The Water Magician Makes My Brain Itch - A review

Article at a glance:
The Water Magician is the definition of a generic isekai—bland world, bland characters, and every cliché in the book.
Despite all that, I somehow still had fun with it, which makes me question my own taste.
This review isn’t about praising the anime, it’s me venting my frustration at enjoying something I fundamentally despise.

This is probably the first time I am THIS torn on an anime. The critical side of my brain hates every moment of it, but the stupid weeb side still finds enjoyment in it. I have watched every episode of this anime so far, and yet I STILL can’t tell you what I liked about it. I can drill holes in every single aspect of The Water Magician and yet here I am admitting I had fun with it at the very beginning of its review. Y’all don’t understand this frustration of mine, of not being able to put into words why I enjoyed something that I fundamentally despise.

But yeah, welcome back to another review, today, we are talking about The Water Magician. Spoilers? Who cares about that? It is a generic isekai; there’s literally nothing to spoil here. With that said, let’s get started.

Plot

The plot is as generic as an isekai plot can get. The protagonist, Ryo, is reincarnated into another world, in the middle of a forest. He teaches himself to use magic and, through sheer circumstance, ends up becoming extremely powerful. Oh wow, I wonder what elemental magic he can use? Wait, what was the title of this anime again?

Yeah, that’s about it, really. Ryo is crazy powerful, and the story follows him as he makes friends and does his best to learn about the world. There are other typical isekai things like a Dungeon with a floor system, an Adventurer Guild that follows a rank system, etc. Basically, every isekai cliche you can think of is present here. The world is bland, and the story itself is bland. So many of the important plot points are caused by such utter contrivance that it makes my brain melt.

And by the way, whenever something crazy happens, why does no one inform Ryo?? At least the 2nd time, he showed up. But the first time? He was at the library spending time with his elf waifu! Like bro, he is the strongest among you! At least try to get his help!

Characters

Ryo is a generic good guy protagonist. He gets no character development throughout the series, and his relationships with other characters are as generic as you can get. The story never gives you a reason to root for him other than him just being a nice person with common decency who is also strong af. That’s it. Oh yeah, and the same goes for the side characters. None of them have arcs; they just exist. They exist to exposition dump on Ryo and that’s about it.

Animations and Soundtracks

You thought I’d offer the anime some praise here? NOPE. The animations and art style are bland and uninspired. Nothing in this show stands out as “oh this is cool”, nothing about the presentation will ever WOW you. It is boring, and even the fights are not good. I could simply copy and paste all those points and apply them to the soundtracks as well. Even the opening and ending themes are not good or memorable.

That is all for now

Here are my final review scores for The Water Magician:

Plot – 2/10
Characters – 3/10
Animations – 5/10
Soundtracks – 5/10
Enjoyment – 7/10
Overall – 4.4/10

I hate myself for finding any enjoyment in this anime. I could’ve ripped it apart even further. There isn’t a single redeeming quality in this show other than some nice character interactions. Everything about The Water Magician is so bland and generic that I did not even want to write this review, but I needed an outlet for my frustration, damn it. So yeah, I will take my leave here. See ya!

Oh yeah, also, check out my review for the Infinity Castle Arc Movie 1 here!