Mashle

In this magical world, one is easily identified as having magical abilities by a distinctive mark on their face. Those unable to practice magic are swiftly exterminated to maintain the magical integrity of society. However, deep within a forest lies an anomaly in Mash Burnedead, who can be found pumping iron with one arm and lifting a cream puff with the other. This aloof boy with superhuman strength—but no magical abilities—leads a quiet life with his father, far removed from society.

Mash's peace is soon disturbed when the authorities discover his lack of magical powers. They issue him an ultimatum: compete to become a "Divine Visionary," which would force everyone to accept him, or be persecuted forever. To protect his family, he enrolls in the prestigious Easton Magic Academy, which only the most elite and gifted students are allowed to attend. Now, Mash must overcome his shortcomings as a magicless being and surpass the other students—relying solely on his muscles.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Burnedead, Mash Main

Kobayashi, Chiaki Japanese

Crown, Lance Main

Ishikawa, Kaito Japanese

Barrett, Dot Main

Eguchi, Takuya Japanese

Irvine, Lemon Main

Ueda, Reina Japanese

Ames, Finn Main

Kawashima, Reiji Japanese

Ames, Rayne Supporting

Kaji, Yuuki Japanese

Walker, Abel Supporting

Umehara, Yuuichirou Japanese

Razor, Abyss Supporting

Nanami, Hiroki Japanese

Eamus, Rhodes Supporting

Ban, Taito Japanese

Cute, Love Supporting

Koga, Aoi Japanese

Lu, Xiana Producer

Nakamura, Shouta Producer

Shimazaki, Takao Producer

Furuhashi, Souta Producer

Reviews

Jul 14, 2024

matraph00

Recommended

The first thing to mention about this show is that it has a lot of similarities with Harry Potter in term of environment (school of wizards, different houses, Quidditch, classes), Mob Psycho (in term of vibe) and Demon Slayer in term of character traits but done better imo (I have not watched One Punch Man so I won’t compare to it but I can see the resemblances). I love the humor. Simple and repetitive but funny nonetheless. The characters are mostly entertaining and not annoying which I could not say for Demon Slayer. For example you’ve got a similar character to Zenitsu but a way ... less annoying version of him.

The fights don’t last indefinitely with like this side getting the upper hand in the beginning but next episode the other side gets the upper hand and next episode the other side gets the upper hand and 10 episodes later, the good guys finally win. That’s not Mashle. Most of the fight are over in one episode (or less). Watching drawn out fights is so boring especially when you know the good guys are gonna win in the end I’m looking at you Demon Slayer.

In term of powers, similar to Demon Slayer again, each character has got one type of move; this character makes swords appear, this character makes explosions, this character uses gravity, this character uses sand. Which is not great but at least since the fights don’t last for too long, you don’t get the time to be tired of seeing always the same tricks. The MC is the one you always see fight and he uses one trick every time, his muscles/body. But he finds new, random, unrealistic yet funny ways to beat his opponent every time. And this is always part of the joke.

The humor I think is great. It’s very simple, very repetitive but it makes me laugh every time. I love how the main character react to things, is obsessed by cream puffs, is dumb, obedient, doesn’t know how to act normally. They make it funny but not even in a cringy way. Just funny and absurd.

Overall I think it’s a great comedic anime which knows how to build on what other contents have done in the past.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Jun 9, 2024

DawkMemo

Mixed Feelings

Overall a really mid series. Pretty much every single character is one dimensional and it gets pretty old when most of the significant characters are the same stoic type. This series feels like a magic/fantasy version of Saiki K but Saiki K does it's characters and humor better. It also feels like this series can't decide if it wants to commit to being a gag anime or being serious so I was left not knowing how to approach it.

The female characters are a joke, I don't even know why they're present in the series. Each character has their own "personal magic" and the only ... female character we have on the mc side is so insignificant we never even know what her personal magic is. Even the mc's roommate/friend who is just one step above insignificance to the female character gets his personal magic revealed later in the series. The female antagonists? Also just as embarrassing. We don't get many female antags but the ones that we do get have their abilities or personalities rotate solely around male characters. It's really bad.

You get backstories to certain characters but it feels shoehorned in and half the time I felt like I really didn't care about this character enough to care about their backstory.

Oh, and we get another character with a thing for his little sister. Disgusting. You could've had a completely normal character with a normal love for his little sister without making it weird, but instead for some reason the author decided "you know what would be funny? A siscon gag!" It's not funny, it's never going to be funny, incest is not funny.

That being said the series was alright. Far from anything that will change your brain chemistry but it's something that will pass the time. Also I quite liked Mash, even if he's just another Saiki- I mean Saitama- I mean Mob. Yeah his character has been done before (and better) but I still liked him regardless and he had some entertaining moments. I'm also a sucker for the extremely strong mc trope, but I understand it's not everyone's cup of tea. Truthfully if you don't like that trope I would avoid the series cause it doesn't have much else going for it in my opinion. Lastly Mash is 100% autistic.

Autism rules!!

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Feb 15, 2024

DeliaMain

Not Recommended

Well-written

Spoiler-free review

So... Mashle isn't the worst comedy-focused shonen I've seen. That's the highest praise I can give it honestly. The anime is fine... the humor is OK for the most part (many jokes miss though). It's the same repetitive gag over and over and over though about how ridiculously strong he is and about how he shocks everyone constantly. Which makes the show kinda one-note in my opinion. Nothing is shocking or surprising or keeps me guessing, which is why this show felt kind of dull for me. The qualities that had the potential to save this show for me are the pacing (it's very ... fast paced... thank god for that) and the memeability of the protagonist, Mash. He makes many faces that can be used as reaction images, and that's honestly the main draw for me. Which isn't great for a tv show, which has the goal of entertaining you and making you want to watch more.

Okay, I've been beating around the bush. There's one major glaring issue with this show that I feel is not talked about nearly as much as it should, and that's the absolute flop that is every female character. This author either hates women, or does not know how to write them. There is one female character that is a part of the main group, and her whole purpose of being there is to have a crush on our beloved stale af MC. Yep. She is there to fangirl. That's it. As a female viewer, it's honestly insulting to see. I'm waiting for the day that female characters are written as people and their own unique individuals, that aren't tethered to the MC. Just... why??? It's very infuriating and actually made me want to drop the show (I probably should have, but alas, the sunk time fallacy strikes again).

Another thing that's really unfunny and out of place is one of the side characters having an obsession with his little sister. It's really offputting and just... weird. I know this is a common gag in anime, but when can it end? It's not funny, it's not endearing, and the author basically just wrote this character into a gag that he's going to be repeating over and over indefinitely. I get that humor is subjective and someone may find this funny, but even if this is supposed to be funny, the sheer repetitiveness ruins any potential humor in it.

The OP and ED are good, if you care about that (I do). The VAs are great. But these qualities aren't enough to save the show. This anime is meant to parody the generic-ness of the shonen genre, that's pretty clear by how in-your-face it is. But there's a point where it stops being a parody and actually becomes what it was trying to parody. That's what I think happened here. I watched the first two episodes of season 2 out of curiosity, and it hasn't gotten better. It's majorly disappointing.

TLDR: Go in with low expectations if you want to watch it, but I don't recommend you watch it anyway. There's much better shonen you can watch. This anime treats female characters like props and the jokes flop a majority of the time.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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