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EP. REVIEW: Mashle: Magic and Muscles


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MFrontier



Joined: 13 Apr 2014
Posts: 13605
PostPosted: Fri Apr 21, 2023 6:47 pm Reply with quote
Mash muscleing his way through Harry Potter has been pretty fun so far.
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Traptrix Lover



Joined: 17 Dec 2022
Posts: 102
PostPosted: Fri Apr 21, 2023 10:12 pm Reply with quote
I've been a fan of the manga for a few years now and am enjoying finally seeing it animated, producion issues aside. I never got the feeling Komoto hated Harry Potter though, that's probably just confirmation bias on the reviewer's part. Given the meticulous details and knowledge they have of the series and how it ties into the overall plot, that kind of genuineness can't come from someone with hatred in their heart, let alone dedicating so much of your life to it.
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Gina Szanboti



Joined: 03 Aug 2008
Posts: 11583
PostPosted: Fri Apr 21, 2023 11:30 pm Reply with quote
This has been pretty creative so far. I like that Mash isn't always the Goodest Boy (threatening to bury the moustache guy was unexpectedly sinister), and can realize there are people even denser than he is, which requires some self-awareness from him I hadn't realized he possessed.

I also get a kick out of how all the lackeys turn into Tiny Face Charlie Kirk whenever they're shocked by something. That hasn't gotten old yet.
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everydaygamer





PostPosted: Fri Apr 21, 2023 11:45 pm Reply with quote
Personally I'm not a fan of how it repeatedly hammers its one Joke into the ground as it gets old pretty fast. Yeah One Punch Man did that too, especially early on, but it was supported by amazing animation and a fun supporting cast which Mashle currently has neither.

That said I'm enjoying it enough to keep watching. Surely it must get better if the manga has lasted as long as it has.
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Beatdigga



Joined: 26 Oct 2003
Posts: 4590
Location: New York
PostPosted: Sat Apr 22, 2023 6:21 am Reply with quote
With the Hogwarts resurgence, this show picked the perfect time to debut. I don’t know if the author hates Potter, or just gleefully enjoy mocking the rules of a Hogwarts style setting. I’m going to have to watch more to see.
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theotheranimeman



Joined: 19 Nov 2022
Posts: 74
PostPosted: Sat Apr 22, 2023 6:33 am Reply with quote
Wow, this reviewer is hardcore projecting on this Harry Potter-inspired manga. He's borderline delusional.

There's no signs that the author hates Harry Potter. If anything, I believe he loves it because of how much (maybe even too much) it inspired Mashle.
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spacedin



Joined: 08 Apr 2023
Posts: 44
PostPosted: Sat Apr 22, 2023 11:11 am Reply with quote
theotheranimeman wrote:
Wow, this reviewer is hardcore projecting on this Harry Potter-inspired manga. He's borderline delusional.

There's no signs that the author hates Harry Potter. If anything, I believe he loves it because of how much (maybe even too much) it inspired Mashle.

1. The magic school concept long predated Harry Potter, and is what Harry Potter itself drew from.

2. Mashle deconstructs way more than just Harry Potter (one of its best jokes sends up Full Metal Alchemist)

3. Yes, the author is projecting. Going as far as to mock the name of the author of Harry Potter, and retread the whole "Harry Potter is fascist because it never advocated for a Lenin, Mao or Khmer Rouge style revolution to replace the hierarchical structures with egalitarian ones" - never mind that this means slaughtering millions of people - reinterpretation (that and what the goblins allegedly represent) upon Rowling making her views on gender known.

4. Anime/manga applying the "outsider filter" to western works and tropes isn't new. Both My Hero Academia and One Punch Man do this with the superhero genre by pointing out that in the real world entities like the Justice League, X-Men, the Avengers etc. would attract government regulation, need significant financial support, be held accountable for property and collateral damage and that solo/unregulated superheroes - which Spider-Man is generally depicted as - would be viewed as dangerous vigilantes instead of heroes ("J. Jonah Jameson wuz right") because of the emphasis on maintaining order over rugged individualism (Tony Stark's refusing to allow the government to regulate his technology and proclaiming "I have privatized world peace" in Iron Man 2 would have been a villain monologue in Japan).

You've also had the likes of Gundam, Legend of Galactic Heroes, Crest of the Stars, Kiddy Grade, Gunbuster etc. put darker and more cynical spins on far more optimistic and idealistic western space operas (Flash Gordon, Star Trek, Star Wars) because, well, things like "exploring new worlds" and "galactic military alliances" are interpreted far differently by people whose nations aren't NATO members and was occupied by a foreign power that changed its culture, wrote its constitution and still maintains a huge military presence in to this day. It is true that a lot of these works have a great deal of overlap with progressive politics as a result, especially when they are written by Yoshiyuki Tomino, Hayao Miyazaki and others with socialist, environmentalist, antiwar etc. views.

