English Dub Review: Hina Logic from Luck & Logic “Send Your Cute Hina on a Journey”

A school for magical girls gets a new student and… things go down hill from there.

Spoilers Below

Liones Yelistratova is a princess. A princess who journeyed far from her tiny nation to Hokkaido. There, she plans to enter into the ACLA, a school dedicated to teaching Logicalists how to use their powers. What are Logicalists? Glad you asked. They are magical girls who gain transformations (called TranceUnions) by contracting with Foreigners, entities from other realities. They use those powers to slay monsters, fight evil, and protect the innocent. Or, at least they used to. Since they already cleaned up the planet, they don’t really have much to do anymore. With all the gears and cogs in place to churn out more Logicalists, the girls are jumping into a profession for which there are no jobs. You know, like taking a BA in English or Digital Media. They are pretty much a nuisance, from the teachers’ standpoint. Still, Liones has a dream. What she doesn’t have, however, is a contract with a Foreigner. Kinda needed for the whole thing. They hand her a Foreigner card to start her off but has no clue how to use it.

That day, at lunch, the girls start wondering why this airhead is even in their class but decide to befriend her anyways. A little-overblown nerd personality here, a little innocent boob-grabbing there, and all chaos breaks loose. Liones freaks out, opening her gate and forming a contract with an entity. She suddenly transforms into a plant-type magical girl but has as little control over her magic as she does over herself. The entire lunch yard becomes a briar bramble. Fortunately, Nina is watching. Nina was there to greet Liones, and has a cool head on her shoulders. She also has an arsenal of Foreigners at her disposal. She chooses an angelic archer and launches into the fight to try and rescue her schoolmates. Really, all it takes is a bop on the head to get Liones to calm down. Afterward, the two walk home. Liones admits that Nina was actually her reason for coming to ACLA in the first place. She had seen the silver-haired Logicalist in action and heard she went to this school. Too bad, though. Nina is already a pro-Logicalist, and will be leaving the school as soon as her bosses will let her. Until then, the two are close friends.

Hina Logic is a sequel series to Luck & Logic, a media project that included an anime and a collectible card game. I mean, if you couldn’t tell by the use of cards throughout that a card game was involved, you probably haven’t watched much anime. Merchandising, folks: it’s where the money is. To be honest, I’d probably get into that card game. Magical girls and a CCG? Sure, I’d play. Never mind my old AniMayhem cards gathering dust. Now, I didn’t catch the original series, so I might have to go back and play catch-up, but it feels like you only half-have to watch the old stuff to get what’s going on. No, the plot doesn’t rely on that knowledge, but the characters really quickly and quietly mutter various concepts throughout the episode that makes little sense. I plan to watch the old series later this week, so I’ll get back to you next episode about any revelations I have.

The animation was rather good, actually. It was all traditional animation, with a great amount of detail in little, cute morphs to the girls’ eyes and cheeks to give them an adorable sweetness. Nina’s transformation was rather telling of how the whole TranceUnion process works, and was, visually at least, the henshin I had been expecting since the show started up. This ability begins by her using the Foreigner card to open a gate to the entity. That entity passes through the gate, and through her, leaving behind its power and outfit. It’s a rather interesting effect, and I’d like to see how it differs from girl to girl and foreigner to foreigner.

My big complaint about this show is the voice acting. Most of the characters sound forced as if their voice actresses were in seclusion when they did their lines, without even having the benefit of the video to help them. Many of the lines don’t really fit the timing of the mouth movements, and some don’t even match the tone of what is going on. Half the cast defaults to the really high-pitched, whistle register squeaky-talk that voice actresses do when they try to play young girls. I am not a fan of this. It’s grating and obnoxious. Altogether, the cast sounds like they’re working on an episode of My Little Pony. And no, not Friendship is Magic, I mean the old one that makes me want to mutilate myself in order to stop watching and hearing it. My ears want to give this anime a five, but I’m going to give them a bit of time to iron it out before I start singing them too harshly, though. They’re still getting into their characters. Until then, I’m giving them seven eldritch summoning cards out of ten. The animation is the high point, but the voice acting and story need a bit more TLC from Funimation and Doga Kobo Studio if this is gonna get in my good graces.