It's not uncommon for the manga or anime versions of light novels to feel incomplete on the details, but rarely do they suffer as much as Anti-Magic Academy: The 35th Test Platoon's adaptation. This omnibus of Yōhei Yasumura's manga version of Tōki Yanagimi's novels not only feels condensed, but it also suffers from confusing artwork and scene changes, as well as several clearly important characters not even being named, much less explored. If it's meant to encourage you to check out more, it might be considered at most an accidental success, because while it's clear that there's probably an interesting story in here somewhere, this manga definitely hasn't shown it.

The plot follows the 35th Test Platoon at a school that trains students to be Inquisitors. Rather than rounding up religious minorities, these inquisitors are solely focused on witches, malicious magic users who create weapons with magic, dabble in necromancy, and just generally appear to have the destruction of humanity in mind. Students who graduate from the Anti-Magic Academy are able to become Inquisitors, grouped by ability into “test platoons” for practice, with groups of students whose skills complement each other mimicking real-life battle formations. The bottom of this hierarchy belongs to the three members of the 35th: Takeru (a swordsman in a gun world), Usagi (a sniper who can't even face the right direction), and Ikaruga (an overzealous gunsmith). When the story opens, they've yet to complete a single mission with anything resembling success, becoming the joke of the whole school. Things may not seem like they could possibly get worse, so of course the academy director sticks his troublesome adopted daughter with them. Ouka was a full-fledged Inquisitor despite still being in high school, but her tendency toward excessive violence (killing virtually everyone remotely witchy) landed her in hot water, so her father decided that putting her under Takeru's care was the best plan.

The director is the most outwardly shady figure in the story, and he's also the one who suffers the most from the abbreviated explanations given. We can piece together Takeru's past and Ouka gets a full flashback, but the random bad guys just seem generically bad. They don't get much in the way of motivation or even names, and while their lack of development is annoying, it's also easier to accept than the director's. This is largely because a token effort is made to give him both backstory and motivation, as well as the impression that he's manipulating things behind the scenes for his own potentially nefarious purposes. Since none of those things are taken beyond the most basic surface level, he comes off as a caricature of the villain he's clearly supposed to be.

But neither Takeru or Ouka comes off as terribly developed either. Both have the requisite tragic pasts, and Takeru's devotion to the sword in an age where guns are the norm is explored just enough to make sense within the confines of the omnibus' plot. (This book covers the first two episodes of the anime and presumably the first novel.) Ouka comes off as particularly annoying, so caught up in her own angst that she has no control of her reactions to anything, flying off the handle in deadly ways without even attempting to hold back. She's dangerously unpredictable in an organization that clearly styles itself as a military force, and the fact that she can't see why her actions are such a problem speaks volumes about her character. The events of the manga's final chapter make it clear that Takeru is on his way to getting through to her, so it feels like things cut off just when she's about to make major strides as a character, essentially depriving us of the payoff for sticking with her up to this point.

Artistically, the volume is also a mess. While it's clear that Yasumura is capable of drawing dynamic images (the ninth page of chapter five is a good example), he's not delivering on that skill enough. There are certainly a few reasons why the art would prioritize distractingly unsexy fanservice over other things, but it doesn't do the book any favors, as the characters' figures shift from page to page. (Usagi and Ouka suffer the most from this.) The fact that the uniforms have a weird belt vaguely reminiscent of the harnesses from Attack on Titan except with a strap right under the breast for both men and women doesn't help – it serves no discernable purpose, is never explained, and just makes everyone look strange.

There's likely at least a somewhat interesting story lurking somewhere in the Anti-Magic Academy franchise, but you're not going to find it here. With inconsistent art, an underdeveloped plot, and characters who are clearly shadows of themselves, this doesn't feel like the best way to experience the story. If you're already familiar with it, you may get more out of the manga, but otherwise, this isn't likely to win the franchise any new fans.