But this is The Land of Obscusion, so I can't take the easy way out & cover something like Queen's Blade, Qwaser of Stigmata, the Queen Emeraldas OVAs, or even Qualidea Code. No, this is "Final Jeopardy", so I'm going to "Press My Luck" on a game of "Twenty-One" (hopefully it's not rigged), and that IS my final answer!
While never managing to succeed in North America, Japan really enjoys its quiz video games, especially in the arcades; SNK had a bunch on the Neo Geo, for example, while Capcom has made a few, as well. Wanting a piece of that pie, Konami debuted Quiz Magic Academy in Japanese arcades on July 24, 2003, with its main appeal being that the cabinets could be connected online via Konami's e-AMUSEMENT service, allowing up to 16 players to compete against each other at once, though this was reduced to 9 starting in 2016; that's still a wild amount of players for a quiz game, though. Being online also allows Konami to run tournaments, update cabinets, correct mistakes in questions, & even add new questions to keep things fresh; using a touch interface also allowed for more variety in the types of questions asked, instead of just multiple choice. Every year a new entry debuts, and the previous one goes offline, with the latest being Kibou no Koku/Time of Shining Hope this past June. With that kind of success, it's no surprise that the series eventually made its way to things like old mobile phones, modern smartphones, & even two entries on the Nintendo DS. Not just that, but QMA has also seen adaptations to webcomics, books, and (finally) the focus of this review: Anime.
On September 12, 2008, to help promote the release of Quiz Magic Academy DS that same day, a half-hour OVA titled Quiz Magic Academy - The Original Animation came out on DVD. Two years later, on February 11, 2010, another half-hour OVA titled Quiz Magic Academy - The Original Animation 2 saw release to promote Quiz Magic Academy DS: Futatsu no Jikuu Ishi/The Two Spacetime Stones that same day. Since the two OVAs share the same cast & staff I'll just review them together as a single entity, so let's see what happens when an online-connected arcade quiz game gets turned into anime.
Magic Academy is a school on a giant floating island where youngsters gather so that they can learn to become sages, top-tier magic users. Unfortunately for newcomer teacher Prof. Amelia, her class is the lowest-ranking one of all, partially because two students (Ruquia & Leon) are so utterly resistant to learning that they literally bring everyone else's decent-to-great grades down, but also because her entire class has a penchant for not following the rules. After the Interclass Group Magic Battle results in Amelia's class destroying the gravity generator that made the island float, Magic Academy crashes into a dense forest... Landing exactly on a marker that sealed away all of the demonic forces held within. Now while the teachers are keeping the demons from making their way into the school, Amelia's class take it upon themselves to find the last missing piece of the generator that will allow them to escape back to the skies & reseal the demons.
Though released two years apart from each other, both halves of Quiz Magic Academy - The Original Animation actually tell a single, cohesive story, which is definitely appreciated. The first OVA is all about the Interclass Group Magic Battle, and how Ruquia & Leon's classmates try their hardest to help them study & become better magic users (resulting in literally the only time any actual quiz-style questions are asked across both OVAs!), followed by the class accidentally summoning a bunch of tentacles during their exhibition, which eventually results in the floating island's crash landing on top of the demonic seal. The second OVA, in turn, is all about Amelia's class taking it upon themselves to enter the forest & find the last missing piece, as they truly only mean well & want to show that they can be (at the very least) competent people. I'll be upfront right now & say that these OVAs are absolute & total fluff, and while that does diminish some things about it, the fact that the people behind this anime went & told an actual story, one that even makes sense from start to finish, definitely puts it above most other video game-based short anime of this kind; yes, one can argue that this isn't exactly high praise, but it's still praise, nonetheless.
