's a point where it stops being a parody and actually becomes what it was trying to parody. That's what I think happened here. I watched the first two episodes of season 2 out of curiosity, and it hasn't gotten better. It's majorly disappointing. TLDR: Go in with low expectations if you want to watch it, but I don't recommend you watch it anyway. There's much better shonen you can watch. This anime treats female characters like props and the jokes flop a majority of the time.

I actually don't understand how this series became as popular as it is. Is it bad? NO. Is it Great? NO. It is barely above mediocre? The main protagonist doesn't really have any personality, his character traits are that he is strong and he likes cream puffs. The side characters are diverse in personality, but overall kind of generic. There are some giggle worthy moments between them, but nothing that had me dying of laughter or anything. The story is just so uninteresting, the main protagonist is just OP, and he needs to pass magic school as the Valedictorian to prove to the world he is OP. If you think well one punch man is op and does the same thing... this is not One Punch Man, in one punch man there are character moments that make you cry and feel like the fight between the sea king and mumen rider.There are never moment's of suspense when it comes to a fight. The villains just call him weak because he doesn't use magic or he doesn't have two magic lines and then they get punched in the face. He never has to train or anything to win a fight. There is absolutely no character development at all. The main character just kind of uses a "muscle magic" move and is able to win because plot armor. There was kind of some suspense and creativity in him trying to hide the fact he cant use magic like the broom flying episode, which I actually kind of liked. But, it doesn't last. Idk why I watched it all, because of its popularity I thought maybe it'd get better, but it is just the same jokes, the same villains, the same contrived plot. Boring 4/10

