The Fall 2016 Anime Preview Guide

Matoi the Sacred Slayer

14-year-old Matoi Sumeragi moved to a new town with her police detective father three months ago, and in that time life has settled into “boring” mode for Matoi, despite getting a new job at her friend Yuma's family shrine. Things aren't going to stay boring for long, though! Her father is working on a case surrounding two women who were left unconscious by a missing painter, which intersects with her path when the culprit comes to the centuries-old Tenman Shrine seeking something. A hidden power awakens within Matoi and she transforms into a magical exorcist – following in the footsteps of her absent mother. Could all this be connected to the mysterious extradimensional beings called Night that are being hunted by the organization Fatima? Matoi the Sacred Slayer is an original anime work and can be found streaming on Hulu and The Anime Network, Tuesdays at 10:30 AM EST.

Rebecca Silverman

Rating: 2

There are a few things about Matoi the Sacred Slayer that give me pause. First and foremost is the fact that when Matoi transforms at the end of the episode, her father mistakes her for her deceased (?) mother, albeit not without justification. But then he grabs her breasts, which is probably intended to be funny, but when coupled with the fact that she calls him by his first name rather than “dad” and that she really does look exactly like her mother, down to the hairstyle, there are some slightly creepy implications. Was her mother not an actual human, but another person housing whatever god it is giving Matoi her powers? Am I totally over-reading the situation? That'd be a “maybe” and a “probably” in order, but the rest of the episode is disjointed enough to make me seize on the few cohesive elements that Matoi the Sacred Slayer manages to put together.

In theory, this is an interesting episode – it features magical girls with religious backing, as we see in the beginning when a blonde backed by the Vatican shows up to take out a monster that the army can't handle. She's referred to as “Fatima,” which is interesting in and of itself as it is the name of the Prophet Mohammed's daughter, meaning “shining one.” Matoi later gains her powers via ancient Shinto ritual, one conducted by her friend Yuma in hopes of defeating a man possessed by what appears to be a mecha demon. While we've seen magical girls with religious symbolism before, this actual sponsoring of them by religious institutions could set this one apart. It also could imply divine blood in Matoi's veins, although that brings me back to my potential over-analysis issue.

In practice, this feels like kind of a jumble. We bounce from soldiers to shrines to cops at a crime scene without much to string the three scenarios together, interspersed with Matoi wishing for a normal life like an ordinary girl. This, of course, would imply that she hasn't been an ordinary girl living a normal life up to this point, but other than the fact that her dad works very long hours, we really have no indication of that. Meanwhile her friend Yuma is an amazingly annoying, bouncy character with serious aspirations to be some combination of a magical girl/super sentai ranger/shrine maiden, which would be fine if she either got less screen time or toned it down a bit. She's clearly meant to be a contrast to Matoi, but all that it feels like right now is a stretch that they'd be so close. Add in the Mysterious Busty Lady (Luciela Haruka) and the standard pervy priest and not a lot feels like it's coming together.

Matoi the Sacred Slayer may simply be trying to get to where it wants to be before launching into its story. This episode has the feel of a prologue that perhaps didn't need to be there, and it really feels possible that episode two will fully dive into the parts of this episode that have more potential. But the cobbled-together feel of the story make me leery and isn't much of an inducement to find out.

Paul Jensen

Rating: 2

I like the idea of a series that pokes fun at its genre even as it serves as a perfectly functional genre piece. Perhaps that's why I'm rather fond of Matoi the Sacred Slayer on a theoretical level; it has some fun at the expense of traditional magical girl stories even as it seeks to be one. The problem, as this episode conveniently illustrates, is that finding the perfect balance between humor and plot can be difficult. As it bounces between lighthearted comedy and serious supernatural action, the two halves blur together in a way that keeps either one from really working.

Matoi does at least seem like the perfect protagonist for this kind of story. She seems perfectly happy leading a normal life with her dad, and she even goes out of her way to avoid her friend Yuma's plan to mess around with an ancient scroll from her shrine. For comedy's sake, she's exactly the kind of happily average person you'd want to drop into an extraordinary situation. Her reactions to her newfound powers and her first fight with a monster are an entertaining mix of confusion and panic, and I can see that dynamic working well as a way to point out the potential inconveniences of becoming a magical girl.

For whatever reason, though, it just doesn't seem to work in tandem with the more serious parts of this episode. The series is putting genuine effort into developing a story about otherworldly monsters and secret organizations, but it's robbed of any dramatic impact by the goofy stuff. It's as if the two halves of the series are happening in separate worlds, and it's not clear how we're supposed to feel when everything comes crashing together at the end.

