Raishin versus Yaya's combat synergy is the real draw here, watching a human fighter coordinate with an automaton that has actual personality creates fight choreography you don't see elsewhere. The steampunk aesthetic doesn't just sit there; it shapes every detail of how magic functions, how duels play out, how the world feels distinct. The 12 episodes move fast enough that you don't notice the story's incompleteness until after you've already fallen for these characters.

At the Walpurgis Royal Academy of Machinart, students train as puppeteers who command automatons. These aren't toys. They're products of Machinart, a blend of science and sorcery in which spell circuits give objects life and even a personality, first built as a military weapon and now found worldwide. Raishin Akabane enrolls to become the best puppeteer in the world, joined by Yaya, a lovely teenage girl who is really his puppet weapon. His test scores land him 1,235th of 1,236, but his combat skill and determination are second to none. To enter the Evening Party, a battle among puppeteers whose last survivor earns the title of Wiseman and access to forbidden arts, he must beat one of the top hundred students. His challenge to Charlotte Belew and her automaton Sigmund collapses when other students attack Sigmund first, and Raishin, pushed by tragedies in his past, has to find another way in.