English Dub Season Review: Hina Logic – From Luck & Logic Season One

In a peaceful world, magical girl warriors study to save everyone… from nothing.

Overview

After the events of the anime Luck & Logic,  the world settled down. Lucifer’s new rebellion caused the people of Septpia (the normal world) to grow in accord with the entities from other universes, called Foreigners. Logicalists, those that won the conflict by fusing with Foreigners they contracted with, found very little left to do. Those with the potential to be Logicalists still appear, however, and must be trained, so the academy remains open. Liones is a new student at the academy, and has yet to make a contract with a foreigner to her knowledge. When she does, watch out! She has a bad habit of getting too empathic with her partners, and ultimately, they take control of her. Their power goes out of control, and disaster inevitably strikes. While she trains to eliminate this downside, she makes fast friends with the other students. Yayoi is a rich girl whose parents own a major corporation. Karen and Karin are her two servants. Mahiro is a clutzy tinkerer who constantly builds dangerous contraptions. And then, there’s Nina. Nina was a Logicalist working at the ALCA (basically, Logicalist military). However, her commanding officer felt that she advanced too quickly, and never got to have a childhood. So, she was sent back to the academy. Liones was inspired to become a Logicalist by seeing Nina’s battles on television, and the little princess (yes, she is royalty on a small island) instantly becomes friends with her.

Pour yourself a slice-of-life with a twist of magic, and dust the rim with powdered hijinx derived from insane upperclassmen and an even more insane father, and you get the formula for this show. It is comedic, but the show focuses primarily on cuteness. Even though male Logicalists exist, this seems to be a school populated entirely by girls. We see one guy (Liones’ aforementioned father) in the entire series. That’s probably a good thing, once I think about it. If there were guys at the school, episode 11 would have been VERY different. Very different.

Our Take

As I went through this show, I had a hunger for story. It just refused to sate it. Each episode in these girls’ lives was a journey of mishaps and slow character development. I say development instead of growth for a reason. There really isn’t a massive amount of growth in these characters, save one. However, the girls do continue to reveal new sides of themselves in subtle ways. In the little things, they do that would only get noticed by friends and people reviewing shows. But, there was no plot. No great danger, no enemy they had to defeat. Nobody lurking in the shadows. The world is at peace. It made me feel like the show writers were in the same position as the ALCA:  All these magical girls and nothing to do with them. Suddenly, Episode 10, Liones and Nina have a major complication in how they relate, and things blow up. I figure that this is the moment! This is the beginning of the great happening that kicks this sleepy, cutesy show into beast mode. I was wrong. So wrong. And I will tell you why. Thing is, it’s a pretty big spoiler, so I’ll hide it for you. Just highlight the big empty space if you wanna see.

After Liones ends up going berserk after losing control of her foreigner partner Rosa, Nina goes after her. In a brief battle, Nina subdues her, and the two mend their relationship. This all happens in the same episode, leaving me to wonder, what are they doing with the other two? Episode 11 reveals the true story of this series. It isn’t a magical girl show, and it isn’t a slice-of-life. It’s a romance. The two kiss on New Year’s Eve at the stroke of midnight, and I am left to reflect on all the subtle hints we’ve been given from the very beginning. It’s a shock, but it isn’t, and it’s freaking adorable. The episode culminates in Valentine’s chocolates gone wild, and the couple admitting to each other that there are feelings there, but without using words. The girls never fully state what they feel. Even Liones’ “I love you’s” are slightly vague, and to those who aren’t in the know, they could pass off as something more platonic. In the Japanese, she says “daisuki”. Literally “Big Like”, it can be an emphatic friend thing, but it often is used in the same way English speakers say “I LIKE like you.” It’s something that can pass off as friends if in public but can communicate something deeper in context. I enjoy this level of subtlety, and I really couldn’t see the twist coming. And me, I see twists. Walking around just like other plot points. The ending continues to play with this, and pondering my feelings on the episode made me get philosophical. That’s a good sign.

Hina Logic is almost nothing like its forebear, and that is a great thing. I mildly enjoyed Luck & Logic, but it had an ending you could see coming from episode one. This one kept its cards close to its chest until just the right moment. Everything it did was in centimeters, not yards, and the payoff in Episode 11 was worth it all. Still, all that subtlety does leave you with about five episodes of “GET ON WITH IT!” as they just muddle around with nothing major to do.

The animation on the show is good, especially when it’s time for action. Okay, almost all the action is sparring, but that there is some impressive sparring. The intensity actually ramps up as the series goes on. The transformation sequences range from sweet to trippy, and always have extra smooth animation with stunning direction. The other sections of the show, however, don’t need as much work to do what they do. It’s pretty much just talking, so the animation is a bit easier to get by with less. Still, the background art is lovely, and the characters have visual flair that is both endearing and expressive.

The voice acting takes cues from this and lets its theme of fusion-like transformations inspire its voice actresses. Brittany Lauda did great work with Liones, and played with the fact that she got taken over by her partners. Whenever she transformed, Brittany changed her voice and way of speaking. When tranced with Rosa, it was lower, slower, and more sultry. When tranced with Waffle, it was higher and far more hyperactive. This adds a level of realism to the whole thing and plays well off the visual cues in the character art and animation. Most of the characters have pretty believable and expressive voices, but there was one that got on my nerves more often than not. Yayoi, performed by Mikaela Krantz, is a rich kid. She isn’t that stuck up, but she is upper crust and is used to being the superior in the room. Kratz plays this with a posh air and a high-pitched edge that annoys the crap out of me and makes the character’s lines feel forced. This starts to get tempered out as Yayoi connects more with the other girls, but it still resurfaces on occasion. When it’s gone, Krantz’s performance is just fine.

Once we got around to the end, and the twist revealed itself, I ended up enjoying this series. But, getting there the first time was a bit of a slog, even if the episodes were good by themselves. None of them dipped below a score of six, and most were in the range of an eight. The average score was a bit lower, but I would definitely rate this as a seven out of ten. It was good, but not enough to rant to my friends about.