Kaze no Stigma is a show that started
out with a lot of potential, but squandered it by making some very
basic mistakes. The setup involves a society of magic users that
exist secretly in what is essentially our regular mundane world –
the backbone of at least a sizeable subset of the broad genre of
“Urban Fantasy” that combines magic and monsters with the
trappings of the mundane world. Good so far. Our main character is
Kazuma, the scion of a house of fire magic wielders who was kicked
out of his family because he was, himself, incapable… and who
returns with a new mastery of a different element, Air. That’s a
pretty good setup for a character. The show puts him in a position
to help his former family in their time of need, but of course he
should have some conflicted opinions about that, considering that he
was bitterly mistreated. A good treatment would let us learn more
about the character through his struggles, understanding what
happened to him in the interval to lead him to this new power and how
his trials shaped him and will continue to shape him going forward.
Kaze no Stigma… does not deliver a
good treatment of this material. There’s more to worry about outside
of Kazuma, but I’m going start with him because his problems are the
most numerous and varied and his waste of potential the most
striking.
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