FrFriendlyOverlord
June 14, 2020
Mixed Feelings
I like magic, you like magic, we all like magic! Well, unless you don’t, I guess there are some people like that. Magic comes in various forms. Oftentimes the type we see in anime tends to be the fantasy type of magic. I.e. people who control fire, water, earth, wind, ice, lighting, yatta yatta, etc. They live in worlds often full of magical creatures, and do magical things magically, of course. I find it interesting how the word “magic” now triggers these types of thoughts in people because of how popular this “fantasy” type of magic has become. But as much as I like thattype of magic (believe me I do) that is not what we are going to be talking about today.
Instead, I will be talking about the magician type of magic. No, not the fantasy type! Not the staff-wielding ones! I’m talking about the good old fashion illusionist type of magic. “Why?” you may ask. Because that’s exactly what (or it should have been) Hatena Illusion is all about! Published in 2014 and written by Tomohiro Matsu, Hatena Illusion is a romantic comedy light novel that ran four volumes long until it’s creator’s unfortunate death in 2016 at the young age of 43 from liver cancer. In 2018 it received a manga, and finally, on January 9th, 2020, Hatena Illusion received a 12 episode anime series adaption by Children’s Playground Entertainment. Not the most, eh, well known of studios, we’ll say, but that doesn’t always mean anything. Of the few works they did that numbered about 6, only one of them really stands out to me as being memorable and that was Citrus, though based on who you ask, that’s either a good thing or a bad thing. Regardless, a lesser-known studio doesn’t mean something has to be bad.
The anime was directed by Shin Matsuo. Though this was his first director position, he had worked as episode director and animation director for various things, including a couple One Piece movies, a few episodes of both Ouran Highschool Host Club and Tokyo Ghoul, as well as doing key animation for a few things, such as the 4th Pokemon movie and some episodes of Soul Eater. So our director does have a decent resume, despite being new to his position.
So, was Hatena Illusion very good? I don’t want to tell you that right now. You have to read on and find out. Hey, don’t look at me like that. I need to have some fun! Ok, you’re bored? Ok, how about a trick? First pick a card, well, in your imagination. Now close your eyes, stroll down a bit and open them again!
Now I’m safely down here. Tada! The card served no purpose. I never said I was very good, did I? Leave the illusions to the illusionists as I always say! Ahem! Anyway. Our story begins with Makoto Shiranui, a young boy who aspires to one day be a magician that can replace all the sadness in the world with happiness. Both because of a promise he made to his childhood friend, Kana (Hatena) Hoshisato and to accomplish his own dreams, he travels to the Hoshisato household to study under Kana’s father Mamoru, the magician he looks up to more than anyone else. Upon arrival in the Hoshisato residence, Kana realizes that her childhood friend and “prince” was more of a “prince” than she had originally thought when she learns that Makoto wasn’t a girl that dressed like a boy, but just a boy after all! Who’d have thought it? Kana’s more progressive than any of us! With this news in tow, Kana gains a bitter attitude towards Makoto and wants him to leave immediately. Which might have been a possibility had Makoto not been the clumsiest human on earth, knocking over and breaking a vase in the Hoshisato residence. Now he must become a butler to pay off his debt to the family but don’t worry he’s still allowed to go to school because anime. Eventually, Makoto learns of the oddities in possession of the Hoshisato mansion and its occupants: strange magical items called “Artifacts” that were once stolen and abused by those who were never to know of their existence. To stop this from happening, Kana’s mother, Maeve, became a thief to steal back the artifacts and keep them from evil hands, which she does with her husband Mamoru at her side. Kana, wanting to help her parents in their endeavors, is a thief in training using her artifact, Muff-Kun, to help her fulfill her duties. As if all of this wasn’t enough for the young magician-in-training, Makoto discovers that his magic wand Maeve gave him was also an artifact. Donning his artifact’s true power and naming it the...wait for it…”Smile Stick,” Makoto assists Hatena with her thievery as her one and only partner. And thus, the story of the thief who swears to steal sadness and the magician who vows to replace it with happiness begins.
