English Dub Review: Magical Sempai “The Unknown Sempai; Sempai Bends”

 

 

Overview (Spoilers Below)

In the first episode, we’re introduced to Sempai through the POV of Assistant—not his Christian name—who is on the hunt for a mandatory school club. Our boy seems a little interested in magic until he visits the magic club’s meeting room to witness the young and pretty Sempai as she vomits all over the place. It turns out, she suffers from crippling stage fright. She gets over that quickly enough but still sucks at magic whenever somebody’s watching. Assistant doesn’t mind so much when her birds fly far, far away, or even when she cuts his money into tiny pieces, because most of her flubs end with her tumbling and showing off her panties or other parts of her fit body. Yep, he’s a perv.

The assistant decides to quit the magic club, but Sempai won’t take “no” for an answer. Instead, she torments him in front of the whole school by calling him out on the PA system and putting herself in peril every time his rookie magic outshines her many goofs. One such method of peril is a padlocked magic box which he soon discovers is the perfect prison to lock her inside whenever she becomes too annoying. Don’t worry, she’s a magician and can escape easily—so as kicking the damn box to pieces isn’t considered “cheating.”

In the second episode, Sempai gets her Uri Geller on, trying to bend spoons. Assistant masters the art with ease while she struggles, knocking hot sauce into his curry. She fakes hypnosis to cover her mistake, but she’s just as bad at mentalism as she is at close-hand magic—at least when there’s an audience present.

After lunch, they return to the magic room where she inadvertently shows off her underwear like sixty thousand times. Assistant confuses this folly for legitimate affection. This leads to a “hilarious” misunderstanding in which she’s talking about magic be he thinks she’s talking about sex. He believes she wants to get freaky-deaky while watching a bunch of pornos when in reality, she just wants to make a coin disappear. Later on, they get into a similar misunderstanding with some sponge rabbits—sweaty, sweaty sponge rabbits.

Finally, she introduces him to her best friend, a stuffed animal named Behemoth. He’s not a very attractive toy or magic prop, which is reinforced when she whips him out in front of a group of kids in the park. She also completely undresses and accidentally faces the kids wearing nothing but a magic sack. Thank god for that sack, otherwise, she would’ve had to register as a sex offender.

 

Our Take

If you’re in the market for a slapstick, fan-service anime, you need to look no further than Magical Sempai. Sempai, while an enjoyable protagonist, is so far limited to two major character traits: clumsy and bare-breasted.  Granted, our POV character is Assistant who better shows the abnormalities of each wacky scenario. However, I really wish they would alternate POVs between skits so Sempai doesn’t always come across as a “too dumb to function” bimbo.

Assistant is also an odd one to figure out despite his running narration. It’s clear that he’s not as into magic as Sempai, but it’s unclear if he has any interest in the art at all, or if he’s just there to ogle Sempai whenever she inevitably messes up. I’m also curious as to where he gets his bowl haircuts, so I can avoid that place. It is not a good look.

There’s a general sadness to Sempai that I hope gets explored as the series advances and more people join the magic club—as the opening and closing credits suggest. A lot of her crippling loneliness and anxiety is too often played for laughs, which is really saying something since we’ve only gotten through two, twelve-minute episodes.

There are some odd moments where the show seems to get educational for no particular reason. I mean, it’s not going to teach us magic, so what’s the point? Aside from the small percentage of viewers who don’t know white pigeons are commonly called doves, who else are they trying to reach with their MAG-splaining?

While the majority of this series rests on a tranquil sea of normalcy, there were a few scenes that were a little bit out there. One particularly cringes moment was her bird-birthing schtick. No matter how bad a magician she’s meant to be, she can hardly be blamed when a bird rams itself into her bosom and scurries out from her under-trousers. That’s just bad luck.

I’m having trouble categorizing this program. It’s not without charm, but there’s definitely an appreciation curve that doesn’t click straight away. That being said, the semi-twist ending of episode two amused me. The magic club wasn’t real, and she needed to tie up her assistant in order to force the club paperwork through to the high school bureaucrats. It was the first trick she accomplished without stumbling. And it just might have been the greatest trick of them all.