Mashle: Magic and Muscles – Season 1 Episode 9 Recap & Review

Mash Burnedad and The Accelerated Battle

Episode 9 of Mashle: Magic and Muscles begins with Lance fighting Wirth.

Wirth overwhelms Lance and tries to convince him to join Magia Lupus. Lance objects, telling Wirth he’s second-rate, and they continue fighting. Despite having Wirth on the ropes, Wirth believes he’s superior because of his background and history at Easton. Wirth pulls out a capsule of magical essence extracted from other students and drinks it. This gives him a power boost.

He gives a spiel on second magic and says only a few double-liners can pull it off. Wirth believes Lance is weaker than him because he hangs around flunkies. Lance refutes Wirth’s claims and defeats him. Wirth recalls a memory with his father. Wirth’s father says he’ll always be worthless to him, even if he were to enter the Bureau. Lance hands Wirth his reference book and claims how they share similar lives. Although Lance doesn’t like how Wirth is as a person, he respects his effort and leaves Wirth to contemplate.

Meanwhile, Mash fights Abyss and Abyss uses his accelerated magic to weaken Mash. Abyss finds Mash’s goals revolting despite his situation being similar to his. Abyss asks Mash to go all-out and whips out a device that drains magic power. Abyss says Lemon will lose her magic forever alongside her mark in 30 minutes. Abyss continues their assault on Mash and stabs him. Mash uses his abdominals to grab Abyss’s sword and headbutts him. Mash asks Abyss about his red eye, and Abyss explains it’s called an evil eye. This eye temporarily disables the magic of all who fall under its gaze. Abyss says he’s the natural enemy of magic users and has been feared and despised his whole life.

Abyss casts a force field and attacks Mash. He explains his opponents’ speed decreases within this realm, and he inherits their speed in return. Mash punches the floor to narrow Abyss’s movement route, allowing him to use different bodily-named combos to defeat Abyss.

On the ground, Abyss contemplates his past and wishes he was born normal. He was useless to his parents and now feels Lord Abel will think of him similarly. Mash asks Abyss to become friends, but Abyss feels he’ll one day grow to hate him like the others. Abyss warns Mash not to fight Lord Abel because what he saw from him wasn’t his true strength. Mash says he plans to fight Lord Abel and says he doesn’t mind Abyss’s “evil eye” powers. The episode closes with Mash walking away while Abyss’s mask cracks.

The Episode Review

Action-packed is one word you’ll find people using to describe this episode of Mashle: Magic and Muscles. Unlike most anime, this episode subverted many expectations by giving us the grand finale fight faster than many anticipated. Typically, the protagonist’s fight would occur after his companion’s battles. This gives Finn and Dot’s fight with the remaining Fang members more intrigue.

While Lance and Wirth’s battle was interesting, many will prefer Mash’s battle with Abyss. Not only does Abyss feel more fleshed out than Wirth, but many people will empathize with his character more due to his “evil eye” and his dark past involving his parents. Seeing a child undergo any form of abuse from their supposed caregivers is heartbreaking.

That said, it’d be lovely to have Abyss collaborate with Mash in the future since his powers can prove useful to him if they ever come across a dangerous adversary that Mash can’t handle on his own. Whether this evildoer ends up being Lord Abel or someone down the line in the story’s plot is up in the air. However, many viewers would love to see Abyss redeem himself in a future story arc.

Overall, this was a fun and simple episode. It had well-animated and choreographed action scenes, subverted expectations, and gave us some interesting villains in the process. Now that Mash and Lance completed their fights, I’m curious to see how Finn and Dot fight Love and Milo. Even if these two aren’t as strong as Abyss, I’m sure this tag-team bout will be as interesting as the single battles we watched in this one.