Rokudenashi Majutsu Koushi to Akashic Records – 01 (First Impressions)

Rudderless bastard Glenn Radars is appointed substitute professor at the illustrious Alzano Imperial Magic Academy, much to the chagrin of elite family heiress and top student Sistine Fibel. Sistine, her friend Rumia Tingel, and the rest of his class quickly learn Glenn’s a lazy bastard who refuses to teach anything, leading to a fed-up Sistine challenging him to a duel, which he promptly and definitively loses.

The title is certainly a mouthful, so I’ll shorten it to Akashic Records. And it’s pretty much the quintessential “7.33” anime. It’s definitely watchable, and I see potential in Glenn as either a redemption project or a paragon of stubborn bastardry. But man, the female students are moe-d out, with midriff-bearing uniforms reminiscent of Cross Ange and one or two too many accessories. There’s also a walking-in-on-girls-changing scene.

But the titular Bastard Magic Instructor Glenn is just such an unrepentant bastard, and there’s something oddly satisfying about just how immensely he’s wrecking this super-elite magic academy with his abject contempt for any kind of magic instructing. So too is Sistine’s seething outrage towards this cad who represents everything she isn’t.

Hints of his past indicate he was meant for great things, but either never got there or crashed and burned, and now he’s seemingly given up. But his friend professor Celica Arfonia won’t let him freeload, forcing him to substitute teach or face the wrath of her elemental magic.

But “fearing getting zapped by high-level magic” is not as powerful a motivator as one would think; after all, Celica just said he had to show up, not that he had to actually do anything but write “Self-Study” on the chalkboard in handwriting that gets worse as the day drags on.

Akashic Records’ and Glenn’s comedy is couched in the fact that despite being average on paper and having no public accomplishments (or even a teaching license) Glenn still struts around as if he was the Empire’s Chief Mage, or at least hot shit, and talks a ridiculously big game relative to his actual skill. It’s pretty fun to watch him revel in his bastard-ness.

Like Glenn himself, there’s potential in this show, whether Sistine’s somewhat repetitive (if completely justified) adversarial approach shifts into something more productive, or if the joke is that no matter how hard she or anyone else tries, he’ll happily remain being scum.

So I’ll give this a 7 for now and harbor cautious optimism. After all, it’s a pleasant-looking show with decent comic timing and doesn’t take itself deathly seriously. There’s also a laputa hanging up in the sky, and I’m hoping Sistine/Rumia/Glenn make their way up there before all’s said and done.