The Fall 2024 Anime Preview Guide

The Stories of Girls Who Couldn't Be Magicians

Kurumi Mirai is a freshman in high school. In the Letran Magic and Magecraft School, the one institution that trains the top-class "wizards" of the International Mage Alliance, she has already secured top marks since middle school. And yet, when she reached high school and took the selection exam to get into the "Magic Group" class that trains wizards, she did not get in. In the next class, there were students taking the test to become fully-fledged wizards, and among them was a student whom Kurumi admired.

The Stories of Girls Who Couldn't Be Magicians is based on the Mahō Tsukai ni Narenakatta Onna no Ko no Hanashi novel series by Yuzuki Akasaka. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Fridays.

I love the way this episode looks, especially the beginning. The faux-hand-drawn images, the pastel shades, and the gentle lines all give it the feel of an animated picture book, something only enhanced by how the opening plays out. It has the same sort of feel as the start of Little Witch Academia and, to a less ominous degree, Witch Hat Atelier. Kurumi's deep and abiding love of magic and deep-seated desire to become a magician come through clearly.

Things take a more mundane turn when we jump forward in time to what appears to be Kurumi's first year of high school. It's not that the story is mundane by the dictionary definition, but more that it stops being about wonder and returns to familiar story beats of thwarted ambition. It's true, as the song my father liked to quote at my sisters and me goes, "You can't always get what you want." It's right there in the title – the show isn't called Kurumi Goes to Magic School and Fulfills Her Ambitions. But it's just such a letdown when she ends up on the magicless track of the school she applied to that it feels, if not quite depressing, then very close to it. I don't doubt that this is intentional, but between that and the introduction of your standard Mean Girl and Aspiring Reporter, two tropes I've had quite enough of, thank you, it really brought the episode down.

Still, there's a lot to be excited about here. Even before part of their secret is revealed, the clear shots of a dog and an owl watching Kurumi are intriguing, and her encounter with the mysterious witch in the past is wrapped up in it. There's also a set of twins who are clearly up to something – one has taken it upon himself to join the standard course instead of the magic one, like his brother, and that's very suspicious. And so, when you come right down to it, is the fact that Kurumi didn't get into the magic course, something everyone is startled by. This is a show to keep an eye on, and even though this episode didn't fully wow me, I'll be sticking around to see where it goes.