Story & Characters

When I first became an anime fan, I would do fervent research before I would watch anything. Maybe I was pickier back then or maybe just too scared to waste money on something that wouldn't be good. Now it seems with broadband internet, more money, oh who am I kidding? Pure fanboy. Now I'll watch a show for something as simple as a cute girl. Sad I know. Well enter Zero no Tsukaima and the main heroine Louise.

Zero no Tsukaima takes place in an alternate world where magic and dragons exist. The majority of the story takes place at a magical academy where students train to become successful mages. Everybody has their own specialty whether it be earth magic or water. Enter Louise de long name not worth typing out. Louise is a high strung and cocky mage wannabe who can't do much of anything right. Every spell she attempts to cast seems to fail miserably and just blow things up. During the ceremony to summon what is to be your familiar forever more, she ends up summoning a boy by the name of Saito who comes from our world; more particularly Japan. So while everybody else has salamanders, moles, frogs and other creatures, Louise has a boy.

The story progression is all about the relationship that builds between Louise and Saito. She treats him like a familiar, or to be more precise like a slave pet. He has to wash her clothes, do her menial chores and even sleeps on the floor. Throughout the show their relationship begins to develop more and small plot twists are slowly introduced. Why the boy is special. Why Louise just seems to mess everything up.

The overall story in ZnT is nothing that hasn't been done before. I don't like to grade based on precedence though as it is not fair to the subject matter. Louise and Saito slowly come together to make a good team and other characters are introduced that turn the show into "Friends" just with spell casting. It does get quite serious towards the latter part of the series, and I would say that it was actually pulled off quite nicely.

Rating: 7

Art

As I said in my opening paragraph, the initial thing that even got me to watch this show was Louise. I do hate to admit but I thought she was hot. I completely understand if you hit that back button right now. Even after the show is done, I still do. Remember, the back button is at the top left of your browser window, or you can just hit backspace. Anyway, the characters are all quite attractive in their actual originality. It does have the whole JC Staff production feel to it in the character design, but they are all nicely done. Although if you have a problem with the male in anime always looking like an average guy, you'll likely not like Saito's overall design. But if you enjoy big eyed cute girls, lolis, big breasted fiery red heads; then this show is gonna make you have a nerdgasm.

Thankfully the background animations are all paid attention to. Usually in shows like this, all the detail goes into character development and the background is left to die in a dark corner. Thankfully this wasn't the case with ZnT. Another thing that caught me by surprise is that they managed to throw in some obvious CG scenes without them standing out too much or just ruining the whole animation feel. When many shows throw CG into the mix, they make it stick out and just look awful, almost to say "check out what we can do." ZnT does a wonderful job of balancing it out and pulls off a solid animation effort in the end.

Rating: 8

Sound

The first things that should always been addressed in the sound department is the opening and closing songs. Dead on! The opening is "First Kiss" by Ichiko and couldn't be more fitting for the tone of the show. The lyrics make much more sense than many Japanese songs tend to, and quite frankly it's catchy. Definitely recommended for the playlists out there. The background was fitting, which is really all you can ask from anime. The music played always fit the situation and there were a few that stuck out and were able to do a masterful job of getting the viewer into the emotional situation. Playful music was the main course for the show as it tends to be much more humorous and whimsical than anything. But when it got serious, the music did a great job of presenting that to the viewer.

The voice acting was actually quite phenomenal. Every character fit their personalities well. Even though I can't stand the overly effeminate characters in anime, at least he was voiced well. Louise had the very defiant, cocky and sometimes very vulnerable feel to here. I thought of her kind of as I did Naru from Love Hina. Except not so much of a b*tch (God I hate Naru). Saito was considerably better than many main male characters usually are. For once in anime, the guy wasn't represented by a complete and total nerd. He was actually a strong, intelligent and thoughtful guy. He had his moments, but overall when he talked, he kinda made me proud for us; for once. But the voice acting award has to go Nanako Inoue as Kirche. Kirche was the virtual arch-rival of Louise. She was one of the good ones at magic and made a point to rub it in the face of Louise as much as she could. Her character was given the voice of condescending know-it-all. She was also the school flirt, a serious mage and a seductress. Japanese women can be sexy, but their voices rarely scream sexual seduction. She manages to seduces the viewer, male viewer, quite nicely. That's an accomplishment.

Rating: 9

Presentation

At the end of the day, ZnT is a short anime that is just entertaining. It doesn't provide a terribly deep plot. Many of the tools used in this show have been used many times before. The characters can be considered somewhat cliche. But that may be one of its charms. It doesn't make you think outside of your anime paradigm. It just allows you to sit down and enjoy the hijinks and life of some crazy characters. I can say that I just couldn't stop watching it once I started; it is one of those shows that just makes time fly so much faster.

If you have had your fill of "guy can't admit to girl, girl can't admit to guy", girl hit guy for no reason or anything like that, you may want to steer clear from watching Zero no Tsukaima. Everybody else will pull something out of it in end that they will enjoy. I guarantee it.

I will revisit this review upon release of the second season.

Rating: 8

Final Verdict

7.83 (good)

Reviewed by shoujoboy, Jan 06, 2007

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