Welcome, one and all, to my continuing series of weekly reviews for the ecchi comedy anime, Magical Sempai, aka Tejina Senpai. The series found its feet again this week and provided a whole lot of entertainment. Let’s see what happened.
Four Balls Sempai
This one was very nearly a romantic scene. Sempai was doing the four balls trick, where you use the palming technique to increase or decrease the number of balls in your hand. Unfortunately, her hands are too small for the balls she has, which makes it difficult. When she told Assistant that she envied his bigger hands and pressed hers to his for comparison, he actually got a little embarrassed and told her that he liked hers just the way they are. The punchline was that her hands were so sweaty that he freaked out when their hands separated.
This was actually pretty nice. I always enjoy the trick explanations when we get them, and with Assistant not being so mean of late, I’m more on board with a potential romance. The opening line, ’You never get tired of playing with yourself, do you?” did make me smile too. Good start to the episode.
Ventriloquism Sempai
When Assistant arrived at the club room, he found Saki on the floor. She was upset because her brother Ma wasn’t talking to her. Why? Because he’d caught her going through his trash in a creepy manner. Because of course she would do that. She had a coping technique though: A ma ventriloquist puppet. After a brief demonstration and explanation, she got Assistant to try using it but didn’t approve of him making the doll say its favourite food is curry. She decided to mess with Assistant, which led to her teasing a kiss, then making him kiss a doll of Sempai. The scene ended with him looking up the doll’s skirt.
Saki’s love of her brother is all sorts of wrong. I did get a laugh out of the kiss tease into Sempai doll bit though. The looking up its skirt at the end fell flat for me, mind you. So, not an entirely bad scene, but less endearing than the opening one for me.
Tailing Sempai
This was a bumper scene to end the episode! So, basically, it all started with Mas asking Assistant if Sempai had a boyfriend. He’d seen her walking with a strange man the previous day and was curious.
The brunt of the episode saw Ma, Saki and Assistant tailing Sempai around town. Throughout the whole thing, Ma slipped into his alter ego: The Mentalist. Throwing out a mix of well-reasoned observation and over the top predictions, he eventually convinced Assistant that Sempai was indeed in some sort of relationship with the man.
Assistant was really upset by this, giving away his actual feelings about Sempai somewhat. Saki offered to console him at one point – because she’ about the same size as Sempai – and eventually, he flips out and confronts the man. As it turns out, he’s actually Sempai’s sister’s husband. He wanted to buy his wife a present and didn’t know what to get, so took Sempai out to help him choose. Everything is explained and he gives Sempai and Assistant a ride home. Assistant explained everything – other than his feelings, obviously – and Sempai laughed it all off.
This was a lot of fun. Ma’s Mentalist routine was really good, and seeing him do things like leap from the logical wedding ring = married to the guy must be a slasher/adult video producer was wonderful. I loved the whole fake out of them tailing Sempai and seeing that she was doing mundane things too. Meanwhile, Assistant’s reaction gives me some hope that maybe he’ll continue to get back on track. Saki’s offer to console him was unneeded, but to be honest, I was happy to see her focus on someone other than her brother.
I will say that taking your wife’s high school aged sister to help you pick lingerie for your wife is a bit dodgy though.
Overall
I really enjoyed that. None of the scenes featured much in the way of fan service, and the humour was mostly really enjoyable. I liked the romantic progression, and I thought the extra time for the final scene was used well. This may be one of my favourite episodes so far.
But what about yourselves? Did you enjoy this one? Let me know in the comments below.
Previous Episode Reviews
A good episode for those who ship assistant with sempai. I think the doll looks cute and would sell well at anime conventions.
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I absolutely agree. The doll looks like something you’d see at MCM Expo.
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