Anime: Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei

Do you like boredom? Do you like agony? Do you fancy the sensation of feeling like your soul is being pruned from your lifeless, withered husk of a body? If so, then boy do I have the anime for you! It’s called: Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei. I repeat, Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei. In just 26 episodes, you’ll feel like you were quarantined in your room for a year as all life ceases to shine from your eyes! Call now at 1-800-XXX-XXXX or text “KILL ME” to this number!

What does one go about describing Mahouka? Is it bad decorum to just go “generic OP MC with lifeless harem, wish fulfillment bad” and call it a day? Perhaps, as wish fulfillment isn’t inherently a bad thing. People often come to entertainment mediums to escape, sometimes self-insert into fun stories with likable, memorable protagonists who are about as cool as the scenarios they tackle. They might identify with the characters or be so fascinated by the culture and worldbuilding on display that they wish they were there themselves. Harem shows and isekai are often born out of this idea, even the better ones such as Tenchi Muyo or That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime. That begs the question: what about Mahouka, or Irregular at Magic High School, is so bad that it ends up becoming the antithesis of fun?

Well, obviously, your mileage may vary as sometimes people just wanna watch an overpowered badass do overpowered badass things while getting surrounded by beautiful girls. It’s a classic high school power fantasy. The problem with Mahouka is multi-layered but can best be described as “everything working in tandem to make the experience as lifeless as humanly possible”. A show doesn’t need to be deep or emotionally compelling to be entertaining, but it does need a soul. Mahouka does not have a soul. It is devoid of tension, bereft of spectacle, missing even a trace of genuine emotion or humanity. It’s not “just some generic LN high school battle anime”. Chivalry of a Failed Knight is what one would call “just some generic LN high school battle anime”, but it feels like people actually cared about presenting it in a fun, enticing way beyond just looking at the “otaku-pandering checklist”. Mahouka no Koukou Rettousei is just dead and broken. Fossils have more of a pulse than this show.

One does need to start somewhere in order to get into why, so let’s look at the protagonist. Tatsuya Shiba is a lobotomized God. He is about as infallible as protagonists can get. He’s every generic LN protagonist you can think of, but worse. The only “flaw” they decided to give him was that he can’t pass some stupid magic block aptitude test when he is literally invincible and perfect at just about everything otherwise. The dude’s a better hacker than Kirito from Sword Art Online. He knows just about every single combat system under the sun --we'll get to that-- and can pretty much cheese every fight he has with someone outside of a sparring match with his master. The man has nigh-instant regeneration powers, and it’s actually worse than it sounds because of reasons explained in the finale which further elevate OJesus-sama way past the point of Gary Stu status, which he had already achieved in the first half of the show. GodSuya is so good at magitech that not only has he been responsible for the bulk of his society’s and military’s technological and magical development under the pseudonym Taurus Silver since he was 7, but he’s able to look at scientists’ constant failed tests regarding flight magic, and both create and refine the system in an afternoon!

This happens offscreen, and isn’t even the most audacious thing about how holy or infallible he is. The second half of the show somehow one-ups this arguably twice, and it all borders on self-parody.

All of this would be at least somewhat palatable if GodSuya had a fun, vibrant personality to make the viewers root for him. Unfortunately, we live in a cruel, heartless world where all of his emotions except for love for his sister --which is a state of being, not an emotion-- have been sealed off. We don’t get to see what’s inside his head, either. He’s just this almost exclusively stoic badass who’s slightly off on jovial social cues. There’s no other way the audience gets to see his personality in action or really learn what makes him tick. There’s no internal struggle, there’s no interesting personality quirk, there’s just about nothing here. What you see is what you get, and there’s hardly much of a view to take in. When the only sense of flavor your protagonist has is “bitch better cover up” and “huh, my sister is in love with me, oh well, also she should really calm down” something has gone incredibly wrong. He honestly might be one of the worst characters...ever, straight-up.

