This Anime Series With a ‘Harry Potter’ Twist Has Taken Over the Netflix Charts

Even though the new Harry Potter series has been moving at full speed ahead, fans will still have to wait a while until they can go back to Hogwarts. Anime fans, however, have something similar to keep themselves entertained while HBO doesn’t start rolling out HP episodes. Mashle: Magic and Muscles is already on its way to Season 3, but the arrival of Season 2 on the Netflix catalog has shown the streaming platform’s potential to bring new stories to wider audiences. This past week, the fantasy anime series raked in over 1.3 million views and ranked among the most-watched titles in the library.

As the title suggests, Mashle: Magic and Muscles isn’t just about fantasy. The anime series has a slate of similarities with Harry Potter, starting with the fact that protagonist Mash Burnedead (voiced by Chiaki Kobayashi in the original Japanese and by Aleks Le in the English dub) goes to a magic school. The difference is that the boy is not a great fan of magic users, and he goes to Easton Magic Academy with the intent of proving that he has every right to become a Divine Visionary, even if he doesn’t use magic spells like his peers. And it’s not like he doesn’t want to use magic: Mash has no magic blood in his veins, and the title he seeks is only given to the very best Easton students.

Even though Mashle: Magic and Muscles has been around for a couple of years, there’s a whole new slate of fans who are just hearing about it and discovering the unique and funny twist that the anime series gives to fantasy stories. The show features a blend of comedy and top-notch action sequences, and fans have praised it for not only being an excellent satire to stories similar to Harry Potter, but also for standing on its own when it comes to its magic versus muscles combats.

Is ‘Mashle: Magic and Muscles’ Good?

In viewing numbers, Mashle: Magic and Muscles managed to outperform other Netflix titles like Aniela and the new Netflix limited series, Secrets We Keep. Should the series retain its popularity, it could go on to become one of the biggest anime titles of the year for the streamer. On Rotten Tomatoes, fans gave the series an overall 88% score. Newcomers will soon join the big number of fans patiently waiting for Season 3, which has already been confirmed. Even though no official release date has been announced at this point, fans are confident that the series will return at some point in 2025.

Mashle: Magic and Muscles hails from A-1 Pictures, the same animation studio that handles titles like Sword Art Online, The Seven Deadly Sins, and mega hit Solo Leveling. Mashle is yet another addition to the ever-growing anime catalog, which already features titles like Sakamoto Days, DanDaDan, Witch Watch and The Apothecary Diaries.