What's ironic about Magic Maker: How to Make Magic in Another World is not just that the new isekai began from a completely unique perspective before switching to a more conventional form of storytelling, but that the latter ended up being the more effective approach when put in context to the overall plot. It's difficult to argue against the fact that the anime would have had a stronger debut if it started the normal way. Although many consider the genre to be overly repetitive, this interesting development proves that certain tropes serve a particular purpose that can improve the story.

In the first episode, the story is clearly from the perspective of a girl named Marie, which should have immediately confused viewers if they assumed this was an isekai. She was obviously from the world where the story began, and it was more like the kind of world that the protagonist would get transported to. Of course, there was always the possibility that Magic Maker was a reverse isekai, which could have made sense by the title. However, the anime then introduced Marie's mysterious brother Sion, the true protagonist.

Magic Maker: How to Make Magic in Another World Began Unconventionally, But It Shouldn't Have

Based on the Light Novel Series by Writer Kazuki Kaburagi and Illustrator Kururi; Anime Produced by Studio Deen

There's a critical scene where their father is surprised and impressed when his young Sion starts asking him about the existence of certain things in their world that he shouldn't know about. When the boy gets to magic, it's noteworthy that Sion is clearly crushed when his father doesn't recognize the word. Since the story is still from Marie's perspective, all that the audience gets from Sion is his clear disappointment. Although never officially stated, viewers should have guessed by this point that Sion was actually the protagonist from Japan, but there is enough room for doubt.

For most of the episode, the audience is given the unique opportunity to enjoy the ambiguity of not knowing his true identity but still having the choice to interpret certain situations as though he were the protagonist. Ironically, everything changes when the episode ends with him revealing to the audience that he is, in fact, the protagonist from another world. Moreover, when the second episode begins just like every other isekai, it becomes immediately apparent that Magic Maker shouldn't have tried to stand out in the first episode.

Magic Maker's More Conventional Tropes Actually Work Better

What the first few minutes of the second episode accomplish is provide critical context to the aforementioned scene when Sion learns there's no magic in his new world, all while contributing to the overall focus of the story: why Sion is so driven to make magic there. Moreover, the second episode's opening scene takes place in his previous life the moment before he dies. Since it directly impacts that later conversation he has with his father, it becomes all the more critical in regard to the entire genre as a whole, since most isekai perplexingly ignore the protagonist's previous life.

Even without taking into consideration this opening scene's well-executed humor, the viewers are naturally inclined to begin asking themselves what the unique perspective from episode #1 actually added to the story. It doesn't add much. At the time, it just made viewers suspect Sion and begin to doubt the driving narrative of the story. But after switching to his perspective officially, most people likely view it as merely a random prologue. For it to have truly mattered, the anime would have had to have stayed with Marie for numerous episodes to build upon its suspense and ambiguity.

Worst of all, if the anime had begun with the second episode's opening scene and then followed the events from Sion's perspective, the moment he learned there wasn't magic would have been emotional for the viewer, since they would have found out all the details at the same time as him. But in reality, anime-goers can only look back at what happened and revisit it from this newer perspective secondhand, and the effect isn't nearly as drastic as it would have been.

Interestingly, only one other anime called Villainess Level 99: I May Be the Hidden Boss but I'm Not the Demon Lord recently attempted this same unconventional form of storytelling, but it was not as extreme. It switched to the real perspective less than halfway through the debut episode as opposed to the very end, creating a fun little twist without having to make any narrative sacrifices. Truth be told, Magic Maker: How to Make Magic in Another World should have attempted something similar, if not at all.