Mahoutsukai Tai! (TV)

The Magic User's Club is a group of five well-meaning misfits who do more than card tricks—they can use actual magic. And with that magic, they managed to defeat a giant ship from outer space! But their close encounter left an enormous cherry blossom tree right in the middle of the city. It's so big that it blocks out the sun!

Takeo Takakura, the club's noble (but perverted) president, calls a special Sunday meeting to take care of the tree. It seems simple enough, but when magic is involved, nothing ever goes according to plan… What's more, there's a ghostly figure hidden among the branches, watching their every move. Who is this silent specter, and what does he want?

(Source: Nozomi Entertainment, edited)

Sawanoguchi, Sae Main

Konishi, Hiroko Japanese

Aikawa, Akane Main

Iwao, Junko Japanese

Takakura, Takeo Main

Onosaka, Masaya Japanese

Nakatomi, Nanaka Main

Iizuka, Mayumi Japanese

Aburatsubo, Ayanojou Supporting

Koyasu, Takehito Japanese

Sawanoguchi, Saki Supporting

Murai, Kazusa Japanese

Announcer Supporting

Oono, Sawa Japanese

Ueda, Kousei Supporting

Kameyama, Sukekiyo Japanese

Aburatsubo, Akiko Supporting

Inoue, You Japanese

Nanaka's Homeroom Teacher Supporting

Nagasako, Takashi Japanese

Abe, Shoujirou Producer

Ikeguchi, Kazuhiko Producer

Satou, Junichi Director, Episode Director, Storyboard, Original Creator

Nakamura, Ryuutarou Episode Director, Storyboard

Reviews

Oct 13, 2008

Retro8bit

Recommended

Have you ever come a cross an anime series, and your first thoughts were: Wow, the character design and artwork look great, but I bet the story is shallow and boring? Looking at the above picture you might think that to yourself, but let me just say that this series truly is just as good as it looks. I am so glad I took the time to watch this!

Summary:
Mahou Tsukai Tai (Magical Users Club) first started out as a 6 episode OVA of the same name, then was later made into a 13 episode TV series. And as you would expect, takes place after the ... events of the first series. After the giant bell is defeated! Now that being said, there really is no reason to not watch the TV series first if you wanted to, (the bell aside) there really isn't any kind of major plot change from the two, other than Sae and the gang playing more the role of rookie magicians in the OVA version. Also, the TV series has toned down the echhi-ness quite a bit when compared to the OVAs.

Characters: 8/10
The characters are all fleshed out quite nicely in this anime; Sae is your typical girl who doesn't have the confidence in herself, Nanka has the spunky spirit of the group, and Akane flakes any chance she gets. With that in mind however, none of the girl's personalities ever come out as annoying, in fact the only character that ever kinda annoyed me was "Takeo." He rarely ever acts serious when the time calls for it, and falls more in the category of "goofy" than anything else. Not that there is anything wrong with that, I just felt he tended to over do it at times. Oh and Ayanojyo? He will most likely crack you up with his hilarious pick up lines on Takeo. Sae is the one that stole the show for me though, she is the kinda character you just can't help but root for despite her self consciousness. Even though the story's main point is the magic, most epsiodes are split. In other words: half of the episode will be about magic, while the other half will just be about life's problems.

Artwork: 8/10
The clarity of the anime definitely shows its age when compared to now-a-days anime, but just because its an older title doesn't mean it can't stand up against some of the best series in this genera. And I personally feel it does! The art style is just great, each character has a distance look and reaction to certain problems, and (despite its age) is a quite colorful show, but never goes over board in that aspect, which is nice!

Soundtrack: 7/10
The soundtrack to this title is also quite charming. Both the opening and closing have a nice catchy beat......as does the main BG theme that plays throughout. The soundtrack is by no means the most memorable, but it does the anime justice! Though I only viewed the dub, it was quite well done and most characters did match decently with the voices they were given. Some may find a few on teh annoying side, but all in all they did their best.

Story 8/10
As far as the story goes, there isn't any main plot for the first half of the show. A mysterious entity appears to Sae on episode one, but pretty much remains in the background until later on. So the first half is mostly just the club members trying to hone their magic skills. The episodes do a great job of keeping you entertained, whether it be Sae messing up a spell that makes every doorway one goes into, make them end up in another part of town, to watching Sae grow ever closer to Takeo. And trust me it has so much to offer in its short time; you will laugh, cry, be puzzled or even be down right creeped out at times. (yes, this show does have it's eerie moments) Everything is settled at the end, with the exception of the relationships between the various characters, which I did feel was a little disappointing.

Bottom line: 8/10
Overall "Mahou Tsukai Tai" is an endearing overlooked series, and deserves much more attention than it gets. If you like the whole magical girl genera, I highly recommend trying this series out. It will most likely grow on you, as it did me. I hope that one day they bring this anime back in the form of a movie, or even better.....another season!

