A world where art becomes magic. In this world, people who can inspire passion with their Magic Arts are called Artistas, and are employed in show business. In Hoshinomori Private Magical Arts High School, where Artistas are taught, a strange new student named Kohana Aigasaki transfers into the school.
Kohana is placed on the planning committee for the school's yearly Hoshinomori Summer Festa cultural festival. She spends her romantic school life with six other boys who aim to become entertainers in the future. Each of the boys specializes in his own Arts, and aims to make Hoshi Fes a success. In addition, the boys also aim to be chosen alongside Kohana as the school's Artista Prince and Princess, only chosen once a year.
A multimedia franchise from Broccoli, Sunrise, and Pony Canyon, Magic Kyun Renaissance thus far consists of a visual novel otome game, a CD series, and an anime that aired during the Fall 2016 season.
Magic Kyun Renaissance provides examples of:
- Always Identical Twins: Monet and his brother Renoir are almost perfect mirror images. Aside from their clothes, the only difference is Renoir's hair has a slightly pinkish tinge.
- Affectionate Nickname: Louis has one for most of the main cast. Kohana is "little flower", Teika is "Georgie", Aoi is "Sumi", Monet is "Monesuke", Rintarou is "Rin-Rin". Kanato flips this around, being the one to call Louis "Angelo".
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Episode's 5 montage of solving problems from the opinion box include resolving a dispute among the students running the refreshment stand, finding enough students to man the parade, washing stains out of uniforms, finding enough players for the futsal team, and fixing the school's roof, the last of which, as Kohana notes, has nothing to do with the festival at all.
- Be Yourself:
- Both Teika and Aoi encourage Kohana to be this in Episode 3 after she imitates an ikebana display her mother once did and failed to produce sparkles, albeit in different ways. Teika takes a Cruel to Be Kind approach by disparaging Kohana's display and family name, and threatening to kick her off the Hoshi Festa's council if she continues to fail to produce sparkles. On the other hand, Aoi reflects on the ikebana display that Kohana made for him in the previous episode, remarking that it was one only she could make.
- In Episode 7, Rintarou's focus on passing the Artista Selection Exam leads to a failure to express this trope, as the principal dismisses his sculpture's workmanship as being stiff, noting that he did not express himself in the work. He fails his first two attempts because of this.
- Beach Bury: The other characters do this to Teika in Episode 10 while he is basking in the sun, covering him in sand and shaping it in the form of a teddy bear.
- Beach Episode: Episode 10 is this.
- Boarding School: Hoshinomori is one.
- Bridal Carry: When he first meets her, Teika catches Kohana in his arms in this manner after she falls off a balcony. He then promptly tosses her, whilst complaining about her weight.
- Broken Record: After all the guys, except Teika, compete with each other to see who will get the last dance with Kohana during the festival, she starts to have a mental breakdown, repeating the word "Why?" over and over again. The guys all agree to a temporary truce out of concern that her word repetition will turn into this.
- Celibate Hero: Kohana appears to be this in the anime, as she appears to be visibly uncomfortable at times with the guys competing over her and appears to only see them as friends rather than romantic interests. Averted in the visual novel, where each guy is romanceable on his own respective route.
- The Charmer: Louis, who has a sizeable group of female fans who turn up in force to watch his basketball matches with Kanato. When he declares that he'll stop playing basketball to focus more on dancing again, they are even more entranced by him.
- Chekhov's Skill: Initially introduced as an Artista who has sculpting as his discipline, Rintarou is seen perfecting his confectionery skills on the side in order to appease Monet, a Picky Eater. This becomes relevant in Episode 7, when said skills allow him to pass his Artista Selction Exam after two failed attempts through sculpting. On the recommendation of the principal, Rintarou switches his discipline to confectionery making.
- Childhood Friends: Teika and Aoi had this sort of relationship, though they appear to have drifted apart in the present day and are now heated rivals.
- Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Hoshinomori students wear differently colored collars and lapels to denote what year they are in. Green for first-years, purple for second-years, and white for third-years.
- Comforting Comforter: Finding Kanato asleep on the couch after his cello recital, Kohana drapes his uniform jacket over him, causing him to wake up and thank her. In the last episode, he later does the same to her, pulling her blanket up further while she is in a coma.
- Comically Missing the Point: When told by some students that they wish to open a cafe for the Hoshi Festa, Aoi assumes that they are asking him for advice on making coffee, and starts commenting on coffee beans, until Teika stops him.
- Cover Innocent Eyes and Ears:
- Aoi covers Kohana's eyes in this manner when Louis attempts to pose topless for his photo shoot.
- Juri later does the same when Louis attempts to practice archery topless during his competition with Kanato.
- A Day in the Limelight: The following episodes are this for various characters.
