First off, title of the first episode. 'The Magic Knights' Greatest Crisis.' Like, really? Calling the laundry monster their greatest crisis would make about as much sense.
Now, something I brought up in the chat and thought I'd touch more upon here: The Slap Scene, and how some of the anime changes end up making it less justifiable.
This is a scene depicting what appears to be a teenager (Umi) smacking what appears to be a child (Ascot), and we're supposed to be taking Umi's side. If both of them looked like teenagers or Ascot appeared older, you could get away with a lot more in this regard, but since physically speaking, the power differential seems to be in Umi's favor, we need extra justification. In order for this to work, we need to believe that one, Ascot really deserved it, and two, that there was no other way to resolve this.
For the first, yeah, Ascot totally deserved it. You won't find me arguing that he did nothing wrong, cause quite frankly, he did a shit-ton wrong and others ended up suffering because of it. As for the second, well, here's where we get into manga vs. anime territory.
In the manga, when Umi slaps him, they're in the middle of fighting. One of his friends has Hikaru and Fuu, he's joking about playing with them like dolls, Umi's probably starting to wear out by now, and Ascot probably has more creatures he can call to his aid if need be. The odds are totally in his favor, so Umi is totally justified in doing whatever it takes to get this lil shit to stop. She could kill him at this point and it'd be fair game, kid or not.
In the anime, not so much. By the time she slaps him, he's already let Hikaru and Fuu go, and he's not attacking them. Still blaming them for everything, sure, but by now, things have de-escalated to talking. Deserved or not, slapping him was unnecessary.
So, yeah, those are my thoughts for now.