As for the cast, Quiz Magic Academy has a ton of them, almost all of which from Amelia's class alone, so I'll just focus on the ones who get the most focus & screen time. In terms of your "main character", it's easily Ruquia, who wishes she was naturally gifted & talented but is really just mostly incompetent, though extremely well-intentioned. Her "main character" counterpart is Leon, who is equally incompetent but also extremely hot-blooded & competitive, often for no reason whatsoever. Then there's Shalon, the smartest girl in the class (complete with stereotypical "ojou-sama laugh"), though she's not exactly mean spirited in any way, instead being very willing to help out Ruquia & the others when in need; her male counterpart (sort of) is Serious, the straightforward & no-nonsense straight-man to Leon. Beyond them, the next relevant characters would be the teachers, all powerful magic users with mostly simple characteristics, like Headmaster Romanov being the serious-minded one or Prof. Maron being the diminutive "Magical Girl Teacher" who also solves crimes (though we never actually see her solve one), though Amelia & her easily (& understandable) emotional outbursts regarding her students is the main one. However, the two best characters of all are easily Thanders & Prof. Garuda. Thanders is a new transfer student who's easily mistaken for a teacher, since he looks like a middle-aged army general, and in place of standard magical items like a broom to ride on, he instead rides a giant missile & fights with things like a Gatling gun; Thanders is absurd & I love him. Meanwhile, Garuda is literally what his name is, and is always shown to be both considerate & forgiving of the students' penchant for doing things their own way, as well as an absolute badass magic user who is pretty much unstoppable.
However, the main problem comes with the second OVA, which introduces a bunch of new transfer students for Amelia's class & gives little reason to really care for them. Sure, Yuri is essentially a female version of Leon (resulting in the two being shown to be competitive), and Taiga is a carefree sort of guy, but they're the only two to be given any real sort of proper "introduction". For example, there's Yuu, a young boy who is constantly followed around by the ghost of an older girl, but it isn't until the climax that we're told that said ghost is actually his sister Satsuki, and I don't even think either of their names are ever spoken, so I had to look up the credits just to properly name them; and then there's the "China girl"-esque Yanyan, who contributes next to nothing & whose name is also never spoken. While I understand why these new characters were introduced (i.e. they were likely introduced in the game this second OVA was technically promoting), they are given little to work with, especially when there are already other classmates who barely had anything to work with in the first OVA, and could have benefited from getting more scenes in the second.
Again, though, one shouldn't go into these OVAs expecting strong characterization, but rather should expect nothing much more than a bunch of silliness & comedy, connected together by the overall plot stringing everything along. In fact, each OVA intersperses a trio of little comedic interstitials in between sections of the main plot, showcasing things like Shalon's secret love of childish things, Yuri's inability to lose weight because she ruins all her gains with celebratory eating, or Garuda ordering a ton of food for lunch... which includes eggs, naturally freaking out Leon, Serious, & company. Similar to how the two OVAs link together to tell one overall plot, though, Quiz Magic Academy isn't simply a collection of gags, non sequiturs, wild imagery, & fanservice loosely connected to tell a vague story with no substance. Yes, there are gags that are there just for the hell of it (Yuri riding a household flat head broom, instead of the standard witch's broom), moments that provide no advancement to the story at all (any of the interstitials), visuals for no reason other than to be weird (just look above this paragraph), & shots that have no purpose other than to show someone's boobs bouncing (though this really only applies to the first OVA, surprisingly enough). However, none of this detracts from the fact that there is an actual story to be told, one which gives you a good feel as to who these characters are (the ones that actually get some real moments, at least), showing that their camaraderie feels honest & legit, and that they truly do only mean the best with their actions. I have no problem calling something out for being absolute fluff, but these OVAs were at least given some sort of extra flavor to them.
