Review for Familiar of Zero Series 1 Collection

Introduction

It’s very tempting to get excited about the Familiar of Zero releases coming from MVM. Over the last couple of expos, they’ve gone and announced that they have all four seasons of the show, and that they aim to release them over 2014-15 on DVD and on Blu-ray. Of course the sticking point is how these series are licensed and released in the UK, with UK companies usually relying on Australia for PAL conversion on DVD, and region localisation on Blu-ray, and of course it all begins with the US when it comes to dubbing the shows. And when you examine what the rest of the world is doing, it looks a very optimistic timetable from MVM for Familiar of Zero.


It is a pretty venerable show; this first season dates from 2006, and it was actually licensed and dubbed (via Bang Zoom) by Geneon Entertainment in the US (remember them?) It was one of their final titles, and wound up distributed for them by Funimation on DVD. When that license lapsed a year or so ago, Sentai Filmworks pounced, and re-released the show on DVD and on Blu-ray. And that is the state of play today, with the US, Australia, and now the UK having released the first season of Familiar of Zero, a.k.a. Zero no Tsukaima on DVD and Blu-ray. Hanabee Entertainment have gone no further with releases or announcements at this time. Sentai Filmworks on the other hand have announced the fourth season, Familiar of Zero F, but obviously haven’t released it. You can’t have the beginning and end of a story without the middle, and fans are still eagerly awaiting Sentai to announce seasons 2 and 3 of Familiar of Zero. Even with the fourth season, there’s been no mention of whether it will get another Bang Zoom dub for continuity, be recast in Texas, or whether it will be subtitle only, issues just as relevant for 2 and 3. So as you can see, while MVM have the license for all 4 seasons, the eventual release of season 2 onwards is reliant on a whole lot of decisions that have yet to be made in the US and Australia. So let’s not get ahead of ourselves and look into the future, let’s just appreciate the first season of Familiar of Zero on its own merits.


The Institute of Magic in the Kingdom of Tristein attracts the highest calibre of nobles to its classrooms. It’s a world where social standing is determined by one’s faculty with magic; mages are the nobility, everyone else is peasantry. And the proudest noble student of them all is Louise Francoise Le Blanc de La Valliere, despite her inability to successfully cast a magic spell. The record of destruction and explosions have earned her the nickname Louise the Zero, which makes the Familiar Summoning Ritual as she starts her second year of magic school all the more important. It’s when the students call forth the magical animal that will be their trusted companion for the rest of their lives. Some summon dragons, other summon salamanders, or owls, or moles... When it comes to Louise, she summons forth a human!


Saito Hiraga was just happily minding his own business in everyday Tokyo, when all of a sudden a portal opened up and sucked him in, depositing him in a fantasy magical world with two moons, where no one speaks his language, where people cast magic spells, and where he’s expected to be the servant of an obnoxious girl who’s a little too loose and free with the riding crop, and who wants him to wash her underwear! But it’s too late. He’s a familiar now, and bonded to Louise. She’s sealed the contract, and the runes marking him as hers have appeared on his hand. Only they’re not the usual familiar marking runes. And it turns out that this isn’t the first portal that’s opened between the two worlds. If Saito can figure out how this world works, maybe he can find a way home. As for Louise, she’s got her hands full training her new familiar. Everyone else got magical animals. All she got was an obnoxious peasant.


Thirteen episodes of Familiar of Zero are presented across two discs from MVM. MVM are also releasing the series on Blu-ray at the same time.

Disc 1
1. Zero Louise
2. Peasant Familiar
3. Feverish Temptation
4. A Maid’s Crisis
5. Tristein’s Princess
6. A Thief’s Identity
7. Louise’s Part Time Job

Disc 2
8. Tabitha’s Secret
9. Louise’s Change of Heart
10. A Princess’s Request
11. Louise’s Marriage
12. Zero Treasure
13. Louise the Void

Picture

Familiar of Zero gets a 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer on this disc, native PAL of course so there’s none of the ghosting and blended frames that I would have associated with an anime of its vintage. I suppose that’s one advantage of waiting eight years for its release. The image is clear and sharp throughout, pleasantly detailed, with simple but effective character designs, and a bright and bold colour scheme to its comic fantasy world design. The animation is fluid and effective, if not overtly extravagant. The show does what it needs to tell its story in an entertaining and engaging way. It also scales up to an HD display without any issue. I have to wonder, given its simpler aesthetic, just what the Blu-ray will add to the presentation beyond just a deeper colour depth and the original frame rate and audio pitch.

Sound

You have the choice between DD 2.0 English and Japanese, with optional translated (white) subtitles and a signs only track. I went with the Japanese audio and had no complaints, especially with a show that reunites Shakugan no Shana’s lead actors, Rie Kugimiya and Satoshi Hino as the main characters here. The two shows have absolutely nothing else in common, but there’s still a degree of familiarity in hearing Rie Kugimiya beating up on a hapless Satoshi Hino. The rest of the cast create similarly engaging characters, and the dialogue is clear throughout, the music quite likeable. I gave the English dub a try, and the Bang Zoom effort offers a different kind of polish to that which Funimation give, or the production line efforts that Sentai churn out, and for a comedy it’s pretty appealing. An odd choice in the first episode is to play Saito and Louise’s first meeting as straight. The Japanese version overlaid Saito’s dialogue at this point with an effect to indicate that he was speaking a different language to everyone else, and without it, the English version just sounds confused.