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Oct 14, 2018

DesolatePsyche

Mixed Feelings

First things first. My "reviews" system is explained on a blog entry. Which can be found through my profile.
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Both OVA and TV review
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✦Story
Very classic magic school Anime. Witches, spells, oldschool stereotypes and the whole general feel is pretty oldschool. I did like the style, but it probably has aged really bad for my taste.

Anyhow, I felt that OVA story was more intriguing whilst TV series became oddly very dull. It did add in sense of mystery and some quirks, but the whole way how it was built was simply boring. As episodes passed, the more and more I started fast-forwarding. It simply felt lifeless to ... watch.

✦Art & Sound
Art/animation was good enough. As for sound, I did notice quite some soundtracks and OP/ED was also quite nice.

✦Character
I felt that characters had nice stereotypes and their interaction was most of the time quite entertaining. But as time passed, I got really worn out by their whole character.

Sawanoguchi was really cute oldschool moeblob. Found her adorable and probably liked her the most.
Then we have straight-man act character, a loose model that likes to run around with men.

And 2 main guy characters were sort of a pervy comedy duo. Whereas of the characters is comedic perv and other one is bishounen homosexual. So yeah, it made a good comedy material. Considering how of the guys imagines pervy stuff and gets lost in his fantasy world thinking about girls, whilst the homo kinda breaks that fantasy apart in humoric sense.

Aside that we have few noticeable side-characters and some classy stereotypes. But aside that characters felt linear and eventually exhausting. But in the end, they were enjoyable enough.

✦Enjoyment & Overall
I just cannot explain any better than it probably aged badly for me. It had lot of "classic" elements I really liked, but all together it felt really dull and just simply ash-ilike.

But OVA's were surely more enjoyable. So go check out OVA's as they are prequel anyways. And depending how much you like OVA's, expect the series being worse. That will help you as the viewer to decide whenever to bother touching TV series or not.

Average says 5.5, but this one I don't feel like praising. Thus 5 overall.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Sep 6, 2018

JuneNephthys

Not Recommended

Going to quickly cover the OVA and TV Series of Magic User's Club in this review. Mahoutsukai Tai is memorable, in both entertaining and appalling ways; it's franchise that had a decent OVA and then duplicated into a GOD AWFUL television series that is among one of the worst that I've ever seen. After all, what is animation if you don't make objects float in the air instead of animating them?

• Let's start with the OVA. The first thing that caught my attention in the OVA is amount of love the creators seemed to have poured into it. Though not necessarily good, you can tell ... that the creators had an immense passion for their project.

• This series seems to do what Project A-Ko did and expanded upon typical archetypes to make them entertaining. We have the pervert with glasses, the klutz, the tomboy, the flamboyantly gay guy, the beautiful flaky girl, and the ojou-sama character. Comedy with stereotypes can work if done right, and I think this OVA is a thumbs-up venture. On the other hand, while the OVA was endearing and lovable, the TV series the complete opposite. Please, if you get into the OVA, don't watch Magic User's Club TV .

• The TV series debatably looks worse that some Christian cartoons that were probably funded by a small town church. The animation is ATROCIOUS. There's no point to even having made this sequel, because the new character that the TV series chooses to focus on has no point. Instead of fighting a menacing megalith, like in the previous version, it's just a little transgendered person that likes to mess around with the characters in his free time.

• There's a school festival that lasts forever, and random things like Akane shrinking or Sae visiting her family. And none of these episodes are written in a charming or likable way, like the script in the OVA. I had to force myself to sit through this train-wreck of a TV series. It's like they wanted to make a lazy cash grab and decided to make all of the same jokes as the OVA to a nauseating degree with a low budget and questionable character developing moments.

• Again, don't watch the TV series, but the OVA is fun. Watch that. Overall, I give Mahoutsukai Tai OVA a 5/10 and the TV series a deserved 1/10 because it was abominable!

Reviewer’s Rating: 1

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Apr 4, 2016 12:43 PM by Sakana-san | Discuss (7 comments)

	Poll: Mahou Tsukai Tai Episode 13 Discussion jacobpaige - Aug 19, 2009	10 replies	by mtsRhea »» Jul 20, 8:27 AM
	Poll: Mahoutsukai Tai! (TV) Episode 6 Discussion _-_Sally_-_ - Apr 28, 2021	2 replies	by yasmimlais »» May 22, 2023 8:31 PM
	Poll: Mahou Tsukai Tai Episode 10 Discussion jacobpaige - Aug 19, 2009	4 replies	by St0rmblade »» Dec 16, 2021 1:00 PM
	Poll: Mahoutsukai Tai! (TV) Episode 9 Discussion _-_Sally_-_ - Apr 29, 2021	1 replies	by St0rmblade »» Dec 16, 2021 12:19 PM
	Poll: Mahoutsukai Tai! (TV) Episode 8 Discussion _-_Sally_-_ - Apr 28, 2021	3 replies	by haydenluvsanime »» Dec 16, 2021 7:30 AM