Common Name: Rokedenashi Majutsu Koushi to Akashic Records
Alternative Names: RokuAka, Akashic Records and the Bastard Magic Instructor
Score: 6/10, 3/5
Length: 12 Episodes
Genre: Shounen, Action, Magic, School Life
Summary: The magical academy of the Alzano Empire is the home to some of the nation's upcoming magical talents who will dedicate themselves to whatever application of magic appeals to them most. Some will dedicate themselves to magical research and others will likely join the nation's military. All is not peaceful in this academy for ambitious, young magicians though. Ever since one of the school's favorite teachers went missing, his class and the rest of the faculty have been forced to put up with a real bastard of a substitute teacher, the eternally unmotivated and cynical Glenn Radars. Perhaps there is more to this lazy asshole than meets the eye? Surely, someone who once dreamed of being a hero of justice can't all bad, right?
Review: It's definitely not a good sign when the only honest praise I can give this show is "at least it's not as bad as I initially thought." When I first caught sight of Akashic Records I assumed it was some kind of magical idol anime, considering the blatantly fanservicey uniform the young girls of this show wear and my understanding that "Records" is usually included somewhere in names most music production companies. To my muted relief though, my initial assumptions about the show were way off base. Instead of being some vaguely unique, magical idol show, Akashic Records is just your standard battle academy/shounen action title but with a slightly older and world-weary male lead.
What about those uniforms you might be asking? Well...that's just the school uniform.
I wish I was kidding.
As the title implies, however, this isn't exactly the most wholesome shounen anime out there, considering how the show's title outs the main character as a "bastard" right from the start. Not the "of questionable parentage" kind of bastard, mind you. Glenn Radars is more of the shameless, lazy, arrogant, cynical, rude, reckless, and just generally offensive kind of bastard. It might be a tad amusing to consider the fact that Glenn is quite literally forced into the role of main character and teacher in this show. When you also consider that he starts his first day as a teacher by insulting and objectifying the class he's been put in charge of simply because he's not in a good mood, any amount of interest or intrigue in the character just kinda dies. Now, sure, the idea of a detestable main character is nothing new. It's just a simple way to create a main character with an identity of his own that also capitalizes on the popularity of the warped hero concept. There is, however, a clear and obvious flaw with a character who has made such an ass of himself that he can only be redeemed by constantly playing hero to the captured princess.
Even more so when said main character can only be made likable by having him utterly destroy a rapist in the act with his bare hands. Hero, yes. Good guy, no. Get it? Good.
In fact, that pretty much summarizes this show in its entirety. There are different variations of scenario each time, but they all end up the same in the end. Glenn makes an ass of himself and the moment he starts feeling remorseful something terrible happens and one of this female students get's put into a situation where he needs to save them because he's such a good guy. Each and every arc follows this formula and gets more and more cringe-worthy every time, and it does the show's characters no favors. To speak nothing of how generally insulting and overdone the "damsel in distress" concept is, it doesn't do the female characters of this show any favors when every person Glenn has some kind of investment in getting kidnapped, blackmailed, or corrupted over and over like the show is just going down a checklist. That kind of repetitive and mechanical approach to a plot and its characters just devalues any growth or personality these characters either had from the start or developed over time. It becomes a matter of course that each and every one of them gets put in distress, just so we can get more scenes of awful melodrama and Glenn playing the role of the underdog hero while we simultaneously learn a little more about his past each time.
Let's take for example the "main" love interest of the show, Sistine Fibel. At the show's start, Sistine is described as being a studious character who has a dream of fulfilling her late grandfather's last wish as a magical researcher and can be considered an all around good person, if a bit proud. Within the first couple episodes, however, the show goes out of its way to devalue her by turning her into the tsundere of Glenn's schoolgirl harem who is inclined to make just as much a fool of herself as Glenn because of her pride. What's worse, though, is that the show labels her as weak-willed and helpless while she is just about to be raped, and then runs with that as the source for her character development. By the end of the show, she's still Glenn's tsundere with a fragile ego, but at least she's finally willing to stand up for herself whenever Glenn's around to have her back. At least, I'm pretty sure that's the extent of her character arc. It's honestly hard to tell since the show is focused mainly on the other girls' tribulations and Glenn switching stances between asshat and shounen action hero as he goes to save whoever is in distress this time. It honestly took me about an hour to recall what all Sistine actually did over the course of the show, and she's the Main love interest.
Isn't she just precocious...I mean precious?
What's particularly hilarious though, is that objectification and dulling down of characters flows both ways at the end. When Glenn finally starts to take things seriously and returns to being the honest to god badass that he used to be (Hei from Darker than Black Season 1 levels of badass), Sistine just kinda shuts him down because that's not the Glenn she loves. So, just like he turns her into little more than a clingy tsundere waifu, Sistine eternally stigmatizes him as her goofy teacher/husbando because that's just what she prefers. Where does that leave us though? Sure, there's something of a world with a deadly political situation going on and some mysterious thing called the Akashic Records. But the show never really gets into these things. The most we get out of the terrorist faction and the political intrigue is that "there are bad guys who want to do a thing," but not enough is presented to even guess at what that thing is outside of it being generally evil. The Akashic Records and Melgalius' Sky Castle, which are both emphasized as being important, are only mentioned two or three times in the entire show and nothing really explains what they are/could do. So, I repeat, what is there to glean from this utter mess of a show?
I'm half-tempted to just call this a character action drama and be done with it, but the characters aren't interesting or engaging enough in their own right to warrant that distinction. So, I guess I'm forced to just call this another half-baked shounen action anime that certainly has a lot of spectacle going for it, but nothing that's actually worth anything when all is said and done. The characters are simplistic and end up worse off in the end than when they started. The world is only half there if even that. The enemy faction is just as ill-defined and lacks any kind of cohesion except for the consistent presence of a single, relatively unimportant character. The animation and art style are nice, but I'm convinced that's just so there would be something nice-looking to distract from the train wreck this show actually was--an idea that is significantly reinforced by the fanservicey end cards that closed out each episode. Heck, even I was spellbound by the show's art for a time, which was likely compounded with the relief that Akashic Records wasn't an idol show. Once that initial relief and vague interest faded and I realized I was just watching the same thing over and over each arc, though, I realized I would have probably preferred some idiotic magical idol show. At least that would have would have some level of novelty.
So, would I recommend this show? No, not really. It's a great show to watch if you want to just sit back and not think for a while. There are tons of better shows you can do that with though; shows with more meat to them than Akashic Records. If, however, you're inclined to veg out and are just itching for a flashy shounen action series, then this will be right up your alley. Otherwise, I'm not inclined to show this show off to anyone.