The Series (4/5)

    Magic of Stella is an awesome slice of life anime that deals with Tamaki, a young girl entering high school. She is excited about the prospect, but is filled with anxiety about the many choices that are out before her. However, Tamaki is a talented artist, and with her artistic talents she finds herself picked up by an indie video game club with 3 other young girls as members. The other 3 girls plus Tamaki work hard together to get their games working to attend conventions, all the while learning the tricks of the trade.

    I watch everything from classic and exploitation cinema, so once in a while it's nice to get lost in something that is just calm, cute, and meanders along for a while. That is precisely what Magic of Stella is at its core. There is no great plot running through it. Yes, the girls have deadlines set to make their video games, but in the end it's less about story about characters and their responses to one another and their situations then about a certain narrative flow. As such it is just kind of cool to hang out with these teenage aspiring game designers and developers for a small chunk of time.

   The show is animated with a bright, cutesy simple style by Silver Link who also did Non Non Biyori. This style is a perfect fit for the breezy cute quality of the show and just looks excellent.  The writing for the charactesr is solid, and really gives  most of them (some of the more minor ones tend to fade in the background) distinct and interesting personalities.

Audio/Video (4/5)

    Section 23 presents Magic of Stella in a quite solid 1:78:1 1080p AVC encoded transfer. Everything here looks quite nice with excellent color reproduction and detail.

     Audio is handled by a DTS-HD MA 2.0 track in Japanese which is clear and concise with no issues.

Extras (1/5)

    Clean opening and closing credits are included.

Overall

   A very simple, but entertaining slice of life anime Magic of Stella is quite easy to recommend. The Blu-ray looks and sounds excellent, but is limited in its extras slate. RECOMMENDED.