Editing Nobilis Strike while the Iron is Hot:Plot Summary (section)

==Volume One, as reviewed by Danica Holmes in Animatic Magazine==
'''Magical Pudding High School: Volume 1 Reviewed!'''

''Hot Blood and Cold Pudding: a match made in heaven or hell?''

Magical Pudding High School is a show that ''really'' wants to dial its premise up to eleven. Unfortunately, it's having a bitch of a time figuring out what it's premise actually ''is,'' so instead it fumbles around in the dark and Warp-Digivolves things seemingly at random. It's not a bad show--as its stunning popularity will surely show--but it's definitely a bit hard to follow. But we're getting ahead of ourselves, and if we do that the Excrucians win. Let me start at the beginning.

The show starts from a fairly standard premise: the titular School is host to a bizarre student body, made up of everything from sorcerers to mad scientists to ninjas, and wacky hijinks ensue. Of course, no show is complete without a group of baddies, and Pudding delivers this in the form of the Excrucians, a group of aliens that attack the school on a regular basis. The show ''does'' offer a few interesting twists on the Weird School genre. The first is that the main character--whose name, I kid you not, is Main Character--has the unique ability to change any inanimate object into a moe anthropomorphized version of that object. Presumably, this living MacGuffin is the reason that the Excrucians insist on invading the school, but we don't know this for sure as they are constantly beaten back before they can really accomplish anything. The harbingers of this beatdown are the ones that I personally consider to be the ''real'' main characters of the show: the Magical Pudding High School Defense Force, a militia made up of the aforementioned ninjas, the obligatory Omnipotent Student Council, and a trio (which quickly devolved into a duo) of superpowered leaders.

The first Defense Force member is Leviathan Jones, who takes some *ahem* artistic cues from a certain blue-haired mecha pilot that we all know and love (''If you're thinking Rei Ayanami, you should really get out more--Ed''). He has an unusual suite of powers; apparently, he just shouts at the laws of physics until he gets what he wants. So far he has shown the ability to teleport in a shower of sparks, and make anything--literally, anything--by sketching it out with either his fingertips or an oversized calligraphy brush that he carries everywhere. Most of the time, though, he settles for making grandiose speeches, causing gratuitous explosions and playing Casanova to anything that moves--including things that only started moving five minutes ago thanks to Main Character.

The second member is Meganekko, an adorable catgirl with Herculean strength and speed, as well as a powerful anti-magic field that follows her wherever she goes. She's an alien as well, though she hails from a different planet than the Excrucians; apparently she was brought to the school specifically to help with its defense, and with a bizarro backstory like that it's a wonder she's not Main Character's love interest.

There ''was'' a third member in the trio, a man named Linus whose powers themed around '''picnics''' of all things. Unfortunately, due to internal issues at the company the character was written out by the end of the first episode, so we don't really get a chance to see him shine.

Now that our ''Dramatis Personae'' is more or less complete, we can move on to the plot, and this is where Pudding falters a bit. The first episode started out strong--it introduced us to the main cast, showed an action-packed fight with the Excrucians and managed to let everybody show their mettle. It ended with a scene that might be seen as cheapening the idea of heroic sacrifices, but since it is ostensibly a comedy show this is forgivable. The Excrucians had managed to kill a large number of the Defense Force ninjas, as well as severely damaging the school grounds. By pooling their "miraculous energies," which apparently is where all the superpowers in the show come from, the Defense Force and the Student Council managed to revive everybody and fix what the Excrucians broke. Whether future fights will continue in this vein is something we've yet to see.

In episode two, following the first major fight with the Excrucians, the script writers apparently took the plotline, tied it to a klein bottle, and fired it out of a rotating cannon with their eyes closed. Now personally, I've never actually spearheaded a defense against a hostile alien invasion, but if I ''did'' I probably wouldn't send my star team away to organize a party for me in the middle of the war. Apparently, Principal Llew--the foxy, wild-haired matron of Magical Pudding High--disagrees with that philosophy, because for this episode and the one following it the Defense Force Duo are nowhere to be seen.

