Studio: J.C. Staff
Publisher: Sentai Filmworks
Distributor: Section23
Release Date: December 19th, 2017
Had enough of this average, everyday world? No more anime about school kids going to school and dealing with school stuff. No, we need something more magical, but not about magical girls killing each other or being the catalysts for wars. How about we drop one of those normal school kids into a magical world and call it a day? Good? Good. Sentai Filmworks is already ahead of us with the Familiar of Zero Complete Collection. Filled with magic and made for the masochist inside, this anime will have you laughing and intrigued for a good bit. Many thanks to Section23 for the review unit.
Walking in the city one day, Saito Hiraga sees something that no one else in his world can see. Curious, he touches the portal-like essence. Elsewhere in the multiverse but at the same time, magic user Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière (boy is that a long name) is in the process of summoning a Familiar, a creature that is a life-long companion to mages in her world. She casts her spell and an explosion occurs. From out of the explosion pops out Saito, unable to understand a thing in this strange new world. Why was he summoned? Why didn’t Louise get a creature from her own world? And why is she cracking that whip? Find out this and more by watching the series. I’m not telling you.
The Familiar of Zero is a pretty good series. It was captivating story-wise and kept my attention day after day. While it could be a bit bland at certain points in the story, once it got going, I couldn’t get my mind off it. (Especially in the later seasons.) The OPs and EDs were interesting, as well. However, compared to some of the other series I have watched lately, the action in this show is a bit pale. I feel that I would’ve enjoyed this series a lot more had I not recently watched CLANNAD and When They Cry earlier this month and also watching To Love Ru (review soon) at the same time.
Overall, I feel that The Familiar of Zero is a good series. While it didn’t live up to other series that I have watched this month, it was a nice story. My only real gripe with The Familiar of Zero complete collection is that it feels a bit underwhelming price-wise since the dub is only there for one season. Log Horizon and CLANNAD were high priced and still contained a dub for all the episodes. That was one of the reasons why the show didn’t feel as exciting for me: I had to switch languages in the middle of watching. I don’t know the reasoning for that, but it was a little jarring to be forced to listen to the rest of the discs in Japanese.
For the price of $129.98 USD (currently $84.99 on the Sentai Filmworks store), I would get the series for full price only if you want to give Sentai as much money for more dubs and support their corner of the English anime industry more. Otherwise, if you don’t really care about that, I’d suggest waiting for a sale. Shelling out 80+ bucks for one-fourth of a dub isn’t my style, but I do like the story and music of the series. I wouldn’t mind paying the same for a AAA game title. Y’know, the pretty standard $60 USD you see so often on platforms like PlayStation and STEAM for games with buggy mechanics and horrible controls. Anyway, that’s enough griping. The anime itself is gud. Go get. Or wait. Your choice.
Lolinia gives The Familiar of Zero a Drastik Moé Measure of 6.7 out of 10.0 (67).
