A Returner's Magic Should Be Special

What would you do if you failed to save the world? What if you had one more chance? What would you do differently? That is what this story is trying to tell, the story of a second chance. A Returner's Magic Should Be Special is about how Desir failed to save the world and now gets a second chance, by traveling back to the start of his time in a magical academy. We then follow him trying to change what happened originally, to hopefully change the outcome of the world's possible end. The plot is very much about the growth of characters and to start building upknowledge and power, so they can stand together. Through this do you see how Desir hopes to have people more prepared and change the mistakes that originally happened. Which is done through some interesting arcs that help show the world at the academy and a glimpse of how the wider world works. The characters in itself are based on stereotypes that are seen before, but none of them is done in a really extreme or frustrating way. You explore Desir’s past throughout the season and start to understand why he is making specific choices, so you don't see him evolve that much, but instead learns more about him and his past. The other characters you see grow, overcome obstacles and have a steady progression forward. This is also a show that sticks very close to the original fantasy vibe, where magic is not explained by levels, but instead is purely based on skill and abilities. The show also has a specific style of animation that puts much focus on colors, which can especially be seen in the characters' hair, since they have some interesting color schemes. Overall, is this a good fantasy anime that has a nice plot and some stereotypical roles done right, so i would definitely recommend giving this a watch.

This is underrated so I chose to overrate it. As per-usual, those who read the source material are heavily influencing the negative reviews 🙄 and consequently hurting the author and their prospective fan base. No better way to say “I really enjoyed your book” than by hitting them straight in the wallet amiright? Moving on. There are not even an eighth as many “returnee” anime’s as there are mangas/manhwa etc and it’s a crying shame, I hope this statement ages like milk in the future 😌 So that aside, this anime was great. The characters were all distinctive, and art was well drawn and captivatingand the story was cohesive. Anime is not known for its subtlety, but this one hit the subtle in the spots where it was needed and the “in your face” when it wasn’t. It is compared to Irregular at Magic High often and I think that’s very fair. It’s like if someone took tIaMHS and made it less stupid and more coherent. The issue of discrimination is handled much more sensibly. In Irregular the discrimination issue boiled down to [i]it makes me feel bad[/i] before being shoved under the rug. In this it was taken more seriously and from an angle of “look how much talent we are wasting”. The problem is overarching and the very future depends on maximizing everyone’s potential. So that’s one aspect I really liked. I also love the way the main character is portrayed. He seems to have it all together and took his time travel in stride, but with little slip-ups you can see how much he isn’t actually okay (without the anime spending needless screen time monologuing.. as if watchers are so dumb they need things spelled out) so I guess what I’m saying is I enjoyed that the creators are trusting the audience. I dearly hope this gets enough season renewals that we are able to watch it do it’s conclusion.

The story did have some potential considering the manwha already has a built in fanbase. However, the studio did it so half-heartedly that a story that deserves 7 or 8 out of 10 becomes a 2 really and averages out at 4 or 5. The characters feel forced, the MC's determination feels half-assed, but the biggest drawback is the animation. It's not that it's the worst, it's just weirdly slow and clunky, like worse than mid 2000s video game, same with dialogue- it felt like something written and acted by AI. It walks such a weird line of rushed or skipped plot but super slowdialogue and animation. Like when you're watching a video buffer but it's not buffering actually. Yet it skips all the elements that might have made me care about the side characters or their motivations or something along those lines. My recommendation- READ THE MANWHA if you're interested.