I really had problems getting enthusiastic about this one as it appeared on the surface to be a mixed-bag of really unoriginal ideas just slapped together. After getting half-way through it my initial thoughts were confirmed; and, to be honest, there were several times I was quite tempted to stop before completing the series. The best way I could describe this is a "try hard" show: It tries to be a mystery thriller; it tries to have elements of a teenage romantic drama; it tries to have elements of action, comedy, paranormal investigation, and so forth.  Unfortunately, it doesn't settle on one and develop that theme into a solid story. Pacing of the story is rather slow as it takes four episodes to actually get into the swing of things and establish the relationships between the main characters, during which several minor (and fairly minor) characters have already been killed off. Big fights are sometimes spread over two, sometimes more, episodes and everything appears to be really drawn-out with lots of frivolous dialogue and self-introspection (or Ayano having another hissy fit at Kazuma). A typical story, in my view, that is tightly scripted would take one episode, maybe two episodes to play out. In this case you can usually expect two episodes for one story, sometimes up to four. Basically, there was little in the way of actual story development to hold my attention as it wanders all over the place as well as plenty of filler episodes (such as the amusement park episode, the hot springs episode, the disturbed restaurant dinner episode, the foreign interloper episodes, etc.). Things did tend to stabilise a bit from about episode 19 for the final arc, but that was too late to rescue a wandering story. This series would have been quite decent and well-paced if it cut down to 12 or 13 episodes. So, I'll have to be blunt and say the story wasn't great because it was so long-winded and wandering; but, then again, it wasn't absolute rubbish either.

Regarding the main characters: Take one teenage boy who was heir to a great family; beaten in a fight with another person because he couldn't handle the family's secret ability — fire sorcery and subsequently exiled from his family; comes back years later as the "black sheep of the family" with kick-ass wind powers, a chip off his shoulder and an attitude to match. Take one teenage girl who beat the boy and adopted the role of heir to the family; plays with fire magic, has red hair, and a fiery hot-headed haughty attitude; you get the idea… Put them together (against their wills) to solve supernatural mysteries and take out other evil-doers. Someone once told me that differences make good sparks. Someone else once told me that fire and wind should not mix together. In this case, the second person was right. Kazuma, the boy, has the whole "cool bad-ass" thing down pat: arrogance, strong will, supreme confidence in his abilities, and virtually indestructible thanks to his high-level contract. Ayano, the girl, could be seen as a typical "tsundere": wilful, impetuous, invariably angry (which is apparently necessary to invoke the fire magic at a strength sufficient to do suitable damage), gets upset at the slightest adverse or conspiratorial thing said about her, but still has a long way to go before she can control her magic fully. There was little in the way of main character development as Kazuma and Ayano just appeared to be "going through the motions" in my view — get into a situation, argue with each other, Ayano gets angry and fires up, both of them beat up the monster, wash, rinse and repeat. Remaining characters held little in the way of interest, such as the current head of the family ends up playing match-maker and always puts Kazuma and Ayano together to solve cases — with varying degrees of success. Probably one of the more interesting character was Ren: younger brother to Kazuma and adoptive younger brother to Ayano. He plays the loveable intermediary and tries to get both Kazuma and Ayano to at least be civil to each other. He likes both of them very much, and gets upset when the winds and fireballs fly. He has a small story arc and romantic interest, which was arguably one of the more interesting arcs of the series and got quite emotional. Interaction between the characters was, in some parts, the highlight often when Kazuma was deliberately riling up Ayano to get her angry (and, hence, powerful); but even that became old fairly quickly. The so-called romantic angle didn't fire up any inspiration as either Kazuma became too aloof, or Ayano made a mess of things by jumping to the wrong conclusion and then shooting off her mouth (and/or a fireball).

The artwork is, in short, adequate. Produced in 2007 the show is presented in a 16:9 widescreen format, which is fairly typical of a contemporary production.  Animated by Gonzo, there is an attractive and vibrant colour palette. Settings are more-or-less detailed and consistent, even if they appear to be very stock-standard cities, hot pools, shrines, parks, and so forth. Character designs are also stock-standard with Kazuma looking tall and ominous, while trying to look cool and aloof. Ayano is always shown in her school uniform (for the inevitable panty shot) and one segment shows her choosing clothes to go out — three school uniforms! She always goes into super-deformed mode when she gets angry, including the fang. Exceptions to Ayano's uniform are rare, and include an elegant dress that ends up shredded (with panty shot), or something more revealing for the hot springs episode. There is, again, plenty of stock footage that gets hauled out repeatedly, such as Ayano's "sword extraction" routine or Kazuma's "azure eyes" routine. Other characters are straight-out-of-the-text-book, such as the domineering father being tall and severe; the head of the family being older and severe; Ayano's school friends are tall and slender with blue hair or average-sized with glasses and brown hair (I couldn't help but think the three of them were just like Hikaru, Umi and Fuu from Magic Knight Rayearth); other minor characters (usually cannon-fodder) having no distinguishing features about them at all. I could go on, but there's no point. It appears that most of the visual budget was spent on the fight scenes as the animation and CGI steps up a couple of notches, becoming quite fast and fluid at times. The attention to the fight sequences however does not in my view make up for what is only an adequate visual presentation.

Audio comes with a Dolby Digital 5.1 English track and a 2.0 Japanese track. I listened to the original Japanese track and was satisfied, but not inspired by the voices. The voices for the characters performed simply as expected: Kazuma is arrogant and aloof; Ayano is brash and feisty, except when she wants to be coy and uncertain. No surprises there. The music did its job in the background and was unobtrusive, also unnoticeable. Opening and ending themes were plain and were always skipped. Again, they weren't "bad", but they didn't give me anything special to warrant them being watched through fully.

Extras on Disc 4 include a clean opening and closing themes; an extra segment called Ayano's House Call All You Can Eat Buffet, which is a six-part segment featuring presentations from the original Japanese voice actors; and Madman trailers. The Ayano's House Call segment didn't have much to do with the original show, but was a series of promotional stops featuring various voice actors.

Bottom line: A plodding and wandering story; unremarkable and unengaging characters that didn't grow on you; adequate artwork and audio; and a few extras does not rescue this series from mediocrity. Some people may like it for the "mixed bag" of things it tries to achieve, but it was precisely the mixed bag that turned me off it because of the lack of focus on a decent story or plot. The characters seemed to be static, Kazuma particularly, with little in the way of development shown. A pity, though, as I thought Kazuma arguably had the most potential to gain. As I said at the beginning, this series could be a "try hard" show — I tried hard to enjoy it, I tried hard to get through it (and succeeded, barely). Bottom end of 3 stars for a show that isn't actually bad, as in shocking, but I certainly didn't come out of the end of it feeling satisfied and thinking that I'd want to go through it again. This one will go to the back of the shelf and most likely stay there.