Given a few weeks to find its footing, Matoi the Sacred Slayer could turn into something worth watching. It has the production values to pull off a decent action scene, and most of the characters are either amusing or endearing in their own way. The challenge will be finding a way to glue all of these pieces together into a single coherent series, and I'm not yet convinced that this show is up to the task.

Nick Creamer

Rating: 3

Matoi the Sacred Slayer is a weird one. Presenting an overall fairly conventional “magical girls for the late-night anime audience” setup, it's so far defining itself as a show of small, quirky strengths and awkward, unnecessary failings. I didn't outright dislike this premiere, but it ultimately exemplified the most compelling thing about preview week - seeing the good and bad in shows that may ultimately average out to mediocre, but take a wandering and distinctive path to get there.

To start with the good, Matoi the Sacred Slayer's setup has a variety of compelling variables in its favor. I liked how much of this first episode was spent establishing the relationships between Matoi, her friend Yuma, and her father. The dialogue of sequences like Matoi cooking dinner for her dad felt true to life and endearing, and the contrast between her father's work and her own daily adventures gave a sense of solidity to the show's world. I also liked that Matoi's father will apparently be a major character going forward - fantastical stories have a tendency to separate their protagonists from their mundane lives, and their parents in particular, but I find that including those variables actually makes them much more well-rounded and impactful. Finally, Matoi the Sacred Slayer's character designs and effects animation are top-notch - all of the characters are appealing and expressive, and Matoi's final battle with some spirit monster was elevated through a gorgeous evocation of their powers clashing together.

On the minus side, this episode felt awkwardly paced and disjointed to the point of losing basically all dramatic impact. Elements like Matoi's desire for an ordinary life or her relationship with her absent mother were given virtually no significance until their sudden relevance to the ending, while small beats like Matoi not wanting to participate in Yuma's exorcism strove for humor that just wasn't there. While I liked the way this episode slowly pulled Matoi and her father together for the finale in a narrative sense, the drama really didn't build on itself in a tonal one. The show seemed unsure of what elements demanded emphasis all throughout.

That said, a strong cast is one of the most important things a premiere can demonstrate, and I'd say Matoi the Sacred Slayer cleared that hurdle. Incredibly creepy moments like Matoi's dad groping her aside, I also like the idea of a magical girl show where the central girl's family isn't just present, but critical to the ongoing narrative. Matoi the Sacred Slayer is messy in its construction, but strong in ways that give it a real chance of improving going forward.

Theron Martin

Rating:

Matoi the Sacred Slayer marks Studio White Fox's first venture into the realm of original anime productions, which may partly be why it comes off so odd tonally. It seems to want to play at being both a lighter-hearted magical girl series and a heavier supernatural actioner, and you might expect, that makes for an awkward balance in its first episode.

The prologue of the series reveals that the Vatican-sponsored organization Fatima is going around trying to figure out the unfathomable motives of the extradimensional Night with the ultimate goal of destroying them, and their ace is a slight blond girl who also appears in the closer and so can be assumed to eventually be a regular. After that darker opener, though, the story shifts to the lighter hijinks at the Tenman Shrine, then eventually back to darker content as Matoi's father starts investigating the painter. The tone keeps bouncing back and forth like this, with the climax being Matoi's transformation when the Night-enhanced painter comes to the shrine – and then it goes back to being light-hearted in the end when Matoi, upon finally shedding whatever possessed her, discovers that the transformation apparently permanently rather than temporarily replaced her clothing, so she's left naked. (This, of course, explains why the attendant of the blond girl at the beginning put his coat around her when she was done.) Other fan service also appears in the form of a busty female investigator who isn't shy (though not necessary deliberate) about showing off her cleavage, much to the distraction of male adult characters. And then there's that random really uncomfortable moment when Matoi gets felt up by her father, who has mistaken her for her missing mother in her transformed appearance. Yeah, that's not going to be awkward when the father finds out what's actually going on. . .

It's these sometimes-abrupt shifts back and forth which make it hard to pin down the overall tone of the series. What can be said for sure is that very little which has transpired so far suggests much hope for originality, as all of these story elements have been done many times before. The combination actually plays out more effectively than you might expect based on the description, however, which gives at least some potential for this approach to actually be interesting. Certainly the artistry will not be a selling point, as this is easily the roughest-looking non-short to date this season; it almost gives the impression that its production may have been rushed.

In short, this is more of a rough start than a bad one. I'm giving it a middling grade because I want to see more before making a proper evaluation.