During a festive gathering to celebrate the new graduations from the magical academy, Algard, the crown prince of Atland and betrothed to noblewoman Euphyllia, announces that their engagement is effectively annulled. Having been taken by the charms of a commoner girl named Lainie, he levies accusations at Euphyllia, leaving her horrifically disgraced and her social status effectively ruined. As everything is about to come to a catastrophic head (even moreso than it already had), the rebellious princess Anisphia crashes through the window on her magical tool broomstick and, reading the situation quickly, takes Euphyllia away and promises to set her free from her circumstances.
The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady, or MagiRevo for short, starts with these series of violent metaphorical (and in Anisphia’s case, literal) collisions. As the series unfolds over its twelve episodes, the picture as to how all the collisions were born, nurtured, and achieved their realization begin to take their shape. All of the show’s major players, from aristocrats like Anisphia, Euphyllia to Algard, to even the lower-class Lainie, are thrust into a conflict propelled by forces that they are unable to reconcile, left to the mercy of where their seemingly pre-ordained fate will lead them. In effect, the show “imprisons” its characters by robbing them of their sense of agency. And thus, the form of revolution is born – each will take their destiny by their own hands.
“Revolution” – what a word! It tends to be the stuff of textbooks in history class, of looking at history through a mirror darkly and unable to fully grasp the larger picture since we were not there ourselves. But we would be wise to remember that revolutions are not made up purely some grand-sweeping events that happened in a vacuum; they are the stuff of people. More specifically, they are the stuff of a people who have embodied or had to live with an angst laid by problems or situations that were perhaps far beyond their control. A confluence of anger, sadness, and standing at the precipice of uncertain tomorrows all intermingle in intense and perhaps violent ways, both individually and societally. MagiRevo is a series that spearheads both approaches, with each of the characters’ own stories and personal arcs serving both their personalized journeys and complementing the political story hanging over their kingdom.
These are characters that actually talk to one another as human beings rather than as placeholders, people with their own apprehensions, fears, ways of interpreting the situation, and actively communicating to try and parse out the best option available. Especially as Euphyllia now must come to terms with her own lack of station and becoming Anisphia’s assistant, she’s a girl who has effectively lost her compass. When placed against the highly-independent Anisphia, Euphyllia’s waif-like way of being seems like a dismal balance in which she threatens to be overshadowed. But it is through her own contemplation (and gentle guidance, not force) that ultimately allows her to steer her own ship. She charts a course at Anisphia’s side, and through her own acumen and guile, demonstrates her own sensitivities and prowesses, both mental and magical, that Anisphia simply doesn’t possess.
MagiRevo does not go for comedy in moments where it is not appropriate. The soundtrack often uses soft keyboards, strings, and percussion to create an airiness that feels soothing. It uses the imagery of love and relationships to show a fundamental, tender caring between these two characters rather than bringing them together through artificially-generated collision, aloofness, or antagonism that has no true underlying subtext. Yes, it is yuri coded (and about that...), no doubt. However, as constructed, I brought myself to believe that these two not only care about one another in the early phases of their dynamic, but could reasonably fall in love and form a romance.
And then there’s Anisphia herself. I should stress that MagiRevo is an isekai (which, depending on who you ask, is just as much of a four-letter word in the anime landscape as the term “CGI”), but it doesn’t play itself like one, opting instead to approach itself as a straight fantasy. When the series begins, Anisphia is already reborn into the new world and its city of Atland, so we get very little overt information as to what her life back in the “real world” (for lack of a better term) was like. The impact is crucial – because the entirety of the story takes place within this new world, it makes Anisphia feel less like an interloper and more like a natural person who was born here. We do not “know” any other version of Anisphia aside from the one who resides in Atland, cutting out needless fat or pathos that doesn’t provide substantial sustenance. She is not “some girl from the real world” – she is Princess Anisphia of Atland. Her personality and her other magicological idiosyncrasies are enough to present her as an outcast without the added baggage of wondering about the life or people that she left behind.
And because she is framed as being entirely within this world, it means that the political situation more-actively pertains to her in a fashion that reads as believable. Though I referred to her as an outcast before, it would perhaps be more accurate to call her an “aberration.” In a kingdom where magic determines one’s status and class, it is a cruel, cosmic joke that the crown princess was born with no magical ability. To make the most of her curious mind and the royal family’s resources, she takes part in the forbidden art of magicology (or thaumatology, depending on which translation you’re watching), fashioning “tools” that allow her to make magic her own way. In her study of magicite, and with assistance from her maid Ilia and friend Tilty, she discovers that magic can be harnessed and honed into many new forms, some practical and others fantastical. Just as Euphyllia’s fate was burdened with the death of her engagement and social status at Algard’s hands, Anisphia’s existence, magicological pursuits, and impulsive charges into danger—for research or otherwise—are themselves a revolutionary stance against the kingdom’s entire ideology. It earns her the facepalm-induced frustrations of her family and the complete ire of the traditional nobility.
I mentioned before that the characters’ personal revolutions act as partnered complements to the grander overarching kingdom story, and that’s because these are characters whose decisions actively change the lives of both themselves, their loved ones, and by extension, the kingdom that they all call their home. As the story progresses onward and Atland’s political state is gradually unearthed, there’s the genuine question both of what is happening and whether what is present is salvageable. MagiRevo is not content to just let its political squabbles be solved so quickly; as the future reveals itself, Algard’s actions are, much like Euphyllia’s coming to terms with her circumstances and Anisphia revolting against her very existence, his own proposed revolution to what he himself sees as a problem. He, for reasons veiled in mystery until the moment of reckoning, charges into his own metaphorical fray.
MagiRevo makes a rather daring statement by doing so – the characters themselves are not at fault for why things happened to them the way they did for so long. Their apprehensions are genuine, and their worried hearts are a byproduct of all that was structurally in place. Yet by making this claim, the series is taking a massive gamble; political stories do not get credit for simply revealing a problem and then disregarding it one minute later. Such a thing does a disservice to the Pandora’s Box that it opened. This series even within its first season, however, seems willing to charge headfirst into that dark vortex and pick apart the nuances that make its world revolve. But whatever fate awaits them (and I sincerely hope it follows through with a season two), Anisphia, Euphyllia, and all those they care about will tackle the impossible tomorrow and make their own way. Working against all the impossible odds is what Anisphia has always done, and what Euphyllia learned she must do.
“The impossible is something you make possible!” ~Anisphia
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