- Episode 2: Aoi
- Episode 3: Kohana
- Episode 4: Louis
- Episode 5: Kanato
- Episode 6: Monet
- Episode 7: Rintarou
- Episode 8: Teika
- Defrosting Ice Queen: Teika, whose distant, cold, and aloof demeanor was driven by pressure from his brothers to successfully organize the Hoshi Festa. After making peace with them, he is noticeably more affable towards others.
- Deliberately Monochrome: Monet paints in this manner, being known as the "Monochrome Prince".
- Despair Event Horizon: Kohana crosses it in Episode 12, when she's facing expulsion. Her pain is so great that she falls into a coma, and her arrangement turns into a mass of thorns that topple the Scala Artista staircase.
- Does Not Like Spam: Monet has a strong dislike of carrots. As a result, Rintarou occasionally attempts to secretly sneak them into food that he gives Monet.
- Early-Bird Cameo: In Episode 1, before she formally meets Teika, Kohana catches brief glimpses of the other guys practicing their magical arts and comments on the resulting sparkles they produce.
- Eccentric Artist: The whole cast has their quirks, but Aoi is a straight up Cloudcuckoolander. He mills about barefoot, lost in his own little world that revolves around calligraphy.
- Embarrassing Nickname: Because it phonetically sounds similar to his name, Cheiri, Mr. Todo is often referred to as "Cherry" by students. Unsurprisingly, he's less than pleased about this.
- "Eureka!" Moment: Rintarou has one when he presents his fellow council members with some cakes as a farewell gesture after failing his Artista Selection Exam twice and having to drop out of the school. It is Kohana remarking that she could see sparkles upon biting into the cake that inspires him to try the exam again, this time with confectionery rather than a sculpture. He finally passes as a result.
- Everything's Better with Sparkles: Being able to produce sparkles through Magic Arts is a sign of one's prowess as an Artista.
- Flower Motifs: Each guy is associated with a flower in the opening and ending themes.
- Teika: Gerbera
- Aoi: Lily
- Louis: Sunflower
- Kanato: Daisy
- Monet: Poppy
- Rintarou: Orchid
- Foil: Episode 4 frames Kohana and Louis' relationships with their respective mothers in this way. While Kohana had a kind and caring mother and picked up ikebana out of admiration for her, Louis' mother was a Stage Mom who forced him into dancing and treated him like a slave. While Kohana tries to invoke Generation Xerox as much as possible to keep her mother's memory alive, Louis buries his memories of his mother by assuming the persona of a Stepford Smiler. Both of their mothers are also out of the picture in the present day, Kohana's mother died in an accident, while Louis' mother abandoned him shortly before his enrolment in Hoshinomori.
- Foreshadowing: In Episode 1, Kohana notices Rintarou's Light of Artista smells like vanilla, which is the first time she doesn't regard how the sparkles look or feel. This is an early hint to Rintarou's true talent as a pastry chef, not as a sculptor.
- Forgets to Eat: Aoi suffers from this, as he is known to go without food for long stretches while refining his calligraphy.
- Friendly Rivalry: Louis and Kanato are occasionally seen competing with each other to score hoops in basketball.
- Generation Xerox:
- Kohana's mother Sakura specialized in ikebana and became the Artista Princess during her time at Hoshinomori. Having transferred to Hoshinomori and taking up ikebana, Kohana seems set to also become Artista Princess. Kohana even explicitly states in Episode 4 that deliberately invoking this trope is her goal.
- Rintarou attempts this as well, as his grandfather was a highly accomplished sculptor. However, after failing his Artista Selection Exam twice, he switches to confectionery making as his preferred discipline.
- Ghost Leg Lottery: In Episode 10, the characters use a ghost leg lottery to assign rooms at the beach villa.
- Good-Times Montage: The Leitmotifs for the guys, except for Teika's, are played over one of these featuring Kohana and the featured guy.
- Gratuitous English: Louis dips into this, prime example being calling Kohana his "little flower" in English. That's literally what her name means.
- Hairstyle Inertia: Kohana, Teika, Aoi, and Rintarou were revealed to have the same hairstyles in the present day as they did when they were children.
- Harem Genre: The anime appears to be going this route, with Kohana meeting and forming relationships with the six main guys.
- Held Back in School: Louis should have graduated the previous year, but he skipped too much class when he lost his passion for dancing.
- He Will Not Cry, so I Cry for Him: At the end of Episode 8, while overhearing Teika sing, Kohana notes that his sparkles underlie a hidden sadness in his singing that he refuses to outwardly express. By the end of Teika's song, Kohana is in tears.
- How Do I Shot Web?: Kohana has a case of this in Episode 3, when she copies an ikebana display from her mother and fails to produce sparkles from it. It turns out that she was so focused on imitating the display that she neglected the spirit of the art itself. It takes remembering her mother's advice and Teika and Aoi telling her to be herself for her to create proper sparkles from an ikebana display.
