While hunting for new Anime to keep me entertained over the weekend I stumbled across Zero no Tsukaima. I've been led to believe that by the internets that the title translates to something resembling "Zero's Familiar". The setting is a Fantasy world resembling enlightenment Europe, except the people are divided into two classes Nobles, who use magic, and everyone else. The adventures primary take place in a country,Tristania, ruffly occupying the place of Belgium in Europe.

The Heroine:

Louise le Zero is a Feisty student at a magic academy that hasn't mastered any of the four elements, fire, earth, wind and water, hence she has been given the nickname zero by her evil classmates. She's kinda like an angrier, snobbier version of Lina Inverse but with pink hair and no control or her magic.  

The Hero:

Saito is a normal boy from Connecticut Tokyo, who was summed to this anime world by Louise when she tried to summon a familiar. Thus our hero was bonded to Louise, and received a strange brand that appears to give him some mad skillz.

Side Characters:

Tabitha - a Silent bookworm, Extremely boring and lame, however she has a Dragon as a familiar which is extremely cool, and extremely convenient in saving our heroes asses far too often.

Siesta a Lowly serving girl who works at the school, is very friendly with Saito, much to Louise's dismay.

Kirche a Rival of Louise, she is a student from Germania. She is fills the Nage the serpent role in this anime. Supposedly her family an Louise's are enemies and that the beginning of the story the two girls can't stand one another. She's a well endowed girl and has made her rounds within the school, so naturally she's set her sights on making a conquest of Saito.

The Good

It's a lot like an anime version of Harry Potter, with less Potter and more viscous pink haired girls. lol, I really do like the setting it's just that the plot seems a bit week an doesn't develop into a story until episode 10 or so. The main characters are cool, and Saito has an excellent special power and seems to handle this odd world well enough.

The Bad

First of all I don't approve of Louise constantly beating her familiar, I think it's a bit too much for me. But at least it doesn't rise to the years of abuse the Mr. Potter suffered from his family, yet...

My main complaint however, is that it seems that Kirche and Tabitha suddenly become friendly with Louise for no apparent reason other than the fact than it's convenient to save(or to transport) our heroes when they get into trouble. This is odd since Kirche especially is supposed to be a rival of Louise, and it would have been nice if they'd kept that angle going past the first few episodes. Perhaps the Sequel will have a stronger (and more villains) plot since they won't have to spend as much time on the introduction stuff.

Conclusion:

This was an anime that sucked me in during the first episode, but around episode eight, I almost dropped the series because the plot wasn't thick enough to keep things interesting. I think it would have been nice if they'd introduced the main plot, at least in the background anyhow much earlier to keep some interest in the series.