In the realm of endless AniManga content that we've been consuming over the last 20 odd years or so, certain series have stood out for one reason or another. Take mangaka Tatsuki Fujimoto's Chainsaw Man for example: it's grotesque; it's full-on intense action; and above it, we all simp the hell out of Makima for the woof effects. Now we switch gears to mangaka Shuhei Miyazaki's Boku to Roboko a.k.a Me and Roboco, which is a parody manga that makes fun of all of the IPs that it can get its hands on. And have you ever posed this question in your mind: "Hmm, if there is an abridged version of the two Weekly Shonen Jump works, what will that end result end up looking like?" And boy, have I got the answer for you! It's yet another Weekly Shonen Jump work called Mashle: Magic and Muscles, made by mangaka Hajime Komoto, and while the manga is recently coming to a close, the anime adaptation...is alright, courtesy of the always-missing director Tomoya Tanaka. This is the story of Mash Burnedead, the character most likened to Mob Psycho 100's Mob and One Punch Man's Saitama for being indifferent with a deadpan expression. However, in a world where magic is always at the centre/forefront, like Black Clover's Asta, who was born without magic (which is signified by the Harry Potter scar-ish mark on everybody's faces), it's all about the muscles and excessive training, pumping weights, and not giving a damn about his surroundings every day, 24/7. Oh, and all he cares about is his cream puff, which is his sanity item. Mash is just a young man who wants to live life to the fullest, with peace like a river overflowing deep within the recesses of his heart. He's a pure soul. But trouble comes lurking at his door with enemies threatening to kill his adoptive father Regro, and to save both him and his peaceful life, the deal is that he has to go to the region's magic school: Easton Magic Academy, to become a Divine Visionary by hook or by crook, and that says the story for the magicless young man to enter and make his way through to survive, and to make a bold statement that muscles can trounce magic.   Right away, ask anybody who has seen this show, and try summing it up in a short sentence, they will give you this clear and concise answer: "One Punch Man meets Harry Potter". Because other than Easton Magic Academy almost being a blatant rip-off of Hogwarts, down to the various Houses (Adler, Lang, and Orca, as opposed to Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, and Huddlepuff), and even the Quidditch matches (which are dubbed Duelo), clearly there are lots of Shonen works released every year, especially if it's one that comes from the juggernaut that is Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump, the crème-de-la-crème of Shonen works. So then, instead of just copying the once meme material that was Yuki Tabata's Black Clover, Hajime Komoto opted to go for a full fantasy showing, stating that when drawing manga, he pays attention to the size of the letters and the number of lines, and for the picture, it is important to "first include an overall picture that shows the positional relationship of the characters". In action scenes especially, he tries to capture images so that "within a single picture, the perspective is tight from the front to the back". And since Komoto himself prefers "bad" characters, he also takes the dialogue of the characters in the manga to the extreme and draws them to be "bad people for the time being" (because bad people can be good as well). In the expression phase, he even goes to the gym to relax and recover his energy, so you know that he's built for the destiny of creating the parody work that Mashle is now. Heck, his influential points were from both One Punch Man and Kimetsu no Yaiba a.k.a Demon Slayer, with the former being made very obviously clear, and with the latter, items and motifs based on the character design. Hajime Komoto is no mere simpleton, he's a certified gag parody author.  The characters in Mashle are a fun bunch, though they are not without their quirks and features, which make them stand out. As mentioned earlier, Mash Burnedead is basically Black Clover's Asta, the magicless young man who has a knack for all things physical and is kind and selfless. However, unlike Asta, who desires to fit in with everybody else, Mash is just an easygoing boy who just wants to do his very own thing: eat cream puffs all day. His "magic" fighting style is dubbed "Muscle Magic", using physical power to perform unpredictable moves.  Mash's crew of friends consists of:  - Finn Ames, the roommate of Mash. Finn always plays the straight man and is a nervous wreck all the time, on top of his cowardly self, who is frightened rather easily but is extremely loyal to his friends and goes to great lengths to take care of them. Unfortunately, he's not very close with his older brother Rayne (who is the current Easton Magic Academy's exceptional Divine Visionary student) and has little patience of toleration. His magic is teleportation, being able to swap the positions of people and objects.  - Lance Crown, Mash's first "certified" rival. Lance is a somewhat uncommon case of a double-liner magic user, in which the more lines a person has, the greater the magic the user can wield. His condition isn't anything special, but like Finn, he has a reason to fight as well, being a siscon because his sister would worry about him getting into fights and protecting the bullied, until his sister's death, which vowed him to, like Mash, become a Divine Visionary. His magic is gravity, in pure manipulation.  - Dot Barrett, Mash's self-proclaimed rival. With spiky red hair and red-brown eyes, Dot is an extremely hot-blooded and easily irritated person with a superiority complex but is actually a good person at heart, despite being hit hard by the harsh sensitivity of falling in love and getting rejected. His magic is generating explosions, and together with the cross on his forehead, that exponentially increases his magic power.  - Lemon Irvine, Mash's self-proclaimed fiancée. Being one to gawk at Mash's unkempt appearance at the start, her testing became one of connivance to one of love from the moment he assisted her in Easton's entrance exam. As compared to her outward appearance from the start, Lemon is a somewhat soft-spoken and kooky girl, but she's a honest-to-goodness person and seems incapable of betraying others, though like Finn, she gets scared very easily and tends to exaggerate in the conversations she has with other people. Her magic is Creation, allowing her to create cuffs and other sorts of binding equipment such as chains and manacles.  Together with the Professor Dumbledore rip-off of Headmaster Wahlberg Baigan, Easton Magic Academy has never seen magic levels this lively and feisty, all because of an outlier in the most righteous of Houses (House Adler) that faces enemies from the likes of House Lang's Magia Lupus to unseen ones lurking behind the scenes. Mash is in for a ridiculously good time being Saitama in a Hogwarts setting. Remember when I said that the anime adaptation of the manga was okay? Yes, it sure does and feels like such, which for a Shonen series that has moderate popularity in Japan, helmed by such a famous and high-calibre studio as A-1 Pictures (along with Aniplex for that matter), really doesn't look the best when compared to the manga. Even though this was a 1-to-1 translation, there wasn't much of an improvement, or anything that made the anime stand out despite being a moderate hit. It's just a shame that there is so much talent that ended up being unused, or rather, not utilised, which could pump up sales for the manga, but nope. For that reason, I can't quite justify giving the anime a high rating.  The music...is rather so-so, to be honest. Taiiku Okazaki's OP "Knock Out" gets lost in a myriad of similar songs composed for the oversaturated Shonen market, and as you've probably guessed, it just sounds as averagely Shonen as it …

I really did want to enjoy it, the initial setup for it was interesting enough, however Mashle is way to focused on giant fights and comedy to be anything but that. Its world building is pretty much non-existent, the characters are mostly one note, theres very little time to work on any establishing factors or even just the world itself. Within the first 12 episodes the power scaling has already gone above and out of the 'school' level, we've seen like 5 different ex-machina's that are meant to make a character cool and unique and the rules for the world, its magic and all the systems in place have never once been touched on. So if you want to watch Saitama goes to isekai bogwarts then this may be the show for you, however I couldnt get invested in the few dozen characters shown to me, especially when im being told how cool they are meant to be by a peanut gallery.