- I Can't Dance: Kohana is revealed to be unable to dance. The focal point of Episode 4 entails her learning how to do so as a requirement for the Hoshi Festa, along with her developing a relationship with Louis as he teaches her.
- In Medias Res: Episode 1 starts out with Kohana and the guys preparing to start the Hoshinomori Summer Festa before rewinding back to Kohana's childhood and her arrival at the school as a New Transfer Student. The scene in question later appears again in its proper chronological location in Episode 9.
- Innocent Flower Girl: With her love of ikebana and her lack of interest in romance, Kohana is given this portrayal in the anime. It's also emphasized when she becomes a Destructive Artista and falls into a coma as a result.
- Jeopardy! Intelligence Test: Aoi does this while Juri is quizzing him and the other guys, ratting off the correct answers to all the questions, before Juri even has a chance to read out the questions themselves.
- Lady Killer In Love: Louis flirts with any girl he meets, and he only barely eases up after falling for Kohana.
- Leitmotif: Each of the guys has one, which appears in his focus episode.
- Teika: "A light called you"
- Aoi: "My world, Your world"
- Louis: "Step of Happiness!"
- Kanato: "Rainbow Star"
- Monet: "Shiny color"
- Rintarou: "Sweets à la mode"
- Massive Numbered Siblings: Kanato is the oldest of five siblings.
- Meaningful Name:
- Kohana's first name translates to "little flower", while her last name, "Aigasaki", translates to "love blooms".
- The kanji for Kanato's first name translates to "sound", and his last name translates to "echo".
- The sumi in Aoi's last name, Suminomiya, translates to "ink".
- Men Can't Keep House: Aoi, who is so single-mindedly obsessed with his calligraphy that he neglects the cleanliness of his room; it has papers strewn everywhere and ink splashed on the walls.
- Missing Mom: Kohana's mother passed away in an accident when she was ten.
- Multiple Endings: The movie had different screenings in which Koharu ended up awakening in bed with one of the boys.
- Musicalis Interruptus: A more serious iteration of this trope than most examples; Teika stops singing his Leitmotif when Kohana calls out to him.
- Named After Somebody Famous: Monet, whose name may be derived from French Impressionist Claude Monet.
- New Transfer Student: Kohana is this, having failed to enter Hoshinomori from the beginning due to having a bad fever on the day of the entrance exams, and thus having to take a transfer exam later on instead.
- No Romantic Resolution: Despite all the guys clearly being romantically interested in Kohana, the anime ends this way, as she does not display any such feelings towards any of them in return. This is averted in the visual novel, where each guy can be pursued as a potential boyfriend by Kohana.
- The Perfectionist: Monet needs everything to be just so, or he quits on the spot. This is reflected in his art; people say his sketches are "perfect" as they are, so he's apprehensive about experimenting with colors. His Character Development is about stepping out of his comfort zone and gaining the courage to fail.
- Performance Anxiety: After failing to produce sparkles when Kohana copies an ikebana display made by her mother, several of her schoolmates openly voice their disappointment with her talents. To save Kohana's reputation, Cheiri quickly passes off her inability to produce sparkles as this.
- Picky Eater: Rintarou notes that Monet is this, which drives his efforts to refine his confectionery making skills.
- Plucky Girl: Determined to stay true to her mother's memory and to get the guys to join the council, Kohana is this. This is especially true on the latter point, as she is insistent on getting to know all the guys and solving their problems, despite being told that it would be easier to simply find new council members instead.
- Power Gives You Wings: Louis has the ability to form his sparkles into a pair of wings on his back to enhance the visual appeal of his dancing. However, he can't actually use them to fly.
- Powers in the First Episode: Kohana creates her own sparkles for the first time in Episode 1, when she gives Teika some flowers.
- Reclusive Artist: Aoi, whose obsession with calligraphy leads him to shut himself in his own room to work and study, skipping out on classes and only coming out on very rare occasions. It's gotten to the point that some students, like Monet, are unaware that he even exists. Kohana helping him overcome his lack of inspiration has led him to come out of his room slightly more often.
- School Festival: Kohana preparing for the one at Hoshinomori and trying to convince the guys that make up the festival's planning committee to attend meetings forms the plot of the anime.
- Selective Obliviousness: Monet is irate that he was chosen to be on the Hoshi Festa committee without being consulted first, and resorts to ignoring anyone other than Rintarou who brings up the matter.
- Sexy Discretion Shot: Played with. All of the Multiple Endings has a scene in which Kohana wakes up in bed with her chosen Love Interest. Given that both of them are fully dressed and the dialogue is intimate yet nonsexual in nature, it is unknown if anything racier actually occurred.
