Summer 2022 First Impressions – Smile of the Arsnotoria

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 12

Source: Game

Episode Summary: At Ashram Magic Academy, the “Pentragrams” are a group of five girls who, in addition to their magical studies, also cultivate manners and a sense of grace. After school they spend time having tea in their club room until they’re forced to go off and tend to their other student duties.

Arsnotoria is the quietest of the bunch – easily startled, but with a keen sense of smell that seems perfectly tuned to sniff out the delicious fresh-baked scones just outside the school store. Her magical talents are useful for things like warming up milk; unfortunately she doesn’t have the physical prowess to open the jam jar to top the scone she’s having with her tea. These are all very lighthearted troubles, but somewhere outside the school a truly dramatic conflict is taking place.

Impressions: Note: this episode pulls a big bait-and-switch in its closing minutes, so if you’d rather experience the surprise for yourself, you should check out the episode first prior to reading this.

Does anyone reading remember the first episode of School-Live? If not and you think you might watch it at some point, maybe skip this paragraph of the review. The first episode of that series is one of the most tedious episodes of anime I’ve watched. It’s essentially about the characters chasing their dog around the school while nothing actually happens. It’s only at the end of the episode, when you realize that the girls are actually living in some sort of zombie hellscape, that some of the odd but otherwise forgettable moments make sense as clues pointing toward the truth of the situation (as well as other facts that are revealed later on).

I’m not saying that Smile of the Arsnotoria is actually as good as School-Live, but this first episode seems to share at least a little of its energy. The majority of its run-time is taken up by absolutely tedious non-happenings that, in retrospect, seem intentionally boring. I know that there are “cute girls doing cute things” series in which the way one eats one’s snacks is a major point of discussion, but much of what the characters are talking about here is inconsequential to the point of parody. On the other hand, there are moments in this episode that, after watching the last minute or so, definitely feel a little off. The first scene has two of the characters “keeping watch” outside a tower. There’s a scene of them walking through a hallway, where they encounter another individual whose body is blurry and seems out-of-sync with reality. There are references to a separation between their school and the world “down below.” They’re things that go by in a flash and might have perfectly mundane explanations, but they certainly do make one wonder.

The episode ends with a completely different set of (male) characters murdering what appear to be civilians in the street as flames engulf their surroundings. Whatever the connection is between this brutality and what the girls are involved in I can only speculate, but the OP animation seems to suggest a story that’s somewhat more action-oriented than we’ve received during the bulk of this episode. And that’s really the problem with these kinds of fake-outs – the “reveal” needs to be so absolutely compelling as to override the previous 7/8ths of the episode, and to do so in a way that’s irrefutable. Yet I’m not sure that this episode manages to pull this off.

Pros: The animation throughout the episode is very well-done. There are a few moments that utilize fully-animated backgrounds to pull away or pull toward characters, which is something you don’t see very often in anime. The visual aesthetic around the school is somewhat sparse, but the room that the Pentagrams use for their meetings gives off a coziness that feels inviting. Likewise, the dramatic final moments are depicted well.

Cons: Aside from the dubious success of the fake-out, my other major issue here is the degree to which some of the characters take on an uguu affect. I get that there’s a certain expectation of series involving sets of cute girls, but sometimes they get so cutesy that I just grit my teeth. Again, it definitely helps to emphasize the separation between most of what we get and the violence that closes off the episode, but it may just be too much.

Content Warnings: Violence/gore, including sword-related injuries and blood (confined to the last couple of minutes).

Would I Watch More? – I’m not exactly sure. While I definitely have some questions regarding what the tone and cadence of the series might be like going forward, I also feel just the tiniest bit swindled and it’s put me off a little bit. These types of storytelling shenanigans are definitely risky, and sometimes it’s a risk that doesn’t necessarily pay off.