Truthfully, the story is a little odd. I like it, but I wish it was more about the actual magician business and less about the artifacts themselves. I originally was interested in Hatena Illusion for one reason: the artwork showed Kana and Makoto all dressed up in something that reminded me of a phantom (or gentlemen) thief, which is a concept I’ve been incredibly fascinated with ever since I first played Persona 5. Hatena Illusion kind of disappoints me there. It is very much about thievery, but only part of that is shown. It’s more like the anime is largely about Kana saying she’ll be a thief, but a small portion of it is her actually doing it. And when you finally get to the heist it’s over almost as soon as it began. As an example, the last arc revolves around the cast finding three special artifacts. Makoto and Hatena set out to find one of them. There's a solid episode and a half building up to this, and once they get there, they walk into a room, spook some guys with guns, and walk out. I could have gotten the artifact more stylishly than they did. Maybe they should learn something from the Phantom Thieves! Sorry, I got carried away there. As I did before my little outburst, I want to talk about the story arcs a bit. Most of the arcs are character-driven, which is generally good and I don’t exactly mind it here, I just think it takes away from the actual purpose of what the story should have been. I mean the first arc builds upon Makoto and Kana and introduces you to the artifacts. It’s fine and understandable they would start there. Then from there each of the main characters get an episode or two (or three) dedicated to them, and before you know it you're already at the end. I suppose it’s more that 12 episodes really wasn’t enough to focus on the characters, because as I said, it means the thievery and the magic plays second fiddle to it. It isn’t about a “master thief” stealing artifacts, It’s about a girl sorting out her family problems and occasionally doing some thievery. What should have been the main point only shows up typically at the end of each arc for a few minutes. It’s disappointing. However, when the anime does things right, they’re done right.
I think Hatena Illusion has a great sense of humor and is its main strong point. Whether it’s from Mamoru’s desperate attempts to get his daughters’ attention or his...eccentricities, we’ll call it, Makoto’s ridiculous magic such as making a flower come out of the barrel of a gun that is pointed at his face (yes that happens) for defense, or just the amazing butler with the most butleriest name ever, Jeeves, Hatena Illusion never failed to make me laugh. Even if part of that was just because of how ridiculous the story was at times. Kana’s whole point is to steal sadness, right? It certainly did that more than a few times for me.
Though I admit her tsundere tropes did annoy me a bit, Kana isn’t as bad as others I’ve seen before. She felt like more of a tsundere just because, I suppose. Like they wanted to make her one, and every now and then threw in a scene where she acts like one to be like “look, fanboys, a tsundere!” But unlike a lot of tsundere’s she actually shows some growth by the end of the story, albeit it’s a little. Character growth you say? What a novel concept! Considering the story is character-driven that should mean the characters had time to develop, which they kind of did, at least some of them. Makoto and Kana get a decent amount of growth, but their relationship doesn’t really change much past the first arc where they’re like “be my partner!’ to each other and stare off into the sunset. Honestly, Kana’s little sister Yumemi (who’s story arc is super sweet and my favorite, except that it’s too long) is probably closer to Makoto than her sister even is. At least she’s hugged him once and never tried to kill him. Sadly Makoto and Kana get mostly stagnant, as far as their relationship goes, but they do both grow in their own ways. Such as at the end of the series Kana not punching Makoto into oblivion at the mere mention of a compliment, which as we know is an amazing accomplishment for one of her species
Jeeves the butler, is basically a butler, but as I mentioned, he is the most butler-like butler to ever—um— butler...so yeah, take that as you will. Ema, the Hoshisato maid, gets quite a few episodes to her, yet she’s still largely the most uninteresting character to me. I think it took too long to do her arc frankly. I think you could have wrapped it up in like a single episode and sentence. You have some other characters that show up for an episode or two that are mostly forgettable. Seriously, Makoto has some friends in school that are only in the anime for like two scenes. They’re so uninteresting I don’t even remember what one of them looks like. I had to look it up to remember! Don’t even get me to tell you their names, I have a feeling the almighty internet could hardly tell you that. Watch Hatena Illusion, I bet you’ll forget by the end. By the end of the same episode probably. There’s an ok, if not confusing “villain” for most of Hatena Illusion, I have trouble really getting her character. She doesn’t make much sense to me honestly. Her motives—I can’t call them dumb—because they don’t exist! She just kinda does things, for little reason. The main “villain” I suppose would be Maeve's mother and Kana’s grandmother, but that’s only for one scene at the end of the anime, yeah. 12 episodes is a fickle thing.
