The Magical Girl and the Evil Lieutenant Used to be Archenemies Franchise Review

THE MOST RETCHED ROMCOM I’VE EVER SEEN… AND I LOVE IT?

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The manga was written and illustrated by Cocoa Fujiwara from 2013 to 2015. The anime adaptation directed by Akiyo Oohashi at Studio Bones released in 2024.

MAHOU SHOUJO MADNESS

The Magical Girl and the Evil Lieutenant Used to be Archenemies is a complicated franchise to say the least. On one hand you have a story that is inherently disgusting, I’m not gonna baby it this is the beginnings of a “romance” story between a 15 something year old girl and a man who could be her father. In that way the unfinished nature of this work is a true blessing because it saves it from going too far because if it did get a full run who knows what it could happen. I do not accept this part of the story whatsoever, there is no defense that is valid and I certainly won’t mince words. Yet paradoxically I really liked it, in some ways the edge is what makes it stand out and thanks to a genuinely unbelievable anime adaptation this work is transformed into one of the best titles of 2024. It’s gonna take a lot of explaining but let me try and sell you on this anime that I should hate out of anyone but instead fell in love with. First up though is the manga because bling bang boom double review go kaboom, I did say franchise for a reason.

THE MANGA, A TRAGIC WASTE

Beginning all the way back in 2013 author Cocoa Fujiwara started working on this 4 koma manga not knowing it would be her last. The inherent tragedy of Archenemies is that it’s author at only 31 years of age would end up passing away before completing it, in her short time in the industry she would become best known for her longest work Inu x Boku SS whose cover looks exactly like something I would never want to open up so yeah haven’t read it. She’d complete that work, even getting an anime but Archenemies would only get 3 volumes(the final being posthumously) before her passing so it remains a work cut short by the mortality of the human being behind it. With that solemn context and with no disrespect intended I have to say, this manga ain’t it chief and I’m not just talking about the unacceptable material. I won’t pretend to like 4 koma as a storytelling form, I’d take anything over it to be honest but as a light and easy way to tell joke’s yeah it works if you’re punchy with it. Cocoa isn’t punchy though, every chapter ends on awkward attempts at humour with a distinct lack of timing to fit the form so it instead comes across as bland and ineffective. This applies to her artwork too, while her character designs are good they’re not detailed or striking enough to earn the complete focus of the story and so the empty white backgrounds don’t work to emphasise anything of worth, Tite Kubo she is not, heck even comparing her to lesser artists wouldn’t do her any favours. The specific edge present in her writing though is a good start, while it generally isn’t used memorably some of the jokes really only work in the context of a irreverent edgy romcom and as someone who likes this type of outta pocket humour I can see the potential if applied more thoughtfully. Overall though this is not a good manga, aside from a sharpness to the dialogue there isn’t anything working here and while it is genuinely sad to lose an artist, especially one so young I won’t pretend this work was a loss for the medium, nobody could walk away saying it’s an unfinished masterpiece.

And there is sat completely irrelevant for almost a decade before someone had the bright idea to make an anime about it. That someone worked at legendary Studio Bones and the end result was a transformative work of adaptation that not only got me into this story but will have me singing it’s praises despite myself because Archenemies the anime is a bloody brilliant time.

HARD KNOCK LIFE(BUT WITH MAGIC!)

Full disclosure I watched it first which shouldn’t be surprising, whose heard of the original manga amiright but the fact remains that it pushed me to read the manga even with a premise so outrageously bad. Speaking of, uh I guess I should give a brief story summary just so y’all know whats up huh. This is a tongue in cheek magical girls with an edge romcom mashup whose glittering facade hides a brutal world of workplace abuse and general debauchery which I think is just the modern norm for these types of stories. Aharen cough cough I mean Byakuya Mimori is one such magical girl who spends her time… working odd jobs to pay the rent, gets sexually harassed by the giant abusive self proclaimed angel familiar of hers and maybe sometimes she also fights evil, not often but enough for posterity’s sake. She is a truly pitiful creature to the point of just outright parody, you are not supposed to feel broken-hearted by her living situation because it’s played so over the top that it wraps around into some evil form of comedy that you really shouldn’t laugh at but also dammit this girls rent is cheaper than dirt yet she can’t afford food to eat some weeks, c’mon that’s just ridiculous why am I laughing the poor thing is starving before our eye’s. She’s an over the top caricature, not someone to take seriously just like this story overall so in context yes this abused little girl is really funny ok, see why I said that this show is edgy, if there’s a pocket of political correctness it exists outside of it without a care in the world.