But it is quite distinct from western style progressivism, especially in its motivations and the conclusions that they draw, and particularly modern American progressivism where now identity politics particularism is the tail wagging the entire dog.
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Avec ou Nous



Joined: 17 Feb 2023
Posts: 148
PostPosted: Sun Apr 23, 2023 5:51 am Reply with quote
Beatdigga wrote:
With the Hogwarts resurgence, this show picked the perfect time to debut. I don’t know if the author hates Potter, or just gleefully enjoy mocking the rules of a Hogwarts style setting. I’m going to have to watch more to see.

Oh God, I never thought about this until now. With certain people's obsession with hating Harry Potter these days, Mashle is going to get caught up in the crossfire and dragged into the stupid argument. It doesn't deserve that but I guess it makes sense people have to pretend a show or creator they like agrees with them. This is going to be another "Anno hates otaku' misinformation that gets spread around, isn't it. Nothing in Mashle indicates Komoto hates Harry Potter or Rowling any more than Spaceballs was proof Mel Brooks hated Star Wars and George Lucas.
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meiam



Joined: 23 Jun 2013
Posts: 3447
PostPosted: Sun Apr 23, 2023 9:21 am Reply with quote
everydaygamer wrote:
Personally I'm not a fan of how it repeatedly hammers its one Joke into the ground as it gets old pretty fast. Yeah One Punch Man did that too, especially early on, but it was supported by amazing animation and a fun supporting cast which Mashle currently has neither.

That said I'm enjoying it enough to keep watching. Surely it must get better if the manga has lasted as long as it has.

I'm more or less there, I think it could work if they tighten the pace and it would go faster, but its just a bit too slow and it really has only one joke, so you end up figuring out the punchline long before it happens which really limit how funny it is.

My guess is like a lot of comedy, it'll slowly veer into shonen territory to sustain itself and get away from its one joke man problem.
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moozooh



Joined: 30 Sep 2022
Posts: 151
PostPosted: Mon Apr 24, 2023 4:27 am Reply with quote
Quote:
Jowling Kowling Rowling

Laughing
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MFrontier



Joined: 13 Apr 2014
Posts: 13605
PostPosted: Sat Apr 29, 2023 11:50 am Reply with quote
Lance seems like a fun rival-type character, and Anna is super cute!
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Minos_Kurumada



Joined: 04 Nov 2015
Posts: 1181
PostPosted: Tue May 30, 2023 5:20 pm Reply with quote
Yeah... the series would be 100% better without those overextended explanations.
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MFrontier



Joined: 13 Apr 2014
Posts: 13605
PostPosted: Sat Jun 03, 2023 11:42 am Reply with quote
I'm starting to think Lemon is the perfect fit for Mash...can use his love of cream puffs to her advantage, can land a punch on him, and is surprisingly effective at getting him focused on the plot even when he has no interest.

I'm glad Dot finally got a win. And Finn might finally fight now too? I was expecting Love would fight Lemon.

Nothing more classic Shonen than splitting the protagonists up so they can get their fights in.
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Nagatoka_Morito



Joined: 08 Jun 2010
Posts: 49
PostPosted: Sun Jun 04, 2023 12:18 am Reply with quote
No spoilers, but waiting for Lemon to be useful is a fool's errand. But the reason for it is slightly more interesting than the text:

Simply put, the author wanted to have an all-boys team, but his editor strongly suggested adding in a girl for broader audience appeal and thus was Lemon born. ...but because this is Mashle, she ended up being written as an example of the clingy love interest of most adolescent power fantasy fiction: seemingly no life outside of her attraction to the hero and her involvement in most scenarios being either a cheerleader or somebody to be rescued.
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MFrontier



Joined: 13 Apr 2014
Posts: 13605
PostPosted: Sat Jun 10, 2023 12:51 pm Reply with quote
These are some solid and engaging fight sequences, which I wasn't expecting. Even adds into the series lore of how messed up magic society is to the point where the antagonists are just as much victims of it as the protagonists.

Nagatoka_Morito wrote:
No spoilers, but waiting for Lemon to be useful is a fool's errand. But the reason for it is slightly more interesting than the text:

Simply put, the author wanted to have an all-boys team, but his editor strongly suggested adding in a girl for broader audience appeal and thus was Lemon born. ...but because this is Mashle, she ended up being written as an example of the clingy love interest of most adolescent power fantasy fiction: seemingly no life outside of her attraction to the hero and her involvement in most scenarios being either a cheerleader or somebody to be rescued.

I'm finding her a cute presence nevertheless!
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