Zero kara Hajimeru Mahou no Sho

In a world of constant war between humans and witches, there exist the "beastfallen"—cursed humans born with the appearance and strength of an animal. Their physical prowess and bestial nature cause them to be feared and shunned by both humans and witches. As a result, many beastfallen become sellswords, making their living through hunting witches.

Despite the enmity between the races, a lighthearted witch named Zero enlists a beastfallen whom she refers to as "Mercenary" to act as her protector. He travels with Zero and Albus, a young magician, on their search for the Grimoire of Zero: a powerful spell book that could be extremely dangerous in the wrong hands. During their journey, his inner kindness is revealed as he starts to show compassion and sympathy towards humans and witches alike, and the unlikely companions grow together.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Zero Main

Hanamori, Yumiri Japanese

Youhei Main

Koyama, Tsuyoshi Japanese

Albus Supporting

Taichi, You Japanese

Holdem Supporting

Katou, Masayuki Japanese

13-ban Supporting

Koyasu, Takehito Japanese

Roshell Supporting

Aoyama, Yoshino Japanese

Majutsushi-dan A Supporting

Sakura, Kaoru Japanese

Kokuou Supporting

Tsuji, Shinpachi Japanese

Sorena Supporting

Sakakibara, Yoshiko Japanese

Furugiya no Tenshu Supporting

Oohata, Shintarou Japanese

Nagatani, Takayuki Producer, Production Manager

Kaneko, Hirotaka Producer

Yoshikawa, Tsunaki Producer

Kawamura, Hiroshi Producer

Reviews

Feb 13, 2024

IchUndAnime

Recommended

(Note: Since I'm currently looking into the anime, I thought I could revise my original review from 2022 and upload it here in English.)

Tija is great. I watched this anime slightly overtired and had endless fun, because tigers are great.

"Grimoire of Zero" is about the mercenary Mercenary - yes, we don't know his name yet - and Zero. In a world full of magic, in a world of witches and witch burnings, an organization suddenly appears that promises to free the witches from the oppression of humans and avenge the death of a well-known and popular witch. But at the very end of the land, ... the tiger man and witch hunter encounters the witch Zero - an incredibly powerful witch in search of her book, which is said to have the power to destroy the world.

"Grimoire of Zero" has charm, without a doubt. But some teething troubles can never be completely avoided and so this anime isn't perfect either.
And yet it starts very strongly, so strongly in fact that I have nothing to criticize about the first half. But unfortunately this doesn't last and the closer the series gets to the finale, the worse it gets. Although it was really only a matter of minor things here.
For one thing, I found the series completely predictable. With every story, I try to predict where it's going to go and here it really wasn't difficult to solve 90% of all the mysteries. Who founded the Wizards of Zero? Who stole the book? Where is Zero's missing friend? All important questions that were foreseeable within the first few episodes. Even though I didn't feel like the anime really tried to hide the answers, I really missed the big reveal, the bang at the end of the season.
Secondly, I found many characters too lax, too lukewarm in their convictions. Here, true villains can simply be convinced with a few words, victims may have difficulties accepting them at first, but they always get along very quickly with their sworn enemies. The fact that the entire kingdom simply tolerates witches after decades of witch hunts, suffering and war - in what utopia would that be possible? Apparently in "Grimoire of Zero".
I also found it a shame that very little is explained about the world and especially the magic system. We have a genius here who has revolutionized magic, but magic is never really explained. By guessing from a few scenes, you can make some sense of it, but I would have liked a bit more depth. Where does magic come from? What distinguishes witches from humans? What kind of organization is Zero from? How did the kingdom come into being? These are other questions that could have been included at one point or another.
I would also have liked to have seen a proper happy ending for Mercenary and Zero, even if I still have to see the sequel.

Conclusion: I really had a lot of fun with this series. It's obviously not perfect, but what is? At least I don't know anything.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Nov 10, 2023

ArchangelEST

Mixed Feelings

A fantasy story with the worst kind of storytelling cliches, that is made only just bearable thanks to decent main characters.


