Jörmungandr - the world serpent, Jormungand - a Black Lagoon knock-off? Not quite. The parallels seem all too blatant from the first episode: a female lead, explosions and a fastidious attention to detail when it comes to guns. Black Lagoon though started utterly bonkers and was content to stay there, all the while mediating on the choices its characters make and the nature of its underworld setting. Jormungand tries to be rooted in reality with less boat-jumping and samurai versus shooter nonsense but instead laces every action bubble with endless monologues, rife with inappropriately timed observations and introspections.
That aside, it's closer in spirit to Gunslinger Girl with its insistence on eschewing an overarching story for a mostly episodic and character driven plot. The comparison is also helped along by the child soldier protagonist who is evidently a graduate of the Rei Ayanami school of emotionless. Koko, the leading lady and human descendant of a fennec, is pitched as a shrewd businesswoman but a benevolent leader which wouldn't seem so incongruous were she not a prolific arms dealer.
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Rental Magica is another series which attempts to be the right-side of the "magic + school children =" equation. Whether the glut of recent shows with this theme is some kind of fallout from the Harry Potter fangasm or perhaps just some kind of coincidence is a question for the future; what is clear is that Rental Magica is a step ahead of its peers by not only being meticulously researched but, more importantly, remarkably engaging and fun.
Rental Magica works so well because it manages to blend a number of historical and mythological concepts into a coherent whole
Beginning with a frantic and kinetic opening sequence on a strangely deserted highway, the series follows a tried-and-tested template of a chaotic first episode, followed by a sedate second and finally settling into a more balanced third. The first is replete with foreshadowing and scattered dialogue one expects from an introduction; it neatly sections out what are no doubt going to be the meat of the series in the form of monster quelling, client interaction and light-hearted school jocularity. None of these individual aspects merit undue focus and the test of the series will be in how well it balances the different facets. After such a riotous initiation, the series obliquely steps back in time in order to flesh out the cycloptic protagonist and his apparent memory loss and relation to the derisive witch of the show. It's an odd move, especially as it at first seems to serve only to reintroduce the tiresome "rich" wench whose saving grace is her UK origin. The third episode continues to explore the enigmatic characters in the central "Astral" team, a format likely to be repeated until a more coherent antagonist can be conjured up.
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