I had the feeling about this anime after watching the premiere that it is going to be really good. The pacing of the anime look good from the start. It was right on point, not too slow, neither too rushed. It was perfectly balanced and I never got bored and actually managed to make me intrigued.
I have been anticipating for this anime the most. I wanted to watch the magical phantom thief story for a long time and I’m glad that this episode of Hatena Illusions seems worth watching. The animation was nice and vibrant. It almost feels like a real magic with ‘artifacts’.
The episode starts with Hoshisato family,that include some really entertaining members. The family consist of both weird and some sensible personalities. There is a lively Master Magician Mamoru, his wife and partner Maeve known as Phantom Thief and their daughters Yumemi who seems to be the hacker of the family and Kana (also known as Hatena) who idolizes her mother. There is also a butler, Jeeves and a maid, Ema. It looks like that they use these supposedly magical things called artifacts for their missions and performances.
Makato is the newest member of this team who is an old friend of Kana who had vowed to become a Magician to be her partner just like her parents. He looks like a sensitive, courageous and nice boy who is a fast learner. That’s all we have learned about him in this episode so far. But according a moment of his reaction to Kana’s remarks about his masculine getup, it seemed like he wanted to get rid of it.
The family is hilarious and made me laugh about the fact that they let Makato live with them but still have no room for him. Although it seems impossible for a mansion like that as it is really big. But, then it was explained by Ema that it some sort of trick. So it is not hard to believe that the rooms being used are the only safe ones. The rest of them are just messy store rooms. That reminds, Makato is quite good at cleaning. Althogh he mistakenly damaged an artifact (that kana explained to be of no use) Ema, took that as an opportunity to make him the butler-trainee. He has to go through all that to become a magician.
Among of all these intriguing bunch of characters Kana and Ema were my favorite. I really like Kana. She is very adorable. I was so shocked to see that all this time she thought Makato is a girl. My eyes filled with tears because of laughing when Kana did not accept that fact and cried in front of her father. In addition to that, Makoto always assumed Makato as a prince. But this explains why she acts so embarrassed when he is around. We all can understand her situation.
Ema is playing the part of cupid and so that seemed in the entire episode. She doesn’t leave any chance to make their relation strong ever since she came to know about his gender. I’m excited to see her getting a couple together
They haven’t provided much information regarding the story except for the fact that Kana is MIA. The last encounter between kana and her mother was when she gave her Findabair which is an artifact that looks like a scarf that kana is wearing all the time (same scarf that gave a puch to Makato when he accidentally entered the baths when Kana was there). So far it looks like that their main task is to get as many artifacts as they can. It was fascinating to watch Kana and Yumemi observing the wand of Makato which was damaged when he was trying to shush the dog. We learn that Maeve repaired the wand but looks like it’s an artifact that she has given to him. For now, Makato thinks that it is the wand that was collected from a toy shape when Mamoru’s performance ended. So probably Makato has some strong magical powers that he doesn’t know about.
It seems like a fascinating anime with magical story and I am interested to know more about it. So I’m looking forward to the next episode.
