In the popular game Wixoss, there are special cards called LRIGs that few players know about — cards
that possess personalities and wills of their own. Ruuko is a teenage girl who just found one of these
rare cards. Now, she can use her LRIG to battle in a strange, dark plane of existence. If she wins,
her wishes will be granted — but what happens if she loses?
(Source: Funimation)
After the realease of Gen Urobuchi's _Puella Magi Madoka Magica_, back in 2011, there wasn't a big number of new animes that attempted to deconstruct popular anime genres targetted mainly towards kids, like Madoka did with magical girls, despite the show's success. One of the exceptions was Mari Okada's _Selector Infected WIXOSS_, that tried to do the same with card game animes. The first problem is, despite the show attempting to gave the Madoka treatment to card anime game, it seems like Okada or anybody else in the production staff haven't watch a single epiosde of a card game anime in their entire life. While Madoka uses some of the most common elements and tropes you can find an any magical girl anime, specially the Pretty Cure franchise down to the color coding of the cast. To make matters worse, we barely see any of the games in the anime, most of the events related to them happen off-screen. So if you came to this anime hoping at least for epic battles with nice animation, I'm afraid I'll have to tell you to keep movin'. You are not gonna find it here. Okada's territory is teenage melodrama, that's the reason her most popular anime is _Ano Hana_. And to be fair, there's tons of it here too, but most of the characters feel underdeveloped and unsympathetic, so the watcher has a hard time trying to get invested in what's happening. Some characters will simply make you want to not root for their desires to came true, despite it was probably Okada's intention to be otherwise, like Yuzuki wanting to bang his own twin brot...sorry, i mean made a gender reversal _OreImo_ (we'll take later about this). Others will make you feel like their problems are not as hard as they want you to present them so you don't have another solution that risk everything in a magic cards game, like in the case of Hitoe "I don't have any friends except the ones from my old town who still wrote me letters, and i made two pretty easy in a span of a few episodes" Uemura (seriously chica it doesn't seem that you're doing that bad on your own, why did you enter a card game?). And don't forget our MC, who is supposed to be, like Madoka, a girl who doesn't know which wish to ask to make it become true, but she enters in the game anyway despite she learns how dangerous it is because, why not. At least when you become a magical girl you save people's lives, but here is basically a bunch of people risking their lives for wishes that in most cases are pretty selfless. Like i wrote above, there's an incest subplot in this anime, and it makes this show pretty uncomfortable to watch. On of the main character has been in love with her twin brother since she was just a little kid, and has enter the game hoping that if she wins it her wish will be granted. And it's pretty obvious that Okada wants us to root for her, downright to incluiding a secondary female character who's the twin brother's classmate and later girlfriend, than acts all jealous of the relationship her boyfrined has with his sister, and when she calls it out she acts all bitchy, she won't gonna take her side. Well, Okada, let me tell, making a douchey character something that's true, doesn't make the thing less true, it only shows you're desperate to make us agree with the characters you want us to agree, because you can think of any other way to fo it, because there's no way some sane will do it. Definitely a skip.
This critical review may make it sound like I dislike this series, but if that were the case I would not have watched it beyond the first episode. I like to demonstrate that quality is objective by being able to point out the flaws and criticise even things I enjoy. Although I like this show, I can readily admit it is not a particularly good show. My estimation of the first season was 6.6/10, which means I think it's an above average show, but just shy of actually being good. Lets start with the flaws. First of all the inauthentic overly cute voices make me cringe. This is behaviour that I discourage when I see it in children at the age of 6-8 years old. If this behaviour persists into a person's teenage years, they will most likely be a social outcast with very few friends who gets severely bullied in high-school. And if it persists into their adult years they're basically Michael Jackson. With young children growing up, I encourage them to use their natural voice, and take the opportunity to explain to them the importance of being authentic and maturing as they grow. Fortunately the main character, Ruko, isn't too overly cute. Although she is at times, she has a much stronger personality than characters like Hitoe and Chiyori. Going into the second season, I see a lot of the writing being made up as it goes along. I find this convolutes the plot. Since it's based on a manga, this is most likely an inherited flaw, but I haven't read the manga. The trope of characters forgetting things, like who they were and where they came from, is overused in this series to a tiring degree. The writing lacks forethought and creativity. Not to mention there's a lot of copy paste from other anime. The authors of this anime are obviously not well read. Cliches in the writing include Miyazaki style overly sympathising with evil characters while simultaneously frequently portraying very superficial heroes and villains. In the heroes, cowardice is often sympathised with. Meekness and cuteness are idolized. There's subversive sexualized costumes, like Iona's card costume for example, with plunging cleavage. The scenes between Yuzuki and her brother, especially the bedroom scene where the incestuous wish comes true. The romanticisation of incest. And it's all done in a very PG Disney style, without really delving into the arguments. It's just superficially glossed over. I don't judge people like that, but they only talk about love in terms of sex, which is lust, not love. There's no reason they can't be intimate and love each other without dating or doing anything that's going to lead to babies with webbed feet. These are the kind of shallow people who think romance is the meaning of life, and there is no god. Like the characters in the story acting like they aren't following a script and there aren't authors who created them. Friendship is another thing very superficially portrayed. Basically, though not quite exactly, Ruko befriended the first people she came across, and everyone else is just a background character completely ignored. Everyone in their circle of friends plays this card game. Imagine if all your friends listened to the same genre of music, or played the same game. Imagine not having friends outside that tiny world. That's almost as bad as checking your phone when it vibrates, being surprised by the email notification, opening the email, and being surprised by the contents. Characters being incessantly surprised by things, like another person greeting them or responding to what they said, is an anime trope that makes me cringe almost as hard as characters having indistinguishable faces and constantly wearing the exact same clothes all the time. Most anime artists should learn a thing or two from the likes of Gundam F91. Sadly the writers of WIXOSS copied the tired cliches of popular Otaku anime tropes such as being shocked that someone else walked into the room. At least three times I cringed so hard I considered stopping watching the show. But most episodes have a touching scene that actually brings a tear to my eye. The backgrounds are detailed, and the color composition is decent. There are some interesting camera angles, and at least a few times I got that Serial Experiments Lain nostalgia. The main character has just enough depth of personality and strength of character to keep me watching. As long as the quality doesn't suddenly drop in the next two seasons, I intend on finishing the series. All the cringey elements I described aren't as bad as most shows. So it's manageable as long as the redeemable qualities are there. And that pretty much sums up all of my feelings towards the show.