Wistoria: Wand and Sword – The Summer 2024 Anime Preview Guide

What is this?

Will Serfort dreams of keeping his promise to a childhood friend by becoming a Magia Vander, one of the mighty magicians who sit atop the Wizard’s Tower. However, he is unable to cast even the simplest of spells, leaving him to fight dungeon monsters to earn credits at Regarden Magical Academy. As if that weren’t enough, he finds himself putting his sword skills to the test against a bullying professor.

Wistoria: Wand and Sword is based on the manga series by Fujino Ōmori and Toshi Aoi. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Sundays.

How was the first episode?

Nicholas Dupree
Rating:

More than any other show I’ve seen in a while, this one is being carried entirely by its production. This episode is, on all accounts, a fantastically polished piece of animation from start to finish. The characters move with impressive fluidity and expressiveness, whether they’re fighting monsters or walking down a hallway. There’s a strong directorial eye that, while a bit overactive at times, has a keen instinct for dynamic action and comedy. The designs aren’t my cup of tea, but are rendered beautifully. The action scenes are filled to the brim with striking cuts that bring the danger and magic of the world to life beautifully.

It’s just a shame that all that juice is in service of the most bare bones magic school setup you’ve ever seen. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: a kid who isn’t good at magic goes to magic school, where all the elite students and teachers treat him like literal dog shit, but it turns out he’s got a secret special power that is way betterer than any of their dumb magic! With his incredible power that everyone underestimates, he’ll become the greatest wizard ever, and prove all the haters wrong until they’re shivering and pissing themselves in awe of his secret badassery. It’s so played out and hollow that no amount of visual polish can make the story or characters interesting.

Take Will, for instance. He should be easy to root for – an eternal underdog who’s belittled by his teachers and peers, but harbors an honest dream of overcoming his weaknesses. However, the sheer amount of unwarranted hatred every Bad Guy harbors for Will in particular only serves to make him less interesting. It reinforces the idea that all of this world’s morality revolves around its protagonist: Good Guys are nice and supportive to Will, Bad Guys are mean jerks who knock his lunch tray out of his hands. When Will shows them up, the Bad Guys get so furious they bang on desks and yell and bleed from the mouth. It’s so hollow and artificial that it cheapens whatever parts of this world might actually be interesting.

There’s also not much to the world outside of Will, so far. There’s some interesting ideas, like ancient space invaders being kept back with a magical, artificial sky, but most of our time is spent in the vaunted halls or dank dungeons of Anime Hogwarts. The characters who aren’t total assholes to our protagonist are defined by how they either defend or support him, be it his female classmate, stern advisor, or the magical genius he made a childhood promise with. The most interesting relationship is between Will and his magic cat(?) because at least the cat can sass him a bit. Will himself is likable enough, but not a strong personality capable of carrying a show full of cardboard cutouts on his own.

I guess I can recommend this if you just want something cool to look at, so long as you’re content with following a story where nothing interesting happens. If you’re just really aching for magic school and action, this will give you both in excess. Otherwise this might be better experienced as out-of-context clips on social media.

Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

This is one of the best-looking episodes to premier, and if it had the story to back that it, it would be incredible. Sadly, the plot is definitely lacking; it’s at this point a bare bones magic school underdog story. Will Serfort is getting by at his prestigious magic academy by dint of book learning and sheer effort, which naturally gets him bullied by his peers and some of the faculty. He’s remarkably skilled at what he can do, but people would rather focus on what he can’t, and that sets the stage for a story we’ve seen at least a dozen times before.

The prejudice this time comes from Will’s lack of innate magical talent. He has no ability to use magic whatsoever, and though he’s well-versed in the academics of the issue, practical skills are much more valued. The story does make a solid attempt to explain why that is: humanity, in the distant past, was tormented by their gods, who cut off access to the sky under a thick blanket of sickly-looking clouds. When five mages fought the gods and broke through, creating what I suspect is an artificial sky barrier, keeping the gods out and giving the people light, it only makes sense that magic users would become objects of reverence, if not outright worship. Corollary to that, other skills lost respect, and thus Will’s incredible fighting prowess isn’t valued, even though in this episode he amply demonstrates that it’s worth something.

The underlying theme, therefore, is likely to be about overcoming bias and learning to recognize that magic isn’t the only worthwhile skill. That’s right in the title: it’s a tale of both wand and sword, and the implication is that Will’s dream of reuniting with his childhood friend Elfie is going to facilitate that societal change. It’s not a terrible premise, it just isn’t one that seems to merit the incredible care and flair that went into animating its first episode. But it also feels ridiculous to complain that something looks better than it “deserves,” because really, all anime ought to look this good, plot notwithstanding. It’s almost worth watching this simply for the visuals. Yes, the characters are stock and there’s a familiar schlock quality to the villains – Will’s ambition is balanced by his goodness while bad actors Sion and Professor Edward are painted as incapable of change and threatened by the mere thought of it. Colette is the standard cute classmate, and from what we know of Elfie, she’s almost literally on a pedestal, placed there by the reverence her magic skill affords.

I suppose the message here is, don’t watch this for the plot. But do check it out to see Will’s fight against the monster towards the end.

Disclosure: Bandai Namco Filmworks Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Bandai Namco Holdings Inc., is a non-controlling, minority shareholder in Anime News Network Inc.