As mentioned at the beginning, these OVAs share the same exact staff & cast, and both were animated by AIC PLUS+, with some CG work done by Sanzigen Animation Studio, so that makes covering that aspect easy. This was all directed by Keitaro Motonaga, a man with an interesting dichotomy of a resumé, as he's run the gamut from Ah My Buddha to Conception to Date-A-Live to GetBackers to Jormungand to Katanagatari to even School Days! I bring this up mainly because, oddly enough, these OVAs actually seem to showcase Motonaga's knack for all of those various kinds of shows, because the gags are well executed, the action is snappy & well animated, and even the fanservice is remarkably reserved, with most of it being shown covered by shirts & the like. The writing by the pair of common Motonaga compatriot Makoto Uezu (OVA1; Assassination Classroom, Yuki Yuna is a Hero) & Satoko Sekine (OVA2; Mysteria Friends) is likewise straight to the point & never lingering too long on a scene, keeping things from dragging; again, the lack of any real moments for some characters to shine is more a video game adaptation problem, in general. Meanwhile, the character designs by Kumi Horii (Akane Iro ni Somaru Saka, Zone of the Enders: Dolores, i) are varied well enough to make it hard to confuse one character for another, a must for a cast as large as this, while also being extremely emotive, allowing for both comedic & (the rare) dramatic moment to hit well. As for the music by Tomoki Hasegawa (Sayonara Zetsubou-sensei, NANA), it's perfectly fitting for each OVA as you watch them, but none of the songs will exactly stick in your head; I also have no idea if any of the music from the games are included in any way. Sadly, the same can be said for the individual OPs & EDs each OVA have, sung by individual members of the cast, as while they aren't anything terrible, they leave no real lasting impression afterwards.
However, the same cannot be said for the voice cast, which is filled with a good amount of well known seiyuu. Easily my personal favorites are Nobuyuki Hiyama & Norio Wakamoto, who voice Leon & Garuda, respecitvely. Hiyama essentially plays the very hot-blooded stereotype he became legendary for, and seems to have a ball with it, just going full-bore at every moment. Meanwhile, Wakamoto doesn't really do anything else than be himself, so he plays up his iconic deep voiced drawl, with the occasional passionate scream whenever Garuda has to be serious & fight back; there's no doubt that Wakamoto knows that he's partially a meme at this point, and just has fun with it. Meanwhile, Houko Kawashima & Masami Asano voiced Ruquia & Shalon, respectively, and similarly play well to their character types, though it is neat to see Asano play someone who'd normally be snooty & snobbish as one with a more caring personality. To finish up the most notable performances, we have Tetsu Inada as Thanders, who's pitch-perfect for the character, while the late Daisuke Gouri essentially played Romanov as if he was Heihachi Edajima from Sakigake!! Otokojuku, only this time he says more than just his name normally; Romanov is also one of Gouri's final performances, as he passed away about a month prior to the second OVA's release. As for the rest of the cast, we have Takehito Koyasu (Serious), Masaya Onosaka (Taiga), Chiaki Takahashi (Amelia), Ryou Hirohashi (Yuri), & Rina Satou (Yuu & Satsuki), among some others.
As I've stated a couple of times before, Quiz Magic Academy - The Original Animation 1 & 2 are both pure fluff, but it's not like that's exactly a bad thing. Sometimes, you're just in the mood for something light, silly & short, and these two OVAs fulfill that goal perfectly. In fact, I'm reminded of Kinniku Banzuke: Kongou-kun no Daibouken!, an OVA I literally called a "spoonful of sugar" back in 2012, because that was similar to Quiz Magic Academy in how it felt to watch it. That being said, I will commend these two OVAs for aspiring to be just a little bit more than mere fluff by focusing more on telling an actual long-form storyline across both OVAs, one that does develop (some of) the cast in fun ways, while still knowing to just have fun with itself. Sure, there's almost no actual quizzing to be found for something with the word "quiz" in the title, but I'll take that over the staff having to find ways to shoehorn in quizzes just to keep it more accurate to the actual arcade games. Is this something I'd heartily recommend people to hunt down & watch ASAP? No, not really, but if you're curious & want to give it a watch then I can at least say that you might actually wind up having a good time with it.
And with this review having come to an end, the blog's Master List now has at least one proper anime review for every letter in the English alphabet! How's THAT for trivia?!
Anime © 2011 Konami Digital Entertainment
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