I usually don't watch such pieces from start to the end but I wanted to make my own opinion. And I have to say that I usually don't use word "overrated" but this anime is precisely that. But hey, maybe somebody can have some fun with it, it's a question of taste, right? Let's start with what this anime even is. It's supposed to be obviously parody on Harry Potter and One Punch Man. Within labels it has parts as "comedy" or "gag humor". I really liked the concept and wanted to try it, well, anime didn't deliver some good quality entertainment... First I would like to clarify that I didn't find this anime funny in any way. Basically a few jokes through entire season and best of them were average. All jokes are trying to build on top of the "One Punch Man moments" as OPM itself had. But this anime is doing it in a really terrible way possible. Second, I didn't go to watch this for the story itself or something like that but when it lacks comedy, you would expect some story, right? Well, no... Anime is just picking parts from HP and OPM and doing random events in random episodes, which was the frustrating part. Some consequences? No. Some inner logic? No, just muscles, which stopped being funny after 2nd episode. Third, I have my doubts about some characters, yet many of them are created in a positive way and if anime would have better jokes or story or anything, those characters would fit in well. They are all a bit chaotic, all with own personalities, inner talks, etc., they weren't bad that much as the rest of the anime. Fourth, some ideas have been great, but anime simply couldn't deliver it in some enjoyable form. When I put everything on 1 pile, watcher probably wants some good comedy, action and good parody, when he starts watching this. But anime is really bad at least in 2 of these categories and thus it doesn't make sense as a whole. Absolutely have no idea what happened but I can't even say I have mixed feelings because I can't really recommend this one for any reason. There are better comedies and definitely better parodies and action pieces. Like a way better.

“Mashle: Magic and Muscles” is what happens when You want to write a parody but have no sense of comedy. We follow Mash (not the awesome series from 1972… unfortunately; yes I know it was M*A*S*H but cut me some slack, that is still one of the best series ever created, with one of the best writing in television history, and I won’t waste a chance to mention it) a Young boy who can’t use magic in a world where it’s everything. After being blackmailed into becoming an exceptional student in a magic school, he has no choice but to climb the ladder and get as much recognition as he can… without magic… in a magic school. On top of keeping his special circumstances a secret at all times. Yeah… it actually sounds more awesome than it is. This type of show doesn’t rely heavily on its plot, instead its blood is the characters and their interactions. It’s a shit show on that front. Everyone and I do mean everyone is a one trick pony with one characteristic turned into a personality. Mash is a simple, honest boy borderlining on benign a dunderhead. Lance is a cool, collected intelligent boy with a sister complex. Dot is a firecracker. Lemon is lovestruck and Finn is… just there… for some reason. Seriously, why is he in his coterie? The dude contributes nothing. If You’re hoping the villains (and I use this term loosely) would fare better… yeah… not really. They’re in the same boat as the main nakama. The plot is… everywhere and nowhere to be honest. The glooming shadow of his blackmail is always hanging and is sometimes referenced but all in all means little to the plot itself. The show is a bit like “Trouble of the week”. Despite being denser than a neutron star Mash is trying not to get expelled but always seems to draw someone's attention. Which results in that person trying to eff with him and getting their ass handed to him on a silver platter by Mash. It’s all very reactive. Ok, listen, I get that this is supposed to be a parody show. That’s why You get Hogward school mashed with Naruto style battles (even a bootleg talk-no-justu) but there is a line between an homage and a ripoff. This one is in the latter category. After just two episodes You are introduced to everything this show has to offer in terms of comedy. It gets stale pretty fast and even before the half way mark You’ll stop even noticing that You are supposed to laugh. It’s a really boring slapstick comedy and once in a while a witty dialog (not many, don’t get Your hopes up). If You’re hoping that at least the battles would be a highlight, after all we have a character that relies on his body to combat magic users, You’ll be very, VERY disappointed. Despite being practically a monk vs sorcerer from D&D battles they play out like in most anime. That is: Start frame - some lights and effects that are there to distract You from the fact that the animators aren’t getting paid enough to do their job on a level that’s not a shaking still image - end frame. I think that’s what got me the most. They had all this possibility to create amazing, well thought out and animated battles and instead we got the same shit we get in every lame ass, OP MC isekai on the market (at least this one isn’t an isekai but that’s hardly a satisfaction). All in all this show is bad. It’s just a bunch of colourful effects, amalgamation of ideas You already saw with just the minimal amount of writing to make You think You care about what’s going on. Also… the least they could do is give us the damn recipe for the cream puffs!

