Mightyblue’s Corner

…A HEAH being a Horror to End All Horrors, of which today’s was seeing some stoned/drunk/nutzo black guy on the bus sagging so far down I could see his whiteys and the outline of his junk through them. Combine that with his weaving all over the place and him smelling like an open sewer made me want to claw my eyes out and rip my nose off at the same time.
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Now that I’ve utterly disgusted everyone, on the to the positive end of today’s topic!
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When it first came out, Rental Magica didn’t really win much of any attention, since beyond its premise of a modern day magical society renting out mages to solve various magical problems it was decidely formulaic. Mysterious young boy suddenly inheriting a position of power with strange and unique powers of his own, two tsundere girls (one foriegn, one Japanese) that are his main squeezes, an older man who acts as a mentor, a young girl mage prodigy who fills the little sister role, and a ghost girl who fills the big sister role (with some romantic feelings for the main to boot).
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If you’ve followed me so far, I’ve just described the setup for any number of action, drama, or romance series, so most people sort of wrote it off and went about their business. What makes RM (The show’s title refers to the association mages, who are the Rental Magica) more than a formulaic exercise in supernatural action is the surprisingly deep characterization and the way they mix up the chronological order of the episodes to greater effect. The places which the episodes fit into the show’s timeline are fairly obvious as you watch them, and the effect on character development would be lost if you reordered the episodes into chronological order (the mistake ADV made with Haruhi Season 1). There are loose threads of an underlying plot present, but as of yet they haven’t been fully explained or resolved.
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At any rate, the real reason I wanted to talk about Rental Magica is its excellent soundtrack, which is an outstanding effort from a pair of guys who haven’t really done much so far. It’s not on the par of Yoko Kanno, but the majority of the soundtrack is very atmospheric and easy to listen to in with it’s mixed orchestrations/electronica/ethnic instrumentation. Good reading/writing music, or for doing homework to. The soundtrack itself is called Uta Magica -Sound Magica-. Definitely worth a listen if you’re into that style of music.