Mash has just encountered true evil in Mashle Episode 7, or at least as close of an approximation of it as it can be in this show. Let’s see how it went in this review!
Mashle Episode 7 Overview
Mashle is an action, adventure, and comedy anime produced as a part of the Spring 2023 season of anime. The show is based on a Shounen Jump manga written and drawn by Hajime Koumoto. The show is being directed by Tomoya Tanaka, whose previous contributions to the industry include directing episodes of Hunter x Hunter and helming Engage Kiss.
The show is being produced and animated by studio A-1 Pictures, a prolific studio in the industry known for titles like Sword Art Online, Kaguya-sama: Love Is War and Fairy Tail. The show is also called Mashle Magic and Muscles, and thus, this episode is also called Mashle Magic And Muscles Episode 7. Click here to read the review of the previous episode of the show!
– Mashle Magic And Muscles Episode 7 Review does not contain spoilers –
Mashle Episode 7 Review- The Ominous Return
I’ve always believed that production issues are a death knell for smaller shows. Your Demon Slayers and Attack On Titans can survive as many production gaffs as you throw at them, but the same is not true for shows like Kubo Won’t Let Me Be Invisible or Mashle. I’m not as attached to this show to say that I was disappointed that we didn’t get a new episode last week, but it put a dent in the momentum the show was gaining in the past weeks. What a shame, as this episode reminded me of just how good the show got by the last episode.
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This episode started right where the previous one left off, with Mash encountering Abel Walker, who appears to be the kind of sinister that isn’t really suited well to this series’ tone. Mash and Company are always just goofing around, having silly little arguments about girls and how pretty Lance is. At the same time, there is Abel, planning to destroy an entire race of people and turning actual students into puppets who are under his control. Are there no laws? How are people not noticing the missing children?
His going up against Mash is a weird matchup. For one, Mash isn’t actually as dumb as he looks and is somewhat smart in the way he can look through people. Abel’s normal manipulation shouldn’t work on Mash, and it won’t, provided Mash’s characterization remains consistent. Mash also couldn’t care less about how evil Abel is because, for him, all wizards are the same and want people like himself eradicated. There is a nice dichotomy between the two characters, as nobody is as discriminatory towards people like Mash as Abel.
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Mashle Episode 7 also introduced Magia Lupus, the “death eaters” of this world and Abel’s followers and housemates. They’ve been numbered just as you would expect from any post-Bleach shonen anime to be, and they don’t seem to have much personality beyond “evil and silly”. We got to see two of them fight Mash and Lance in this episode, which led me to another discovery- anything involving magic in any of the show’s fights is absolutely awful, and nobody has thought this through.
Now, I get that this is supposed to be a parody. However, there is making fun of something, and there’s being lazy. Who decided that each wizard could only use one kind of magic? If that is the case, why are they all in this school? Are they just here to learn Potions, Herbology and Creatures? Aren’t there any rules regarding fighting, stealing, or turning people into puppets? Most of this would have been easy enough to ignore if what the show did end up doing with magic was decent, which it isn’t. People just throw stuff at each other until one can’t. That isn’t remotely fun to me, although your mileage may vary.
Verdict
Mashle Episode 7 was hurt by the break in more ways than one and wasn’t good enough to regain the momentum lost by the gap. There’s a lot of catching up that needs to be done.