Because it is an anime that adapts a weekly Shounen Jump manga, I was very encouraged to give it a chance and watch it, after all, I am a big fan of Battle-Shounen anime, but the disappointment and disgust when watching this anime was one of the biggest I had in a long time. It seemed to me that the author wanted to do a kind of "speedrun" of the genre and just threw stereotypes and extremely generic and well-known narratives. Nothing here is unique. This anime has nothing original. The characters are extremely shallow and uninteresting with weak interactions and nothing stimulating in addition to non-existent motivations and backgrounds. Action and world-building that feels like it was designed by a beginner. And a horrible technical part. Definitely one of the worst anime from A-1 Pictures. Anyway, there's not much more to talk about, because as I said, here in this anime everything is so simple and shallow that there's almost nothing to evaluate. Sad that there is such a bad anime in this amazing new batch of new battle-shounens.

To start this madness, we are introduced to a world where all human beings are born with the gift of magic, but this changes when a child without this ability emerges, Mash Burnedead, a teenager full of muscles but devoid of magic. Considered an aberration, Mash takes refuge in the forest until one day he is caught and forced to attend a magic school a la Hogwarts. "Mashle" combines references to Western works with situations and key concepts seen in other successful anime, many of them like One Punch Man. Similar to the protagonist Saitama, Mash was born without any special ability and achieves strength that surpasses any magic through training. What limits him is his nonchalance, another established element that "Mashle" adapts in its pastiche; Mash's monumental disinterest makes everything extremely comical in the anime. Whether it's his compulsion for profiteroles, his ability to work out in any situation, or his poor performance in mathematics, everything is a pretext for a punchline. The series doesn't make much effort to invest in suspension of disbelief and presents the most absurd climaxes and outcomes possible. Initially, we see Mash dealing with his problems in the Saitama style: with just one punch. As the episodes progress, the character's life becomes more challenging, and he needs to rely on other muscles to overcome his obstacles. The commitment with which the series embraces satire and the ridiculous surpasses the lack of complexity. It's already one of the best surprises among the anime premieres this year, an unpretentious entertainment that only a good underdog can sometimes provide.

One Punch Man x Harry Potter, almost to the point where it could be labeled as a ripoff. That’s just about where the concept for this show ends. The show really is just the bare minimum you’d expect from an idea like this. There’s absolutely nothing interesting going on, and no sign of anything interesting happening in the future. It’s a gag anime through and through, which is fine, but it was made abundantly clear in the first episode that I wasn’t the target audience. If you’re actually one of the few who’ll stick around for the story and not the lackluster comedy, however, expect new concepts and pieces of world-building being introduced simply as the author pleases, non-existent character arcs, antagonists and other obstacles that’re all overcome in the same uncreative way, and a main character who’s just Saitama but without the charm and humanity that makes him compelling. The show's not even particularly bad, just very, very monotonous. The animation was okay I guess… 4 / 10, first few episodes are kinda fun, but the episodic formula gets really tiresome really quickly.