Perhaps the biggest character-wise disappointment comes from Mamoru and Maeve, arguably the most important characters, as much of the stuff that happens in Hatena Illusion happens because of them. For mostly the entire Anime Mamoru is out doing god-knows-what, probably magic, so we see very little of him. He pops in (out of literally thin air, because magic) acts as some decent comedy relief then pops back out. You see him a bit in the final arc, but not much. Maeve is unfortunately far worse, as the entirety of the plot, save the final scene, she’s not even there. One time in the middle of the series she shows up as a duplicate from an artifact, but she’s always elsewhere. The last arc is about getting her back home. And the worst part is you're given no real explanation as to why this is. She’s either stuck finding an artifact, or stuck at her village with her mother, or something else. Like, why can’t you just break her out and bring her home or something? I know her mother is supposed to be strong, but you have tons of artifacts and magic. Just do it! Makoto has vanishing magic that lets him just make things disappear. Like, go bring her back, dude! I just wish that the one that Kana loves and admires so much she makes it her goal in life to be like her was actually shown for more than five minutes in the series.
Oh, yeah! Makoto has parents and a sister. He talks to them like once on the phone. I forgot but I suppose he had to be born somehow. Hey, at least they seem loving and actually care about their son. That’s more than you can say for most anime parents.
As I mentioned, the main reason I watched this anime was based on the artwork I saw for it. The funny thing is I didn’t even know it was about a thief, I just knew magic was involved in some way. It just goes to show how much Persona 5 has influenced me when I see these characters in very over the top costumes, I instantly think of it. And I’m talking about this because that was one thing about Hatena Illusion that, to my surprise, I really liked: the art. When the studio making an anime only has a small number of things under their belt, and those things aren’t the most beloved of things, you would expect the art to potentially suffer from it. In Hatena Illusion’s case, that’s not true...completely. Though I've seen some conflicting views on this, I like the art style. It’s colorful, vibrant, cheerful even, and I think it’s fit the type of magic story it wants to tell. However, I’ll be the first to admit it suffers from a few things.
One: Hatena Illusion suffers from (though not as bad as other series I’ve seen) a problem I like to call the “first episode curse.” This curse, at least I imagine, is the result of the creator working incredibly hard to make the artwork lovely for the first episode and then realize it would be impossible to keep up the same quality the whole series, thus the following episodes end up being a step down as a result. Hatena Illusion does suffer from this. The first episode is largely the best-looking part of the series, and the rest of the series isn’t as good looking, but it isn’t like the “normal” art is bad. Hatena Illusion’s art ranges from great to mediocre, generally hanging around the pretty good area and dipping into mediocre for certain zoomed out scenes, which are notoriously bad in certain anime, but in Hatena Illusion it isn’t awful I’d say, just noticeable.
The way I’d describe it is the anime has different art qualities it shifts between. Some scenes look fantastic, some look ok, and very few of them look bad. The first episode is largely part of the better-looking art, while the subsequent episodes are a mixture of all of it. But the art, even at its worst will never really offend you, I've seen far worse, and more importantly, when it works it works. Albeit the art ends up being a little inconsistent overall. I will admit that.
