Very excited to welcome you back today to Guest Review Wednesday on Okazu! Today we welcome a new reviewr to our family. Aurakin will be taking us through the recent anime Blue Reflection Ray, based on the game, streaming now on Funimation. As you know, I love having guest reviews. It broadens the amount and kind of content we can have, provides different perspectives, and gives us a chance to support writers. If you enjoy Guest reviews and want to help us keep paying our writers industry standard rates, consider becoming an Okazu Patreon.

Welcome Aurakin – the floor is yours!

*Note: Blue Reflection Ray is based on the game Blue Reflection. Since I haven’t played it, I won’t be making any comparisons.*

Ruka Hanari struggles to make friends. She is scarred by an event in her past, and finds herself unable to reach out to others. Along comes her new roommate, Hiori Hirahara, a girl who seems able to do everything Ruka can’t. Hiori is friendly and easy-going, and Ruka finds herself drawn in. One day, as they are casually walking down the street, they get caught in a distorted reality, and Hiori senses a girl in danger. They encounter two magical girls engaged in a sword fight, with an unconscious girl being held hostage. As the victim is about to fall off a roof-top, Hiori leaps forward to help – and suddenly transforms. 

My first impression of the art style and animation was that it looked terribly cheap. The occasional 3D effects clashed with the overly sparse 2D line art and flat colors used in the rest of the show. While the studio might have suffered from the pandemic in some areas, the art style itself seems to be more of a stylistic choice rather than a lack of resources, considering what the original character designer, Mel Kishida, has worked on previously (22/7, So-Ra-No-Wo-To). 

Being a big fan of both magical girls and yuri, I was really curious about Blue Reflection Ray. It took about six episodes for it to get interesting, but once it did, I found it both charming and entertaining. The anime shone brightly whenever it delved deeper into the characters’ backstories and the bonds they were forming with each other. Watching their everyday interactions was sweet and heartwarming. The surface plot and magical intrigues seemed to pale in comparison – that has all been done so many times before, and Blue Reflection Ray didn’t add anything new or interesting to the mix.

It’s also worth noting that this anime deals with mental illness, self-harm and abuse – sometimes poorly. And with that, I have to briefly mention Masochist Uta, the single worst thing about the show. Uta lives for pain – whether it’s her own or causing it to others – and being the intensely rapey villain she is, often groping her victims or making sexualized threats, Uta alone was enough for me to strongly consider dropping this show on several occasions. Her character does get explored more in depth later in the series, but never enough to redeem her presence.

So, how about the yuri content? Surprisingly, it did not come from our two main characters. Beyond some teasing comments and visual baiting (Such as when the camera slowly pans upwards as if they’re going to kiss), the relationship between Ruka and Hiori is never defined as anything other than friendship. That said, the show does focus a lot on emotional bonds, platonic or otherwise, and I could possibly see a reading of them as an aro-ace couple.

The second cour was a pleasant surprise. We get introduced to a new pair of characters, who are undeniably queer. Their relationship, and their complicated feelings towards each other, end up being given a lot more space than I had expected from this series, with some of the gayest word exchanges I’ve ever heard in anime. Besides these two, we have several other characters who can easily be read as queer, and who played a huge part in me liking this anime. Also worth a mention, is that this is one of those shows where men do not seem to exist – they are neither mentioned nor shown.

All in all? I don’t regret watching Blue Reflection Ray, and found it enjoyable despite its flaws. Would I recommend it to anyone else? Perhaps not. It is very tropey – it just happens to have tropes that I’m personally fond of.

Ratings:

Art – 4 Not a fan of the art style. The animation looks cheap, and the 3D parts do not blend in well.
Story – 5 Average, nothing new or special about it. 
Characters – 7 Tropey but likable. Sweet interactions.
Yuri – 6 Thanks to a certain pair in the later half. (I’d say 3 at most for the first cour)
Service – 3 Less than your standard anime. Uta is responsible for most of it.

Overall – 6 Average but enjoyable.

Erica here again: Thanks so much for taking a look at this series for us! I started to watch it, but found the style (which I suspect is in line with the game, but felt very basic to me, like a really good high school animation project,) and the predictability of the storyline a little too thin on the ground for me. I am glad to hear that it gets better in the second cour, and maybe will just skip a bit. ^_^