Mashle is decidedly average in every aspect. Its characters? We’ve seen them a million times. Over-exaggerated comedy? We have that too. Plagiarism disguised as parody? ALL OVER THE PLACE. But I gotta give credit where credit is due: the animation is alright. :) That’s it. Really. There is nothing more to praise Mashle for. So now, let’s talk about the bad: The character design has no distinct quality. The OST is uninspired. The characters are shallow. The jokes get saturated and are predictable. The narrative is a textbook shounen replica. And the parody… well, let’s go into details first… Mashle plays the parody card by not taking certain story elements seriously, but without subverting any expectations or using these elements in any meaningful or intelligent way. The parody “events” are just that: events. They are barely even attached to the main story because the show plays out as any other mediocre shounen and takes that part seriously. Okay, so, maybe the main character is a subversion of the shounen genre, when we put him against average narrative tropes… And sure, that might be the point. But that’s just a cop-out from One-Punch Man. What about the Harry Potter parallels then, you might wonder? “I betchu that’s great parody material!”, you might say. Well, no. They hardly have any relation to the story, aside from the simplistic overarching parallel of the story taking place in a magic school with different groups inside (the rest of the elements taken from HP are simply used for gags). Okay then, what about the gags? “They have to be good right? Look at the score on this show, something must be capturing the audience’s hearts!” Well, again, no. The gags can be summed up to: exaggerated character quirk put against a “straight man” and/or the simple saturation of character quirks (e.g.: Mash is so strong he can’t open doors, he breaks them; Mash loves cream puffs, so he thinks of/eats them in unusual moments; Red haired guy takes himself too seriously, as if he were the main character; Blonde girl is a pervert; White haired dude is a hardcore siscon; etc…). All characters can be summed up to one characteristic or two, which are played for laughs AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN, to the point of exhaustion. That is, except when the story is busy trying to SERIOUSLY justify that single characteristic in a long monologue/flashback in the middle of a fight due to enemy provocations which then provoke the well-known transformations and rage fueled power spikes. Taking it all into consideration I still can’t say Mashle is BAD… it’s an okay, inoffensive show. I’m not that critical about my anime, after all, entertainment is entertainment, and being COMPLETELY cliché and predictable doesn’t necessarily take away from the enjoyment. For that reason, Mashle is perfectly average and perfectly enjoyable, if it suits your tastes. HOWEVER, I did not rate it 5 (an average score for an average anime, duh). And you might be wondering why. Or not? Anyway… it is because I have a beef with the main character. Dude… at the end of (almost) every fight Mash sympathizes with the villain and forgives their behavior and the evil-doer (which up until that moment was nothing short of a psychopath) suddenly has a flashback that “justifies” his actions and comes to the realization Mash is Jesus and repents for his sins. PLUS, Mash is always fighting to defend the weak and oppressed. It’s the wet dream of a bullied kid. We get to watch Mash watching someone get humiliated for half an episode, so that then he can take action and his violence be justified because he is Sanctity incarnate. Rinse and repeat.

Overall a really mid series. Pretty much every single character is one dimensional and it gets pretty old when most of the significant characters are the same stoic type. This series feels like a magic/fantasy version of Saiki K but Saiki K does it's characters and humor better. It also feels like this series can't decide if it wants to commit to being a gag anime or being serious so I was left not knowing how to approach it. The female characters are a joke, I don't even know why they're present in the series. Each character has their own "personal magic" and the only female character we have on the mc side is so insignificant we never even know what her personal magic is. Even the mc's roommate/friend who is just one step above insignificance to the female character gets his personal magic revealed later in the series. The female antagonists? Also just as embarrassing. We don't get many female antags but the ones that we do get have their abilities or personalities rotate solely around male characters. It's really bad. You get backstories to certain characters but it feels shoehorned in and half the time I felt like I really didn't care about this character enough to care about their backstory. Oh, and we get another character with a thing for his little sister. Disgusting. You could've had a completely normal character with a normal love for his little sister without making it weird, but instead for some reason the author decided "you know what would be funny? A siscon gag!" It's not funny, it's never going to be funny, incest is not funny. That being said the series was alright. Far from anything that will change your brain chemistry but it's something that will pass the time. Also I quite liked Mash, even if he's just another Saiki- I mean Saitama- I mean Mob. Yeah his character has been done before (and better) but I still liked him regardless and he had some entertaining moments. I'm also a sucker for the extremely strong mc trope, but I understand it's not everyone's cup of tea. Truthfully if you don't like that trope I would avoid the series cause it doesn't have much else going for it in my opinion. Lastly Mash is 100% autistic. Autism rules!!

Mashle: Magic and Muscles is a combination of deriving concepts from various media while attempting to capitalize on action and parody. Unfortunately, ideas explored beyond the initial premise are only surface-level. Some areas do succeed, such as the quick pacing and the amazingly ambitious soundtrack. However, cracks in the foundation start to form with generic character archetypes and formulaic backstories, uninteresting and repetitive conflict resolutions, and the commitment to questionable traits simply to be used as a gag. Moreover, the female cast is written one-dimensionally to fit a role rather than as unique individuals. The overall production quality is fine, but the writing feels uninspired.

