Date Chizuko has been moved around a lot in her young life. When he finds herself living with her grandfather in his typical little town, Chizuko is convinced she won’t find anything interesting here…until she sees a magical girl, Berry Blossom, defeat a bad guy. Completely besotted by Berry Blossom and her skills, Chizuko thinks that maybe there’s a reason to stay here, after all, in Acro Trip, streaming on Crunchyroll.
The bad guy, Chrome of the Fossa Magna (not quite as hilarious as Kekko Kamen’s foe, Toenail of Satan, but another amusing use of anatomy) happens to live with Chizuko’s grandpa too. And so, Chrome uses his one real skill – manipulative sales – to convince Chizuko to sign on with him, so she can fight Berry Blossom herself! Yeah, this is like less skeezy Gushing Over Magical Girls…which is fine with me. I don’t need skeezy in my stupid.
The animation is very shoujo magical girl. Chrome, whose hair seems ripped from the page of Yu-Gi-Oh, is a bad guy full of pathos and incompetence. The story isn’t about to take itself seriously…except for Chizuko’s obsession with Berry Blossom, which is overplayed with an obsessive seriousness that kills the otherwise goofy vibe for me. When Berry Blossom is recovering from an injury at her house, Chizuko manages to be creepy, weird and kinda of dumb all at the same time. And, yes, I did say “at her house” because despite the fact that this is a sizable town, every one seems to end up at Chizuko’s grandpa’s house somehow. I’m not complaining, I’m just saying.
Anyway, “creepy obsession portrayed to look kind of cute and harmless” is not my favorite iteration of Yuri, but I won’t pretend it doesn’t fall under the big Umbrella o’Yuri for many.
Magical girls are all the rage this season as Bands were last. Get those boots and gloves on, put the ribbons in your hair and get ready to use magic, because we got a LOT of magical girls to talk about. And what the heck, why not?
Ratings:
Art – 5 Nothing amazing, but fine
Story – 6 Not sure if it’s going to something eventually or nothing forever. Either way is fine.
Characters – Silly and lazily developed
Service – 5 Chizuko’s crush is definitely on the servicey side
Yuri – 3 See above
Overall – 6, I guess.
A friend said that after one episode it was their favorite series of the season and I’m going to agree to disagree, but you might as well give it a watch.