One problem is that the subtitles of the episode 8 preview are actually overlaid on the episode 7 end credits, instead of where they should be.

Extras

The discs present their content with static menus. Note that there are no English language credits for these episodes, and the Anime News Network Encyclopaedia will be your friend if you need to know who plays who.

The extra features are all on disc 2.

You get 6½ minutes of Extended Episode Previews, as well as 5 minutes of Japanese promos, all subtitled in English. You get the textless credits, and finally you get trailers for other Hanabee releases, Girls Und Panzer, Campione!, Accel World, and Medaka Box. All except the latter are also MVM titles.

Conclusion

I really enjoyed Familiar of Zero, or A Muggle Goes to Hogwarts. It entertained me, it made me laugh, and it also gave me something of a nostalgic feeling, reminding me of the kind of romantic comedy anime that we just don’t see as much these days. That isn’t surprising of course, as Familiar of Zero is eight years old, back when hapless teen males would have short tsundere girls fall for them, that affection showed by repeated beatings and the odd rare moment of tenderness. And when it comes to short firecracker females, there’s no one more qualified in Japanese voice acting than Rie Kugimiya, whether it’s Aria from Aria and the Scarlet Ammo, Shana from Shakugan no Shana, Nagi from Hayate the Combat Butler, Taiga from Toradora, Lotte in Astarotte’s Toy, or indeed Louise Francoise Le Blanc de La Valliere.


The tsundere, the ‘cold and hard on the outside and warm and tender deep down’ archetype has been waning in popularity in recent years, and you tend to see fewer such characters take centre stage. The fashion now seems to tend more towards the quiet, wry deadpan girls, the uber cute girls inducing moe, and of course those big breasted girls that tend to fall over revealing panties at the slightest provocation, as per harem fan service precepts. As such I’ve seen one or two less than favourable reviews for Familiar of Zero, offering a case of seen it all before, which is a shame as Familiar of Zero really is one of the good ones. It’s got the central relationship between Louise and her familiar Saito down pat, as the two are initially prickly towards each other, despite the kiss that seals the contract between master and familiar (I wonder if Guiche kissed his mole), but as the series progresses, an affection and trust develops between them, to be constantly tested by adversity, and in the case of Saito, other women.


For a human familiar is an unprecedented development, and when he displays certain abilities that seem beyond that of a simple peasant, other girls start to pay attention to him, not least the lusty and busty Kirche, who in addition comes from a rival noble family to that of Louise’s and wouldn’t mind stealing the familiar for herself, for a night... But then Saito also meets Siesta, who works as a servant at the academy, is a peasant herself, and as such is easier for Saito to relate to. What is at first just haughty disdain at the effrontery of a disobedient familiar slowly becomes jealous feelings on Louise’s part, and since her response to both is to take to Saito with a riding crop, you can guess that communicating feelings doesn’t come easy for both of them. A little later on, the boot goes on the other foot, when Louise’s fiancé shows up, all ready for the wedding, but by this point the main storyline is in full flow, which lessens the comic impact, and distracts from the emotional element.


The world building is what really appeals about this show, but at first glance it really does owe a fair bit to Harry Potter, set in a Magical Institute, where students attend to learn the finer points of magic, or in Louise’s case, blow things up. You have the student rivalries, the magic lessons, the teachers, the headmaster, and it looks like we’re getting the full Hogwarts from the first two episodes. But it quickly widens its focus beyond just the school, establishing a society of nobility with magic, and peasantry without, with rival kingdoms and a fair bit of politics bubbling away. Into this mix is revealed the Reconquista group, who initially appear to be just thieves of magic, but are shown later to be one of those groups that seek world domination in shows like this, fomenting war and conflict to achieve their goals, and of course involving our heroes in the process.


When it comes to Saito, it turns out that he’s not the only one to have been sucked from our world into this magical realm, his nature as a familiar is gradually revealed to be more than just a magically bonded peasant, while what he is in this world also has the effect of revealing Louise’s true heritage as well. When he first learns that portals have opened before, and other things, other people from his world have come through, he realises that there might be a chance to get back to his world, and that comes to dominate his direction towards the end of the series, and given that at this point Louise is just beginning to thaw towards her familiar, that causes no little problem for the two.


While there is a fair bit of drama to the show, an ongoing and interesting narrative, the focus is on the relationship between Louise and Saito, and the emphasis is on the comic aspects of the story. Most of the characters in the show are comic in nature, with Kirche’s man-eating nature, her friend Tabitha filling the deadpan anime girl role, a vain boy named Guiche constantly chasing girls, while at the same time trying to prove his fidelity to another girl named Montmorency. The school’s headmaster Old Osman has a tendency to use his familiar, a mouse to look up his secretary’s skirt, only to receive punishment beatings as a result. This is a show that plays it for laughs first and foremost, and it worked really well for me. But Familiar of Zero establishes a detailed and complex world in this season, and an engaging overall story, one that promises much for the subsequent series. Now it’s just a case of waiting for Sentai to get with the programme and release seasons 2-4, so that the releases can work their way around the world to us.