Quiz Magic Academy: The Original Animation

Quiz Magic Academy is another one of those "magical girl school" anime series you may have seen before, that comes with all the basic mechanics that go with it. Story: 6/10 There really isn’t much to it, the scene opens up with the male members fighting a huge dragon, which ends with Ruquia (the female lead) saving them. At this point you are probably going to expect a great adventure with the magic users, but this turns out to be a lie, as that will be the only real action scene you will see in this titles, and the main plot is nothing more than the girlstrying to win the annual magic tournament. Which I found to be weird since they never actually showed just who they were competing against. Even the action scenes they do give you are no where near the potential of other titles in the same genera. Its definitely a series that doesn’t take itself seriously, as it contains your basic hyperactive teens and wacky gun-ho teachers, and the comedy (like the action) is also never truly thought out. Still to its credit, there antics are amusing. Sound: 7/10 It works well enough, the music can range from live orchestral action sequences, to bouncy fun background tracks. Plus the opening j-pop theme is lively and fits the wackiness of the title. The voice acting I also found to be pretty good, all the character voices fit well with each of their personalities that the writers were going for, and none ever come off exaggerated or frustrating on the ears. The music and sound work fine for this title. Art: 8/10 Definitely the best feature, the characters and environments just ooze out color and style. The same can be said about the style of clothing that the characters themselves wear, all are nicely detailed; from the school uniforms, to the flashy magic that the girls show off. You can tell the artists really sat down to come up with something that was pleasing to the eyes, and I swear they pretty much thought of every kind of hair color to give to each of character, which ones again matches their personality nicely. Characters: 6/10 Best way to describe them, cookie cutter personalities! The main character reminded me a lot of Sailor Moon, you know? The clumsy air-headed girl who is always late for school? Yeah...... The same thing can be said about the others as well, we have the class rep who is kinda stuck up and by the book, to the teachers that act either super gun-ho, to just plain silly. To its credit though, the personalities of the character do alright for what they were try to achieve, its just a shame that they ripped them off from other titles, instead of trying to give them something to stand out more above the rest. ANYTHING! Not to mention since the title itself is only a one half hour OVA with about ten characters to give screen time to, there just wasn’t anyway for this to happen, heck the main lead only gets slightly more spotlighting time than the others. Perhaps if they could have trimmed some of the supporting cast down, it may have helped flesh out the main characters themselves a bit more. Bottom Line: 7/10 Despite some of its unavoidable short comings of a one episode OVA, Quiz Magic Academy is at least entertaining. If they made this into a series there would be much more leeway into developing the characters more, and then it would truly be something more than what it currently is, as I believe that this title has great potential! As it stands now though, I can only really recommend this to the hardcore "Magical" fans out there, or to the viewers who are willing to go in with low expectations. While its by no means the best of the best, it certainly isn't the worst of the worst either.