To make mention of another aspect of the art I wasn’t fond of, and this is a nitpicky thing but something that did bother me, when I saw that Makoto was going to actually fight, I got super excited. “Whoa, he’s going to fight with magic?” I wondered happily. I thought maybe we’d get to see him throw cards, or coins, or do all sorts of Illusions. Unfortunately, the fight scenes in Hatena Illusion are underwhelming. The first time we see Makoto fight is when Kana is losing a fight with her aunt because the Hoshisato’s have family issues, he swoops in and does “vanishing magic” to teleport Kana. He then uses “Illusion Magic” to create blades of light to stab his enemies. Neat, and I get it, but I want them to have more fun with it. Freaking throws her in a box and stab it with fake swords like some magic iron maiden thing. Saw her in half! Throw some cards around, show me something! Your hero wears a top hat! However, despite them not running with the idea as much as I like at times, there are some memorable moments. The gun as I said earlier, and also a move where Makoto throws a bunch of doves at a woman, throws a cloth over her and just takes the artifact. I never expected to see magic like that in a fight, and I wish there was more of it.
The music that accompanies the fights and other scenes of the show are nice as well. They sound like a piece you would hear as you take your seats, the lights dim, and you look in amazement as your favorite magician takes the stage, ready to perform their magic for all to see. Opening and endings for Hatena Illusion are fine, I prefer the latter. The former is more upbeat as you see the different characters floating in a trippy kaleidoscope-like visual in the background. The art overall is nice, and better than the ending, though I don’t like the song as much. The ending is much more up in your face and gets you pumped to watch the next episode. Art wise is focusing almost entirely on Kana and her being a “master thief.” A few neat visuals such as spotlights flashing by, causing her clothes to change from her normal outfit to her thief attire, to her school uniform. It shows the various identities that she has. I imagine this is the type of song she listens to before a heist to get ready. But I can’t help but laugh when I watch it. It gives off the impression that Kana is such a cool, calm, and collected thief, but she just isn’t. I suppose that’s part of her charm.
Finally, we arrive at the end. The end can be sad sometimes, but it’s also the beginning or something deep and philosophical like that. The ending was what largely disappointed me the most about Hatena Illusion. Not that it was a bad ending, or that I was particularly sad for it to be over, it’s more that had the anime had more than 12 episodes I feel that it truly could have been something special. Had they had more time to flesh out the characters without taking away from time from the thievery. Had more focus been put on actual magic. I’d have loved to see Makoto actually learn some magic, not just use his Smile Stick. I feel like Hatena Illusion ended right when it could have begun. I would have loved to see more adventures of Makoto and Kana. I’d like to see more of Maeve. I'd like to have seen a lot more, and I feel like largely the reason I’m left with these feelings is from the short length of the anime. Could they have used their time better? Sure, they certainly could have. I’ve seen anime with fewer episodes do more. Hatena Illusion could have had its priorities figured out better, but of course, that’s just a difference of opinion. In the same way, I would have loved to see more magic, some people would enjoy the more character-focused story. I just can’t help but see it as a waste. You have the various interesting character’s enveloped in this magical world, yet you choose to focus more on the boring aspects of their life. Like why show two episodes about Yumeimi getting bullied and not wanting to go to school when you could have used that time for something more interesting. Of course, that’s a problem with the source material, not the anime. I just wanted more, more of the interesting setting they gave me. I don’t often run into something that I feel is entirely unique, especially in the often oversaturated landscape that is anime, but that’s what Hatena Illusion was. Never had I have seen (or wanted to see) a young girl with her magical muffler become a master thief to steal sadness along with her tophat-wearing magician partner and all their shenanigans that ensue, but here I am, wishing I had a little more. Hatena Illusion is far from perfect, and I will be the first to tell anyone that, but if you want a unique approach to an anime about magic, give Hatena Illusion a try. I promise, if nothing else, that you will get a kick out of it once or twice.
As always, my opinion isn’t any more or less valid than yours...or Fred's back there. I would highly recommend not listening to any random idiot on the internet like me and instead go watch Hatena Illusion for yourself and form your own opinion because free will is a pretty neat thing! But I did just tell you not to listen to me, so do what you want, or don’t. I’m starting to confuse myself.
Anyways! “Ladies and gentlemen! I must bid you adieu!”
Wait, "Ladies and gentlemen" is what magicians say when they arrive, not leave? Oh. Now I have to go change the script! Oh, whatever, nobody has to know.
“Goodbye, Ladies and gentlemen! See you next week!"
Actually, it won’t be next week.
