After the First: Urahara

Synopsis

This is the tale of three high school girls that have a shop of their own focused on fashion and cute items. But this is no tale of cute things and fashion as one day the girl’s town ends up being invaded by aliens who seek to take away earth’s different cultures and famous monuments. When’s the girls’ district culture gets threatened, they make the decision to stand up and fight and even get the ability to do so from an artefact given to them by a pair of escapees of the aliens.

First Impression

The anime has pretty much established itself as one of the edgier styled anime for the season given its general art style and theme. From the tones to the general design of the settings and characters, there are multiple points which make the episode look like something out of a cute and preppy themed magazine. This is from this writer’s knowledge, the first of its style and it makes itself work highly well.

As for the plot, the first half of the episode does well in establishing the setting and the characters but the moment that the aliens begin to invade the earth, the quality of the episode seems to go down, especially in terms of the characters. Not only do they turn out rather repetitive but the flow of the story turned far too convenient for them with how they receive their magical abilities. Simply put, the characters turned out ot be a rather disappointing point for the episode.

General Impression

For a series that holds a rather feminine design to it, the way that it managed to tackle the themes of creativity, originality, friendship and culture s more than commendable. In the beginning of the series, that is until episode 4, the plot seems a little all over the place. Even after episode 4 the plot is rather slow paced and filled with a fair amount of cliches but for the most part it has a pretty good build up for itself.

Within the whole monster a week trope of the series, there is a solid character exploration for the girls, though Mari’s story could have turned out better given how shallow it ended up being. When reaching the near end half of the series, the way that the plot turned as dark as it is turned out as quite the surprise. And given how the way that the characters reacted completely different from expected is a plus point for the series.

Then there is Misa and her talking fried shrimp companion. In the beginning they turned out as simple convenient characters that help out the main thrio then progressed into cute side characters for the series. Still, even before the reveal of who they really are, the series has made it pretty obvious that the two were more than they seemed. The same can be pretty much said for Sayumin, especially when the troubles of the characters began to rise.

Outside of the slow plot pacing and predictable side characters, the art still held strong and the theme songs continue to be cute and catchy. And while the whole monster a week thing remains a trope, the creativity over the monsters and their abilities as well as the abilities of the characters worked well for the series.

Conclusion

The series held a rather weak beginning to it but as the series progressed you can see that while the plot was slow paced, it held a rather decent plot build up and character development though for the most part it was rather predictable. True it had many usual tropes related to the magical girls concept but the way that the plot turned around in a way that was not completely predictable presents a positive for the series. So, while the series may not be for everyone, it’s not so completely cliche or predictable as it made itself out to be in the beginning.

Rating: 7.5/10