Mashle ended up being a huge disappointment. The characters are incredibly bland, offering almost nothing in terms of personality or development. They feel like generic templates dragged through each episode with no real purpose. The music doesn’t help either; it’s forgettable at best and downright annoying at worst, adding no energy or atmosphere to the scenes. But the worst offender is the comedy. It’s repetitive, predictable, and painfully unfunny. The show keeps recycling the same jokes, hoping they’ll land, but they never do. Instead of feeling like a clever parody, it just comes across as lazy and uninspired. Overall, Mashle is a boring, poorly executed anime that fails in almost every area it tries to shine in. Not worth the time. 2/10

Approximately 5-6 years ago, some unnamed individual wrote a post on Facebook. It read thusly: “There are no buff wizards in Harry Potter, no gym in Hogwarts, no one does a push up at any point. I could crack Ron Weasley’s spine like a glowstick.” Hajime Koumoto-sensei must have read this one day and thought to himself, yo, hold my magic wand! Every fiber of my being is permeated by the conviction that this is the exact post that inspired him to write Mashle. You cannot change my mind. Point and case, that’s literally the concept of the story – a gymbro enters a wizards’ school and beats up magic nerds with the power of muscles and bench pressing. It’s Harry Spotter: The Boy Who Lifted! The premise is that every member of this fictional world is born with the ability to perform magic. Said natural magical aptitude is evidenced by a distinctive scar on their faces. It is in such a world that we find an anomaly, our aloof protagonist, Mash Burnedead. Being born with 0 magical ability in his veins, his father raised him deep within the forest, hidden, completely isolated from the rest of society, for fear that if he were to be discovered, he would be culled. Apparently, the bright and colorful magical world we are presented hides a sinister dark side. The reason magic has flourished and every member of society is a witch or wizard is because non-magical individuals have been routinely exterminated and their genes were therefore not allowed to reproduce. Now, full disclosure, this is a bit ambiguous, for a character later claims that the non-magical people are merely ostracized and removed from society, so it’s not clear to me if we’re talking about a Hitler-like 'final solution'-type deal or a KKK-like ‘separate, but equal’-type deal. In any case, Mash’s inevitable discovery puts him in the difficult position of having to enroll in the Easton Magic Academy and prove his worth. How could a non-magical person cope inside a magical school? Watch to find out! Mind you, the Harry Potter reference isn’t just a low hanging fruit joke I'm making simply because it’s the best known franchise about magic and wizards. Mashle openly satirizes Harry Potter. It’s not even subtle. I swear, if the show could wink at you and nudge your elbow, it would. It all but breaks the 4th wall. To begin with, the name of every single episode follows the naming conventions of Harry Potter volumes, such as Mash Burnedead and the Divine Visionary, or Mash Burnedead and the Magic of Iron, or Mash Burnedead and the Baleful Bully. Accordingly, magic in this universe is performed through the use of short wooden rods called wands and the specific material said wand is made of has some form of significance. Furthermore, Easton Magic Academy is made to be as identical to Hogwarts as humanly possible without getting one’s self sued for copyright infringement. There is a maze with magical traps and such that contains a sphinx who will only let the characters pass if they solve its riddle. The school has an insanely powerful, but wise, if somewhat eccentric old headmaster with glasses, a long snowy beard, and a long Germanic name. Said headmaster is shown to be routinely in conflict with the decisions of the governmental magical authorities and elects to run his school the way he sees fit. Once enrolled, there is a sentient magical device that can read a student’s thoughts upon physical contact and sort them into their appropriate houses – it is said this device has fulfilled this duty for centuries. Each house has an animal emblem. The houses are Adler, who value courage and conviction, Orca, who value wisdom and kindness, and Lang, who value talent and ambition. All of the protagonists belong to Adler. No one relevant belongs to Orca. Naturally, all the villains belong to Lang. The locations of the various houses’ dorms are secret and only known to the students belonging to each respective house. There is a publicly-tracked point system that encourages competition between the fou- excuse me, three houses. For Christ’s sake, they even have a wizards’ sport with a weird name that is played on broomsticks where the point is to throw a ball through a hoop goalpost located on the opponent’s side of the field – and yes, the Lang players cheat. The similarities do not even come close to ending there. Probably my favorite element of this whole parody fiesta is the existence of the Orca house. Koumoto-sensei obviously realized that Ravenclaw, the wisdom house, and Hufflepuff, the kindness house, were never actually relevant in the Harry Potter story, so rather than put the nerds in one house and the dorks in another, he figured he might as well meld them together and put all the nameless, faceless losers into one house – what an absolute madlad! Why have 2 irrelevant houses when you can have just one, amirite? Rest assured, the disrespect does not end there. You might be laboring under the delusion that me calling them irrelevant is simply my own interpretation because I’m a mean asshole – fair guess – but it’s not! It’s really not! The narrative states it explicitly. When the plot proper is on the verge of kicking in, one of the main characters will draw the others’ attention to the house points scoreboard thingamabob and point out that Slyther- excuse me, Lang is winning, and she states that since Orca students are always too immersed in their studies and research to implicate themselves in such sordid affairs, it’s up to them, Gryff- excuse me, Adler, to prevent Lang from winning this universe’s counterpart of the House Cup. I can’t put into words what joy this brings me. Rather than indirectly by way of not including them in anything important, like Joanne did, Koumoto-sensei unequivocally describes Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw as peripheral window dressing that you do not need to give a shit about. In so many words, he outright tells you that if you belong to Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff, you are too much of a nerd and a dork to matter. L + RIP bozo + ratio + touch grass + hoes mad + don’t care + who asked + smol pp + skill issue + stay mad + cry about it + mald + seethe + dilate + cope harder. This was unironically my favorite part of the anime. Absolutely cold-blooded! Gryffindor are the only ones who matter! Everybody else sucks! Just as God intended! It’s an enormously hilarious show that’s surprisingly animated by A-1 Pictures. Mind you, I don’t say it’s surprising because hurr, durr, A-1 bad, and I’m surprised they put out something that doesn't suck, look at how original and cynical I am! I mean that it’s surprising because it has a very distinct visual identity from other A-1 shows. Mashle looks and feels like a Bones show. It comes across as My Wizard Academia, all with the exception of the protagonist himself, who is basically just Muggle Psycho 100. In particular, I want to emphasize the final boss of the main arc. This dude has one of the best designs I have ever seen in anime. Since the concept of Mashle is evidently a rip-off of the formula ONE used for One Punch Man and Mob Psycho 100, I have grown accustomed to the fact that the protagonist will dispatch most villains fairly quickly and with relative ease. As such, since Saitama and Mob instantly delete most of their antagonists, putting a huge amount of effort into their designs feels somewhat counter-productive, which is why most of them look goofy, and even among the ones whose designs look appealing, very few actually tell a story. The same cannot be said for Abel. Everything about this dude is just *chef’s kiss*, everything, from his face, to his eyes, to his clothing, to his hair color, to his hair style, to his voice actor, to his ideology, to his motivations, all the way down to his powers, it all flows and fits together so well, that you can tell exactly what this dude is about just by looking at him, and that is the essence of good character design. He is perfect. Given the short amount of time he has to be built up an…

