The Familiar of Zero

Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière is a young female mage studying in one of the most prestigious magic high school in the continent. Despite being a mage and having the capability to use magic, she can't seem to cast any kind of spells. For when she does, an explosion happens. So for her inability to use the 4 basic kind of elemental magic, she is titled "Zero" and ridiculed by her classmates. Now all first year students in the school are required to summon a familiar through a summoning ritual. When others summoned variety of magical beasts, Louise summoned Saito, a Japanese boy from a parallel world. Louise unwillingly enters a familial contract with Saito. Saito for better or for wore becomes Louise’s familiar.

Now at a glimpse this series seems like your typical isekai-harem-ecchi setting. Louise seems like your typical tsundere. And Saito seems like your run of the mill isekai protagonist. So, is it a generic harem ecchi anime? For the most part, yes. But is it actually good? Absolutely. I for one believe that just because a show is generic doesn’t mean that it can’t be good. As long as generic isn’t the only thing it is. Zero no Tsukaima actually has lots of interesting sides to it that you won’t find in your typical isekai anime. Now let’s start with our two protagonists. (Mild spoilers below)

Now I understand that there are a lot of people who are annoyed by how Louise acts and hates her character. I have seen a lot of people drop it for this reason. But there is a reason she acts the way she does. Now in the fantasy parallel world there exists a brutal class system. Those who can use magic are nobles, those who can't are peasants. The peasants live and serve under nobles. There is a clear distinction between these classes. It's world where one's power and social status are determined by their potency in magic. Now Louise is from a noble family, but she cannot use any kinds of spells properly and doesn't have an affinity for any of the standard four elements. Thus she is treated as a failure by his family, her classmates, her friends and even her teachers. So being treated like that by everyone, Louise develops a complex towards other mages. She treats everyone else harshly for how they treat her and gets easily annoyed of what they do. Basically she shuts herself up. That however was until before Saito came into her life.

At first Saito too thought Louise was just a selfish and spoiled rich kid because of how she treated Saito and others. But as the plot progresses, Saito discovers that Louise is an individual with many insecurities. The two of them start to open up and slowly but surely start to develop feelings for each other.

One of the interesting thing the show does with its male protagonist is thrusts him into a society he doesn’t understand. The continent of Halkeginia has different social and moral values than the one Saito is accustomed to. What is normal for everyone isn’t normal to Saito. So naturally he tries to rebel against this system. This results in some great character interactions between Saito and some of the other characters. The other thing it successfully portrays is how society criticizes and look down upon someone who doesn’t meet the norm. Even though they very much are beyond it.

The music is probably my favorite part of the series. The music composer for the series was Shinkichi Mitsumune who also composed the music for one of my favorite anime FLCL. It had some great Piano and Violin music that perfectly portrayed the emotional depth of certain moments. Although the OSTs sometimes felt repetitive but they never actually got tiring

Now this is a harem-ecchi anime. So of course it's gonna have fan service. But fan service is never the core focus of the narrative (well most of the time). The girls in Saito's harem are actually well developed. Not like the shallow one dimensional harems we see in isekai these days. It's a pretty decent coming of age romance anime. The power struggle in the continent was the main focus of the show along with some light political intrigue.

Now there is an inconsistency in the writing quality. Not all of the seasons are equal in quality. The second season is best of them all of them as it follows Louise and Saito's growing relationship as they have many unique interactions with people around them. It also had a great finale. Season 3 was the worst of them. It seemed like mindless fan service without any actual plot after they introduced a certain character in the harem. Also the finale of season 3 was something I am not fond of.

The story can be pretty annoying and over dramatic at times. The girls too. Characters seem to undergo meaningful revelations but they never seem to reflect it on their personality or character. Sometimes it felt like the story was lacking any kind of direction. Some of the more interesting characters never received enough screen time and was poorly developed. But I think that was an issue with the adaptation. Anyways it was really great watching two people gradually grow up and develop feelings for each other. It was a decent watch