Orphen

A rogue sorcerer named Orphen, on a mission to save his friend Azalie, becomes a teacher himself when he takes on an apprentice named Majic.

A young and beautiful girl named Cleao Everlasting coems home from boarding school to live with her mother and sister for the summer holidays.

Majutsushi Orphen Mubouhen
4 & 1/2 Stars

A rogue sorcerer named Orphen, on a mission to save his friend Azalie, becomes a teacher himself when he takes on an apprentice named Majic.

A young and beautiful girl named Cleao Everlasting coems home from boarding school to live with her mother and sister for the summer holidays.

Cleao thought she was going to have another quiet summer back at her family’s mansion, but she was dead wrong.  It’s a coincidence that Cleao’s path crosses with Orphen and Majic, but they do have something in common.  Cleao’s father bought her an old sword for her 15th birthday, but what they did not know is that that very sword is magical, the magical sword of Baltanders.

Long ago Orphen was known as Krylancelo Finrandi, and his friend and mentor Azalie was not a dragon.  Azalie became obsessed, even power hungry, with having more power.  She learned of the sword of Baltanders, but even obsessive studies did not give her the knowledge of how to properly use the ancient artifact.  Azalie used the sword which started her path towards The Bloody August, a dragon with immense powers.

Orphen has been chasing The Bloody August for five long years before he met his companions Majic and Cleao.  The three of them go on an epic adventure to save Azalie and encounter stone assassins, old friends, ex-masters and a wolven cub named Leki who Cleao adopts.  The ex-masters of Orphen are working against him, or so he thinks.

The last five or so episodes are such a twist, that I cannot reveal the ending.  I was sold on the first five or so episodes, then the filler for 15 episodes got old, but I understood it was building on the story and allowing other characters to come in the adventure to tie up the ending.  The last five episodes were fantastic.  The ending is what really made the series worth watching.  I watched it dubbed, and got stuck watching one subbed some how, and thoroughly enjoyed the subbed version, so I recommend that.

Character development was decent, you pretty much get a feel for everyone right off the bat, but relationships flower, you start to hope one works, and the other does not.  The anime deals with backstabbing, killing dolls, dragons, sorcery, betrayal, a hidden love and sex changes.  Odd mix of things in this, but it keeps you on your toes.