MASHLE: Muscular Harry Potter & One-Punch Man Mash-up

Young Mash Burnedead aims for the top of the magical world through the power of muscles and cream puffs.

The spring anime season will give fans more of what they’ve been watching. Isekai in a fantasy world? Take your pick among new titles and sequels. Slice-of-life high school coming-of-age stories? Of course! But what about fish-out-of-water comedies? Does “The Legendary Hero is Dead!” count? Another one will tickle your funny bone if you like cream puffs, wizards, and muscles. MASHLE: MAGIC AND MUSCLES (マッシュル -MASHLE-) combines all three in a slapstick comedy set in a wizarding school. Look at the main trailer from Crunchyroll!

A-1 Pictures is adapting the currently running manga and has official websites in Japanese and English. That’s a lot of effort for a seeming Harry Potter knock-off. But one scene in the trailer made me laugh out loud and immediately look for more information about MASHLE. The muscular boy Mash slapped away a magic spell with his bare hand!

The premise of MASHLE hooked me right in. I saw elements of One-Punch Man and Mob Psycho mashed with Harry Potter. The anime’s title is also a pun on “muscle” and the main character’s name. I’m a sucker for dad humor like that. MASHLE leans hard into the ridiculous situation of Mash mimicking magic through muscle strength alone. On the official websites, the navigation sprite shows Mash flying a broom by kicking his legs to hover! Hahaha! I appreciate that infectious attitude.

The muscles-over-magic story in MASHLE borrows heavily from Harry Potter and his wizarding world. There’s a magic academy with competing dorms. They have a competitive broom ball sport resembling Quidditch. And an underbelly of a magical society wants to kill the main character. Mash is a jacked Harry Potter! Crunchyroll’s press release for its spring streaming schedule describes the story:

MASHLE: MAGIC AND MUSCLES (A-1 Pictures)

This is a world in which magic is casually used by everyone. In a deep, dark forest in this world of magic, there is a boy who is single-mindedly working out. His name is Mash Burnedead, and he has a secret. He can’t use magic. All he wanted was to live a quiet life with his family, but people suddenly start trying to kill him one day and he somehow finds himself enrolled in Magic School. There, he sets his sights on becoming a “Divine Visionary,” the elite of the elite. Will his ripped muscles work against the best and brightest of the wizarding world? The curtain rises on this off-kilter magical fantasy in which the power of being jacked crushes any spell!

Doesn’t that look like fun? And the timing of the show also coincides with the best-selling game of the year, Hogwarts Legacy. Magic Academy shows used to be the ubiquitous anime adaptation plot before poorly written isekai stories from user-generated content websites took over. MASHLE: MAGIC AND MUSCLES acts like a comedic satire in the old format. Let’s meet the brawny crew bringing us this muscle-bound tale of cream puffs and witchcraft.

The Jacked and Ripped Cast and Staff of MASHLE: MAGIC AND MUSCLES

A-1 Pictures adapted original creator Hajime Koumoto’s comedy manga, which has been running since its debut in Weekly Shonen Jump on January 27th, 2020. Viz Media publishes its manga volumes in North America. You can also read MASHLE digitally through the Manga Plus app from Shueisha. Director Tomoya Tanaka led the production of Engage Kiss for A-1 Pictures too. Busy man Yousuke Kuroda, when he isn’t writing for My Hero Academia, is also the lead scriptwriter for BIRDIE WING: Golf Girls’ Story Season 2. MASHLE features bare-knuckle fighting scenes, so it has action directors. Hiroaki Gouda and Takeshi Matsuda are A-1 Pictures studio animation veterans who recently worked on Lycoris Recoil. Let’s meet the main characters and their voice actors.

• Mash Burnedead — Chiaki Kobayashi (Himuro-kun from The Ice Guy and His Cool Female Colleague). The muscley Mash loves working out and eating cream puffs.
• Finn Ames — Reiji Kawashima (Jonas Anders from Sugar Apple Fairy Tale). Mash’s roommate at Easton Magic Academy.
• Lance Crown — Kaito Ishikawa (Sakuta Azusagawa from Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai). The neat freak is at the top of Mash’s class.
• Dot Barrett — Takuya Eguchi (Loid Forger from SPY x FAMILY). The noisy boy hates good-looking guys but loves all girls.
• Lemon Irvine — Reina Ueda (Kanao Tsuruyi from Demon Slayer). She loves Mash and imagines they do all sorts of things together.
• Rayne Ames — Yuuki Kaji (Eren Yeager from Attack on Titan). Finn’s older brother and dorm supervisor.
• Abel Walker — Yuichiro Umehara (Goblin Slayer from Goblin Slayer). The competing dorm’s supervisor always holds a creepy doll.
• Narrator — Hiroaki Hirata (Sanji from One Piece). The source of information will crack jokes.

Crunchyroll streams the first episode of MASHLE: MUSCLE AND MAGIC on April 7th. Are you ready to watch mighty muscles maul magic? Will you be watching Mash crush the magical world with his fist? Let us know in the comments below or online on Facebook, Twitter, or Discord.

I wonder what jobs these wizards get after graduating from Easton Magic Academy. Will it be a fortuneteller with on-the-job benefits like the beautiful witch Mojikawa? Pick up a copy from J-List to see how much she enjoys her job in A Witch and A Customer Have XXX in the End 1.