When a transformation sequence takes up a quarter of your episode, it’s time to rethink the process.

What They Say:
In every decade or hundreds of years, the dragon moves its body as if it tosses about unconsciously. The movement becomes the distortion and causes impurity. This “impurity” lavishes an evil on people.　And now, there is a huge indication of a distortion. Gods foresaw the greatest harm would happen to Japan, divide own power and give it off as a messenger of God (“Shinshi”) in Japan to gather mediums, or “Magica” who can expel the “impurity”. With the magical weapon the power of Gods, “Magica” will fight to stop evils in Japan.”

The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With a pretty well animated but awkward opening episode last week, we got introduced to Naruko and a touch of what the show is about with the prefectures personified. That doesn’t have a whole lot of meaning for me since I’m not terribly familiar with them in general, but you can enjoy the show for its quirks and animation on its own. With the costumed form of Naruko being fairly popular in the area, we get to see a bit of cosplay aspects of her talked about with a friend who doesn’t know that it’s her, which makes for some fun and awkward moments. Which, of course, gets broken up by one of the creatures having shown up that needs to be dealt with. That gives us another beautiful transformaton sequence, which is something Gainax does well, but it also sucks up a quarter of the episode, which in itself is amusing. Maybe next week we’ll get the fight?

In Summary:
I’m in this for the animation, plain and simple. Story wise, execution is pretty difficult to get into here with the first two episodes as it really seems like they don’t get how to work within this format to make it fun and engaging. It can be done though, as we’ve see a number of short-form series do it. That said, it’s once again a beautiful episode that makes me want to just watch it even slower to savor the details and color of it all and that’s exactly what will bring me back week after week. Hopefully we’ll get a little story and character along the way.

Grade: C

Streamed By: Crunchyroll

Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.