EVIL FOR THE LOVE OF IT

Her screen partner, potential lover, and explicit embodiment of evil the titular Evil Lieutenant(real name unknown, dunno where MAL got it) is a dude who spends his time terrorizing the world at the behest of the Evil King who we’ll never see because the half assed worldbuilding is part of the whole joke. That puts him into conflict with the magical girls God puts in his way so when our man sees a girl who could be his daughter he does the most evil thing possible and… falls hopelessly in full doki doki™ love mode. Yup, living up to his name and than some. This character is even more of a joke than Byakuya because my god if you can think of a irritating romcom trope or a aspect of characterising being utterly in love with someone it’s all boiled down into this absolute unit of a pedo with the only unique addition being the gag about his glasses breaking in reaction to heartthrob moments. He’s the hero nobody would ask for and because Byakuya is comically abused by her circumstances he’s actually the best thing in her life so disgustingly but understandingly the feelings are mutual. I won’t pin any blame on Byakuya, young girls seemingly love the prince type older gentleman that the Evil Lieutenant most certainly is but in the immortal words of one Juzo Ogami from Kill Blue no real man sees those feelings as anything but a child’s whimsy, unfortunately Mr. Lieutenant is not a real man but a professional evil scumbag. Now to be clear nothing truly intimate takes place in this series, no physical lines are crossed which is why I can put it out of my mind on most occasions but lets be clear here this is a age gap love story that if you are not comfortable with(and you shouldn’t be) than it could break this whole shebang for you. If you don’t think this is worth watching based on premise alone I will not shame you or convince you otherwise, just skip it without a second thought. With that said I didn’t skip it and basically everything aside from the central premise is genuinely, overwhelmingly fantastic in a way only a purely reverantal work of passionate art could be.

PS: The only other character you need to know about is absolute unit known as Hibana, a foul mouthed murderous psychopath whose also a magical girl. Her signature move is to yell F*ck(censored as such) before latching onto anyone in her vicinity, generally poor Byakuya, with an open maw, viscously tearing them a new one. Gotta say, that’s a character I ain’t ever seen before.

TRANSFORMATION THROUGH ADAPTATION

This isn’t a cash grab adaptation, the originator was literally dead and buried by the time this anime came into being so it could only exist as a honorary work, a love letter to an artist lost forever and it shows on screen. Transformed is a strong way to put it but I mean it, from top to bottom the staff at Bones made every correct choice to enhance the core material and make it more effective than anything the ill fated manga ever did. Under director Akiyo Oohashi of Seaside Stranger fame(a similarly bad manga adapted with stunning beauty) life is breathed into every page of manga, the story is rearranged so naturally that you’d never guess changes where made, the eye watering visuals absolutely blow the mind and above all it just works where the original didn’t. Screenwriter Yuniko Ayana may write the same jokes but her version has a sharp wit to them, a sense of timing the OG completely failed at so off the top alongside the great voicework this series is finally funny, it tells actually effective jokes instead of just being one. By bringing in character designer Haruko Iizuka the staff had someone whose actually worked on a Cocoa adaptation before as she designed for Inu x Boku SS too and dare I say her versions look better, sure there’s no salvaging the overly sexulized design of Byakuya but hey every drawing looks hella good and pops off the screen.

Than there’s the art direction which sure the original manga basically had no backgrounds so automatically this is a transformation but even comparing it to fellow anime Archenemies looks insanely good. Yumiko Kuga did a great job on Seaside Stranger alongside her director but hot damn this entire anime looks gorgeous as hell, it’s so lavish in detail yet light at the same time, it’s such a striking show to look at that even the good animation feels unnecessary when every frame is already a painting. It’s got a lovely pastel color palette that’s enhanced by cinema level effects compositing to make every image glossy and pop, the lighting always thickly casting colourful shadows onto every scene. I’d compare it to this years A Sign of Affection’s glossy yet sharp visual direction but just upped to a greater ante, to put it further I’d go as far as to say this show’s fighting only Elusive Samurai and Look Back as the best looking aesthetic of the year. Bones’s adaptation of Archenemies unquestionably looks ten thousand times better than the original but even more importantly this isn’t a case of putting lipstick on a pig(cough cough Demon Slayer) no it finds the actual quality substance underneath the mediocrity of the originals execution and brings it fully to life to my utter dazzlement.

TIS THE END!

The Magical Girl and the Evil Lieutenant Used to be Archenemies isn’t a story for everyone, heck it’s premise is terminally flawed but through a passionate work of honorary adaptation it transforms a rather poor manga into one of the most artistically stunning and sharply entertaining shows of the whole year. If you can stomach it I do recommend this one, It’s only a shame it’s original creator never got to witness it’s glory. Rest easy Cocoa Fujiwara.

FINAL RATING: MANGA 4/10

FINAL RATING: ANIME 8/10

Archenemies can currently be streamed on Crunchyroll or purchased from Yen Press as a single omnibus.