I can understand, meta-wise, where this decision came from: when Levi and Meg (see what I did there? I gave them nicknames because I like them so much) are on-screen, Main Character becomes... well, more of a Supporting Character. That said, episodes two and three give him the attention that his name warrants--so if over-the-top action isn't a necesssary plot component for you, you'll probably find something to like here.

Episode two opens with the aforementioned sending-away of Meg and Levi. Much of the remainder of the episode is spent exploring the relationship between Main and Mustang Sally, one of the cleverly-named car-girls that he created during episode one. Their early interactions are either intensely cute or amazingly creepy, depending on how you interpret the creator-created relationship. Personally, I consider the transformation to be a "rescuing a distressed damsel" scenario, rather than a Dr. Frankenstein one, so during this episode I was diagnosed with Type-1 Diabetes. We see the usual (if adorable) fish-out-of-water moments for Sally, and the expected (if adorable) scene where the two crashed into and ended up on top of each other. It's pretty formula, but what do you expect in a Weird High School show? You either love it, or you're bored with it.

Episode three--surprise surpise, sports fans--introduces a third party to the Main-Sally dynamic, and this is another moment where Pudding manages to dial the most unexpected thing up to eleven: the love triangle. For genre-savvy watchers, it will come as absolutely ''no'' surprise that the second girl introduced is the complete opposite of Sally. Rose Red is a boisterous tomboy a full head taller than Main, she's as strong as a bull and twice as bold, and--get this--''she's a brick house.'' You read that right: before the Excrucian attack, she was one of the dormitory buildings. Main changed her into a girl, and now she's in his class alongside Sally. As you'd expect of the tomboy type, she's ''far'' more forward with giving Main her attentions, which leads to no shortage of hilarity in this episode. Once more, it's fairly formula, but the formula is dialed up to such extreme heights--and the two girls are so ''out there''--that it circles around and becomes original again. It's almost--''almost''--a shame when Meg and Levi return at the end of the episode, blueprints in hand and ready to build the festival grounds.

Episode four is the last one to be seen in the Volume 1 set--understandable, since the series is only scheduled for 12 episodes. It opens on the fully-built and '''unbelievably Hot-Blooded''' festival grounds, because apparently Leviathan Jones went to school with M.C. Escher and used to steal Conservation of Energy's lunch money when they were kids. Apparently the school staff wised up to the inherent dangers of inviting god-like entities onto the grounds, because Main Character--and all the students who ''aren't'' in the Defense Force--are conspicuously absent. The people who ''do'' show up are apparently representatives from other Weird Schools, and not all of them are very friendly. Three other Principals show up: His Excellency, a knight templar who makes Big Brother look like Guy Fawkes; Lasciel, a wicked witch who apparently runs a school in ''Hell;'' and The Angel of Fire, whose name says everything. These three are in some kind of vaguely-hinted-at love/lust triangle, which leads to some interesting fireworks at the end of the episode, but that's for later. I'm not going to spoil too much about the festival itself, but suffice to say that it could be a series all on its own. There's a roller-coaster that goes through a wormhole, a ferris wheel that would give H.P. Lovecraft nightmares, and a carnival game where the players catch sharks. ''Real sharks.'' Once again, Pudding dials it up to eleven.

Of course, as I said at the beginning, Pudding doesn't know what direction it wants to go in, and this last episode is no exception. We've zig-zagged from an alien invasion, to a romantic comedy, on to a festival arc, and at the end of the episode we take yet another turn into Fighting Tournament territory. The last scene ends with Lasciel and the Angel facing off in an arena surrounded by an audience of cheering catgirls and super-beings, a cliffhanger that leaves this reviewer gnawing on her keyboard in anticipation of the next volume. But until it comes out, let me just say this: Magical Pudding High School is good. It's impossible to explain ''why'' it's good; it just ''is.'' Rent it, buy it, watch it on Hulu--whatever tickles your fancy. Just trust me and give it a shot--you won't regret it.
*''Danica Holmes is our resident reviewer for new anime series, and also enjoys PI novels and long walks through the woods.''