- Shout-Out: Kohana's ordeal as a Destructive Artista mirrors the plot of Sleeping Beauty, as she falls into a coma whilst insisting on practicing her magical art. During her Adventures in Comaland she is surrounded by thorny vines just like the princess in the original story, while the guys assume roles similar to the prince when attempting to wake her up. The play performed by the council is also an adaptation of Sleeping Beauty, though Juri takes a lot of liberties with the script.
- Significant Wardrobe Shift: When Monet starts to come out of his shell, he switches from a black and white uniform to an aquamarine one.
- Snow Means Death: Snowflake-shaped sparkles are characteristic of Destructive Artistas, individuals who are very attuned to the Light of Arte, and tend to destroy themselves out of single-minded devotion to their magical art. As a result, the academy typically encourages students with such sparkles to drop out and cease practicing magical arts, out of concern for their well-being. Kohana becomes one such individual, and falls into a coma while attempting to practice her magical art in defiance of the principal's warnings. While unconscious, her Adventures in Comaland also evoke this trope, with her being trapped in a snowy landscape and abandoned by her friends, all the while wishing she could fall asleep in despair.
- Sour Outside, Sad Inside: Teika is this because of the pressure his older brothers are putting on him to become Artista Prince. As a result, he bottles up his feelings and puts on a stern and cold demeanor towards others. Despite his denials, Aoi and Kohana both note that he is sad on the inside, the former through observation by virtue of being Childhood Friends with Teika, and the latter because she detected a sad feeling in his sparkles when he sings.
- Stage Mom: Louis' mother was one, as she constantly pushed for him to be a dance champion and berated him for even taking breaks during practice. She would eventually abandon him to fend for himself, shortly before Hoshinomori's principal invited him to attend the school.
- Stepford Smiler: Louis is revealed to be one of the depressed variety, as traumatized by his mother's constant pressures on him to be a dancing champion, he eventually swore off dancing and crafted a persona as a charmer and joker to hide this inner turmoil.
- Supreme Chef: Apart from his specialty as a sculptor, Rintarou is this, having perfected his confectionery skills in a bid to invoke Through His Stomach from Monet. Episode 10 reveals that he is also adept at barbecuing as well.
- Talking with Signs: Aoi occasionally uses calligraphy in this manner.
- Terrible Artist: With the exception of Monet and Rintarou, everyone else turns out to be this, as seen when they try to draw the Scala Artista in Episode 6 for the front cover of the festival's pamphlet. Monet unsurprisingly, subverts this since drawing is his discipline, while Rintarou demonstrates his talent in drawing, and subversion of this trope, in the following episode when he shows Kohana the concept art he drew for his sculptures.
- Third Time's The Charm: Rintarou passes his Artista Selection Exam on his third attempt.
- This Is Your Song: The Leitmotifs for the guys, except for Teika's, follow this trope, as they are directed towards Kohana.
- Through His Stomach: Rintarou spends much of his time preparing treats for his cousin, Monet, as a sign of affection.
- Unknown Rival: Teika and Aoi are ranked as the top two students most likely to attain the title of Artista Prince. While Teika is serious about the title and resentful towards Aoi for not taking the competition seriously, Aoi is indifferent to or unaware of Teika's feelings on the matter. Kohana was also this towards Teika until he publicly declared her his enemy upon discovering who her mother was at the end of Episode 1, leaving the girl confused as to his sudden change in behavior from earlier in the episode.
- Unwanted Harem: Subtly implied where Kohana's relationship with the guys is concerned, as she is visibly overwhelmed at the idea of them competing to see who will have the last dance with her during the festival. Additionally, she tenses up when Juri mentions that one of the guys would have a kissing scene with her as the princess in a Sleeping Beauty play, leading to a few of them jostling for the role. She then visibly relaxes when Juri clarifies that it's pretend, and no one would actually be kissing her.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: Teika is this towards his two older brothers, who are pushing him to become Artista Prince and outshine Kohana, along with bringing the family name to global heights. To that end, he trains himself relentlessly and shuts Aoi out of his life and affairs, the latter noting that as a child, Teika's singing was considerably warmer and more genuine.
- We Named the Monkey "Jack": Monet calls his pet hedgehog Rin after his cousin Rintarou, whom he considers annoying.
- Wizarding School: Hoshinomori Private Magical Arts High School, which trains its students in the Magic Arts.
- You Were Trying Too Hard: Rintarou realizes this during his second attempt to pass the Artista Selection Exam, as he noted that he was too caught up in trying to pass the exam instead of the reason why he became an Artista, to make people smile. He passes his third attempt by presenting the principal with a plate of macaroons, rather than a sculpture, utilizing a skill he had all along, but never bothered to capitalize on until that point.
- Unrequited Love Lasts Forever: It is heavily implied Mr. Todo has unresolved feelings for Kohana's mother Sakura, who not only had a child with another man but passed away.