!!English is not my first language so excuse my grammar!! The first couple episodes were funny and exciting but then when later in the anime it began getting extremely boring. I dont know why i think its boring but it was kinda the same again and again and again. Nothing but these random fight scence that took way too long and them speaking nonsense? I think this anime just isnt really my taste which is also why i wouldnt personally recommend it. But i am sure that alot of other people enjoyed it alot. I also thought it was pretty annoying how there were no emotions. The only expressions he had was being mad (When something happened to his cheese puffs) or not caring. But again that is probably just me who likes animes with a bit more emotion. Other than that i was okay.

MASTERPIECE PT-BR eu nunca vi um anime tão bom em fazer umas piadas exageradas e escrachadas, eu do risada sempre com os bagulho absurdo que esses cara fazem, simplesmente muito bom, já li o mangá completo e agora só esperar a próxima season q vem por ai A animação das lutas ficou impecável não poderiam ter feito melhor, a trilha sonora também fez o anime ficar melhor ainda. Amei demais, recomendo super pra quem gosta de um humor parecido com one punch man, é sensacional EN-US I've never seen an anime so good at making exaggerated and ridiculous jokes, I always laugh at the absurd things these guys do, simply very good, I've already read the entire manga and now I'm just waiting for the next season to come. The animation of the fights was impeccable, they couldn't have done better, the soundtrack also made the anime even better. I loved it so much, I highly recommend it to anyone who likes humor similar to One Punch Man, it's amazing