Sky Wizards Academy
Sky Wizards Academy is a Japanese light novel series written by Yū Moroboshi and illustrated by Mikihiro Amami. Fujimi Shobo has published fourteen volumes since July 2013 under their Fujimi Fantasia Bunko imprint. A manga adaptation with art by Arisu Shidō started serialization in Media Factory's seinen manga magazine Monthly Comic Alive from July 26, 2014. A 12-episode anime television series adaptation by Diomedéa aired between July 8, 2015, and September 23, 2015.
Plot
Humanity was driven off the land by the threat of magical armored insects and now live in aerial floating cities. Its defenses lie in wizards who fight the insects with magic in mid-air. Kanata Age is a young man who lives on the floating wizard academy city of "Misutogan." He was once celebrated as the "Black Master Swordsman," the elite ace of the S128 special team. However, he is now despised as the "traitor of the special team." One day, he is assigned as the instructor of E601, a team that has suffered over 100 consecutive defeats. E601 has three girls — Misora Whitale, Lecty Eisenach, and Rico Flamel — with one or two peculiar quirks.
Characters
Main characters
;Kanata Age
;Misora Whitale
;Lecty Eisenach
;Rico Flamel
;Yuri Flostre
;Chloe Sevegny
;Lloyd Alwin
;Freon Flamel
Other characters
;Real Nua
;Amy
;Beach
;Shiela
;Christina Balcuhorn
;Lily Lancaster
;Sasha Nielsen
;Greg Hastuck
;Socie Whitale
;Gail Whitale
Media
Light novels
The first light novel volume was published by Fujimi Shobo under their Fujimi Fantasia Bunko imprint on July 20, 2013. As of July 2017, fourteen volumes have been published.
Anime
A 12-episode anime television series adaptation by Diomedéa aired between July 8, 2015, and September 23, 2015. Two pieces of theme music are used. The opening theme, titled "D.O.B.", is performed by Iori Nomizu. The ending theme is "Hallelujah" performed by La La Larks.
Reception
The anime series' first episode garnered negative reviews from Anime News Network's staff during the Summer 2015 season previews. Nick Creamer put it alongside Absolute Duo and World Break for being a "cheap anime promo for a light novel fantasy-action harem", criticizing the first half for its "long, budget-efficient monologue" and the second half containing outdated and cliché humor from its given genre, concluding that its "very lethargically paced, heavy on unnecessary exposition and slow in the introduction of its obvious premise." Bamboo Dong found the opening action scene dull and poorly animated, and saw the anime being "creatively bankrupt" with its premise, characters and jokes. Hope Chapman felt the episode represented Diomedéa taking Studio ARMS' position of producing low budget, schlocky trash with a "distinctly light-novel flavor", saying "here's nothing pretty to look at, no endearing characters, not a drop of originality in the plot, and it's just plain no fun to watch." Theron Martin gave credit to the character designs and development of Kanata but felt it wasn't enough to excuse the less than enthusiastic execution of the overall story, characters and visuals, calling it "a limp, painfully directive waste of effort." Fellow ANN editor Rebecca Silverman reviewed the complete anime series in 2016. She commended the effort made to give character development to its cast and was surprised by the good background music, but was critical of the overall stockiness of the cast, awkward animation in both character anatomy and movements, and poor story developments concluding that "this is just like every other magic high school harem show, from the characters to the story arcs, and it ends with questions remaining that we aren't likely to get answered any time soon."