Mikagura School Suite

Episodes 1-2

Pick three anime series at random and toss them into a blender. Add three cups of sugar, a jumbo-sized energy drink, and a fresh box of crayons. Hit the “liquefy” button and let the blender run until it shorts out, then chug the resulting smoothie while touching an electric fence with your free hand. If you've followed these steps correctly, you should have an accurate impression of how it feels to watch the first two episodes of Mikagura School Suite. There's a show in here somewhere, but the details are drowned out by a relentless barrage of blinding enthusiasm.

The crazy train starts rolling when teenage heroine Eruna applies to Mikagura Academy for a refreshingly straightforward reason: she thinks that the girl in the school's brochure is cute. This isn't too surprising, as Eruna seems to develop a crush on every girl she meets, whether they're real people or dating sim characters. When she takes her entrance exam, Eruna can't help but notice that there's a magical talking cat flying around the room. Being able to see the cat is apparently the only requirement for admission, so it's off to school for Eruna. Our plucky heroine is quickly swept up into Mikagura Academy's system of magical club battles, and it turns out that she has some A-list superpowers of her own. It's an awful lot for a high school freshman to take in at once, but Eruna's up for the challenge as long as she can be in the same club as the girl from the brochure.

The quick pace and manic energy make it seem like there's a lot going on here, but Mikagura School Suite isn't quite as crazy as it first appears. At its core, it's a high school comedy with some flashy magical battles thrown in for extra excitement. Eruna may be scatterbrained, but she's also a reasonably charismatic heroine with a handful of “chosen one” abilities. She's clearly meant to shake up the established balance of power amongst the school's competing clubs, and it's hard not to cheer her on as she fumbles her way through her first battle. It feels like this series is borrowing bits and pieces from everything under the sun, but at least it's stealing some good stuff.

Bright colors and excess energy may be Mikagura School Suite's main selling points, but they're also some of its biggest weaknesses. If there's any kind of intelligent plot here, it's buried under eight tons of glitter. There are occasional hints that there's more to this show than meets the eye, but those brief flashes of narrative ambition have yet to amount to anything. For the time being, this is a case of style far outweighing substance.

The good news is that the show's appeal is fairly broad. Eruna may only have eyes for the ladies of Mikagura Academy, but the cast features a pleasant mix of good-looking guys and girls. The series is very light on traditional fanservice, opting instead to lean on the characters' personalities. Just about everyone falls squarely into one anime archetype or another, and the club presidents spout adorably cheesy dialogue like it's their sole purpose in life. Even Eruna's constant fantasies come across as far more cute than creepy. Meaningful character development is hard to find in these opening episodes, but there's something refreshing about the way the show offers such a wide variety of characters for viewers to crush on.

While the sensory overload of bright colors is an excellent fit for the tone of the series, the actual animation is spotty. There are some admirably ambitious action shots in the second episode, but the budget can't always keep up with the storyboards. Characters tend to wander off model while they're in motion, and the calmer scenes often look like they're trying to use as few frames as possible. It's not a bad-looking show, but I'm a bit worried about whether or not the visuals will hold up over the course of the season.

I'm not entirely sure what to expect from Mikagura School Suite, but I like what I've seen so far. It might very well run out of steam before it runs out of episodes, but it's a welcome shot of energy at the moment. For the time being, there's not much to do but sit back and see where it goes from here.

Rating: B

Mikagura School Suite is currently streaming on Funimation.

Paul Jensen is a freelance writer and editor. You can follow more of his anime-related ramblings on Twitter.