©2023 宇野朴人／KADOKAWA／キンバリー魔法学校
Reign of the Seven Spellblades was clearly always going to be a long-term story. These witch kids will have a full academic career ahead of them, as well as, you know, Oliver’s entire long-running multi-murder revenge agenda. So this Ophelia storyline, which is confirmed to be a diversion, was always going to be just an excuse for some sort of season-ending climax. But man, this finale almost completely fails to deliver even within those extremely heated expectations. And it does so in ways that Seven Spellblades has always strained, with a weak, clumsy approach to characterization and plot reveals.
Take the show’s treatment of Miligan as an example. She almost becomes a main character in the first part of this episode, before sacrificing herself at the end of what was supposed to be a redemption arc. Except that Miligan, who accompanies Oliver and the others on this trip through the maze, bears little resemblance to her previous iteration and barely acknowledges the deeds for which she is atoning. . She must carry out the final reveal of information by the upperclassmen, before being killed in a way that does not affect the characters’ success in the final battle one way or another. After that, she’s not even mentioned by anyone, except for a scene at the end that shows Katie still having her disembodied hand hanging around. How did Katie feel when her arrested mentor died, something she wasn’t even there to witness? Who knows, who cares?
It’s a microcosm of the overall problems in Seven Spellblades as it wraps up this story, with several character deaths leading to changes to the status quo. Of course, Ophelia is the central character, but even though her backstory was deployed quite strongly last week, it’s not surprising that the show couldn’t muster much pathos. . Interestingly, even after transforming into a giant magical monster mode, she is still allowed to express her feelings of loneliness and frustration due to the way this world treats her. It makes the story feel like it treats her as a person if not a fully fleshed out character. That comes with the show once again trying to sell Oliver and the others’ friendship as this wonderful personal connection, so the effect of that is what causes Ophelia to stagnate in terms of emotional side at the end after their physical attacks on her had no effect. But it mostly comes across as an excuse, even when alluding to the actual arcs of characters like Nanao and Pete.
The writing seems to be trying to tie the main characters’ friendship to that between the upperclassmen, with Godfrey and Carlos taking things in stride at the end. But if the relationship between the Sword Roses has always been nominal at best, the climactic connection between Ophelia and her past friends is even less earned. There was simply nothing to feel as Carlos stepped forward to sacrifice himself next to Ophelia. Sure, I like Carlos, because he’s cute and he greeted Pete once. But it’s hard to miss him when he’s only been in a few scenes, mostly exposition, up to this point.
Even Carlos’s great sacrifice, deeply moving in that it was supposed to be the culmination of his relationship with Ophelia, was muddled by the expected clumsy approach of the Seven Spellblades. He sings an emotional ballad in his lovely voice, which is how he can finally reach his dear friend, and Godfrey finally monologues about the whole thing by explaining about how his friend is immune to Ophelia’s powers because he magically has his gonads. REMOVE. That’s the same problem I had with the last-minute reveal of Chela’s elven heritage, except this is even stupider and presented in a more insulting way.
Some of Seven Spellblades’s dry narrative treatment of all these events seems deliberately intended to evoke the banal cruelty on which its wizarding world is built. After all, the mortality rate from illness among Kimberly’s students has been mentioned since the beginning of the series, and Oliver is sure to allude to it again at the end. But instead of being an element that our heroes can seek to revolutionize, it ultimately seems like they barely care. It’s a shaggy dog story that’s so unintentionally considered that, as the show belts out the theme song while running through its collection of characters, there’s barely time to get the audience interested. . I haven’t read the original Seven Spellblades novels, but I acknowledge that the stories may take place in other, later installments. However, the anime’s framing of this plot into anything resembling a climax or conclusion feels incredibly confusing, especially after watching two more episodes just to get there.
Rating:
Reign of the Seven Spellblades is now streaming on Crunchyroll.
Chris is back for another season of calling witches nerds. Please disagree with him on that above Twitter (no matter how long that lasts) or check out his offbeat musings on other weird topics on his blog.
Disclosure: Kadokawa World Entertainment (KWE), a wholly owned subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, is the majority owner of Anime News Network, LLC. One or more companies mentioned in this article are members of the Kadokawa Group.