Animation / Art / General Visuals - 7/10
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Pretty standard anime fare.


Sound / Music / Voice Acting - 7/10
... ------------------------------------------

It's okay. Nothing noteworthy.


Story - 5/10
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Frustrating and annoying is the way I'd put it. The story showed a lot of promise, but half-way through we're greeted with the most cliche of all cliche story twists that made me want to stop watching right there.

We get a terribly cliche villain story, de-powerment of the main character to allow the otherwise inferior villain to continue their nonsense, followed by the most disgusting of tropes to resolve the crisis - power of friendship and "talk no jutsu".


Characters - 6/10
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The main characters are quite fun. We have a sassy witch who is insanely powerful and confident, but also sheltered and socially unaware. A beast man who feels out of his element being around people he'd consider friends. And a third person with a hidden backstory that just happens to get involved.

Alas, these characters are not used to their potential. Too many cliches and tropes plague the developments, weakening the cast as a whole.

The villain is frustrating. What initially seemed like an interesting development, quickly turned into a mess of ridiculous motivations and executions.


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Total - 6/10

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It looks fine and the story is interesting enough as a whole, and the characters reasonably fun. But the way it all played out past the halfway point was extremely frustrating. A show of cliches and tropes, with a conclusion that satisfies nobody.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Aug 18, 2022

TheEtherea

Not Recommended

The show is borderline between "it's ok, I can finish this" and "boring".
Grimoire has a couple of visible issues that make this into a mediocre show:
1. It's concentrated around a few characters with some support cast who only appear once-twice for a couple of minutes and disappear.
This means that we need to have some proper development of both the characters themselves and the relationships between them. Both parts are very limited and shallow simply following a formulaic path of an average plotline. There is nothing special here, at all. Sure, maybe someone will be amused by "uwu she is sleeping on a furry" part, but ... it worked mostly as comedy.
2. The bland experience.
Since the story doesn't have much comedy beyond the creepy tailor and some gags in the opening episodes, there are also no decent tragic/dramatic episodes to make you as a viewer have any emotional connection. It's just bland, it has no flavor. The unimaginative backstory that could have been at least executed well, but tastes like stale bread.
3. Plotline is rather simple, but is "confusing" and stupid for no reason.
Honestly it's just a bunch of nonsense of Witches doing nobody knows what with nobody knows what goals exactly, Kingdom that simply views them as insane = burn them at the stakes (and it makes sense). A lot of generic talks about "revenge" and "revolts" but it's basically meaningless.
You have beastmen who are hated because legend says witches created them/or they carry sins to be born that way.
And yet Grimoire isn't going all the way with those ideas, doesn't explore them and has nothing to bring at the table. It ends up been - Yeah I've seen this many times before.

Grimoire has some very decent art when it gives you World exposition through history which is drawn in a Medieval style and that elevates the show somewhat.

To sum it up, if I were to try and review it a couple of days later I'm sure I would've forgotten about this show all together and it's one of the typical cases of "short Youtube cuts are more curious than the whole thing". Move along.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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	Poll: Zero kara Hajimeru Mahou no Sho Episode 12 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 ) Stark700 - Jun 26, 2017	150 replies	by Garrett_Dark »» Feb 2, 3:58 AM
	Poll: Zero kara Hajimeru Mahou no Sho Episode 11 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - Jun 19, 2017	64 replies	by Garrett_Dark »» Feb 2, 2:12 AM
	Poll: Zero kara Hajimeru Mahou no Sho Episode 10 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - Jun 12, 2017	62 replies	by Garrett_Dark »» Feb 1, 2:36 PM
	Poll: Zero kara Hajimeru Mahou no Sho Episode 8 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - May 29, 2017	89 replies	by Garrett_Dark »» Feb 1, 12:10 PM
	Poll: Zero kara Hajimeru Mahou no Sho Episode 7 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - May 22, 2017	82 replies	by Garrett_Dark »» Feb 1, 10:39 AM