Man it sucks when I cant enjoy something. It especially sucks when its something you were looking forward to. The subject of todays review Stories of Girls Who Couldnt Be Magicians or Mahoutsukai ni Narenakatta Onna no Ko no Hanashi actually has a bit of a story behind it. In 2018 a company called Project Anima held a contest allowing entrants to submit ideas in the form of novels scripts manga drafts illustrations and so on and the winners would have their pieces adapted into anime. MahoNare as Ill be referring to it for the sake of brevity took the grand prize for the contests fantasy/another world category and the anime was set to air in 2021 but for some reason was delayed. Luckily the show was set to debut in October of 2024. And hey Im always down for more cute witch/magical girl stories. Unfortunately MahoNare wound up not being one of the better ones. This one had the potential to be good but squandered any opportunity it had to rise above being mediocre. The story centers on a young girl Kurumi Mirai who loves magic and wants to be a magician. When she was little she met a magician who gave her a mysterious notebook which Kurumi finds out is given to students of the prestigious Letran School of Magic and Magecraft the only known institution that trains wizards for the International Mage Alliance. Kurumi studies hard so she can get assigned to the Magic Class...only to find that she didnt make the cut even with her good grades. Kurumi is crestfallen as shes always dreamed of becoming a magician but now that that door is closed to her shes resigned herself to being stuck in the Standard Class where they study anything but magic...until their homeroom teacher a strange tiny woman named Minami Suzuki announces that shes going to teach magic to everyone in the Standard Class status quo be damned. But Minamis brand of magic isnt like the magic that Letran usually practices. Is there a chance for Kurumi to finally fulfill her lifelong dream after all? Yeah this show is pretty much trying really hard to be Little Witch Academia. Lets be real here. Magic school girl who seemingly cant do magic a stoic rival with a girl posse who at first hates the MC but later becomes her friend youve seen it all before. The plot of the differences between ancient and modern magic give off High Guardian Spice vibes while the side plot of gatekeeping magic brings thoughts of Witch Hat Atelier to my mind. I will admit one thing MahoNare does have going for it is its art design. The actual animation isnt much to write home about and it does its job decently both the fantastical and the mundane but its art direction is quite honestly beautiful. Its not the most visually striking show in the autumn 2024 season but it has a style thats all its own with charming watercolor backgrounds straight out of a childrens fairy tale full of whimsy and eyecatching vibrancy. The character designs are fun too done by Lily Hoshino of Mawaru Penguindrum fame. I have less to say about the soundtrack though...how in the hell did they manage to get Yoko Shimomura to work on this? I do not remember her working on anime soundtracks unless they were tied to a game adaptation or something like Legend of Mana. Though if Im being honest this isnt one of her better soundtracks. I couldnt tell you the first thing about it or the ending theme. The opening song is nice though and its done by PuffyAmiYumi. Kinda nice to hear them again. What was the last thing they worked on before this? One of the endings for ReLife which was in 2016? Dang thats a long time. Good to know theyre still active Unfortunately thats all the positive things I have to say about MahoNare because everything else about it is a mess. First off this show has way too many characters. Not as many as Lapis Re:Lights but 12 episodes is not enough to handle an ensemble cast this big and they dont get fleshed out beyond their one archetype so they all come across as extremely bland and onenote. As a result the series feels really cluttered. A lot of them feel like theyre just there to take up space and not much else. Hell one girl doesnt do anything outside of translate what Minamis pet frog is saying to Kurumi and Yuzu and just disappears so she comes off like a random plot device than a threedimensional character. Even the two main girls Kurumi and Yuzu are as cliche and bland as white rice. Yuzu just feels like a knockoff of Diana from Little Witch Academia but without everything that made Diana work as a character and while Yuzu is the only one who gets any real noticeable development her change from stoic alpha bitch to Kurumis closest friend seems to come out of nowhere feeling more like the writers wanted to change her character when it was convenient rather than actually showing her changing. Going back to Kurumi as much as I want to like her arc she honestly feels like a side character rather than the main protagonist. All throughout the series she hardly ever does anything on her own and spends a lot of her time being indecisive or angsty. There were so many times where I wanted to smack her because she spends so much time whining and unable to act when it matters most. She doesnt manage to do anything noteworthy until episode 10. A character like her might have been fine as a side one but she fails to deliver as the main protagonist. In all honesty Minami feels more like the main character than Kurumi does because Minami is the only character who really moves the plot forward in any capacity. I wouldnt blame anyone if they thought she was the main character and I feel like the show would be better off if they focused more on Minami than the kids. Also some of the characters names are really dumb. Lemone Juicy? Really? Why would you name someone that? Speaking of her good God her voice is screechy and annoying as hell Also theres one point where one of Yuzus girl posse gets angry at Kurumi for supposedly stealing Yuzu but this never gets followed up on so any development she could have had is just thrown out the window. Though thats not even mentioning how slipshod the story is. MahoNare feels like a longer show thats crammed into one 12episode season. A good chunk of it just focuses on boring boilerplate magic school shenanigans more interested in meandering and goofing off than actually telling its story. The plot doesnt kick in until a quarter of the way through but even then its execution falls extremely flat in every way. I have to go into spoilers here because my complaints about the story wont make sense if I dont explain them in detail. Tldr MahoNare spends more time goofing off and on a cliche stop the machine from blowing up and destroying everything plot than actually answering important questions developing its characters or resolving important plot threads. It tries to do too much none of it gels together and the show has no room to breathe as a result. God I really hate that I couldnt enjoy this show because it does have interesting ideas. But the staff made to work on this were just not the right people for the job and there are so many other series that tackle this premise or similar ones better like Witch Hat Atelier Little Witch Academia The Worst Witch The Owl House and so on. If you want a short breezy witch girl series to show to your kids MahoNare is fine but has nothing of real substance and has nothing to offer beyond its shiny sugary frosting. Seriously just check out the stuff I mentioned above youll get much more out of them than Stories Of Girls Who Couldnt Be Magicians.