Speaking of Miyuki, she’s just as insufferable for completely different reasons. She’s a pokemon, not a person. Half of her dialogue is just her screeching “onii-sama” because “I want to fuck my brother” is basically the only noteworthy thing about her aside from her looks and constant apologizing. She is so ungodly annoying, which makes it all the more deflating that she’s the only relevant character even remotely as capable as GodSuya since she effortlessly trounces all of her opponents as well. She also marks the start of his harem as early as the weird shoujo climax-esque first scene of the series premiere.

Other non-harem shows such as Irresponsible Captain Tylor and arguably Code Geass had harems for their main characters, but each girl who fell in love with their respective protagonists each had their own vibrant, distinct, well-defined, and explored personalities. This show does not; what a surprise. Mayumi, Erika, and even some random chick who hacks the school just to get GodSuya to notice him are also participants and while they have their own personality quirks and Erika has her own unrelated subplot, none of them are very likable, interesting, or anything other than bland and dull.

In addition to being bland, some of these characters are unreasonably douchey. Erika’s a dick to her brother for the sake of her subplot, while Hanzo, a member of the student council, really hates GodSuya. Anyone who disagrees with GodSuya is inherently wrong, but in this case, he’s wrong because he’s a bigoted asshole “bloom” aka an upperclass “I have better magic stats” guy while GodSuya is a “weed”, someone who sucked at the block pushing test. That is the general hierarchy of the school and the only real attempt at any thematic confrontation in the anime, or rather, the first arc since that largely goes away by the second half. This is what defines Hanzo for a large chunk of the series and while he does improve, he’s still barely even a character. There’s a large ensemble cast but almost none of the characters matter or have anything interesting to say about them. They’re just sorta...there, at best, with almost no relevance outside of specific moments in the first and third arcs, such as Kirihara. The cast is just that devoid of life, and as a result, there is almost no sense of chemistry in the show. When the best thing that can be said is “hey, some of them are cute and have maybe a few slightly chuckle-worthy interactions” like Kyouko, there’s a real problem here.

You probably don’t even know who half of these people are, even if you’ve seen the show. Be honest.

It doesn’t help that the plots are about as weak as the one-dimensional villains instigating them. Some manipulator who turns out to be a little bitch once GodSuya reaches him, plants the seeds for the proletariat “weeds” to lobby up to make demands of and attempt to uphieve the hierarchy established and cruelly enforced by the bourgeoisie “blooms”, only for them to be painted as the bad guys on blanket terms because they were a little too rough and some terrorists ruined everything. Corporate guys do corporate money-grubbing things in the 2nd arc, and it’s up to Tatsuya to assassinate them following a “battle of the schools” tournament before the military gets involved and things get really crazy in the city for the third arc that makes up the last 4 episodes. There is no sense of transition between these two arcs. Ignoring the appalling implications of the first arc, these storylines barely even mean anything and are just an excuse for characters to endlessly babble about the convoluted magitech and combat systems at their disposal as GodSuya and his sister endlessly make quick work of anyone who opposes them.

Actually, we need to dive a bit deeper into those implications and the worldbuilding of the show because it is frankly RWBY levels of bad, possibly even worse. The first arc is basically how magically adept “blooms” discriminate against “weeds”, and how the school and its student council barely do anything to combat this outside of sending out people to deal with brawls despite the fact that it is in direct violation of school rules. Naturally, “weeds” are fed up with this and try to challenge the system. This is why, even outside of how some of them got utterly punked by some manipulator trying to tear the school apart by inciting a class war, they’re the bad guys who get assisted by terrorists. GodSuya may be a weed, but he is the exception rather than the rule. Blooms disrespecting weeds is wrong, but they need to learn their fucking place and not try to incite a revolution. Class traitor GodSuya over here is the one who the blooms need to treat with respect because he is a powerful and respectable individual who is secretly Steve Jobs and Bill Gates combined, while the structure can remain the same if blooms aren’t as blatantly dickish to weeds.

Kinda fucked ain’t it? Well, guess what: this might as well work in Mahouka’s world because this conflict is almost never brought up again outside of when people need a reason to be objectively wrong and bad by giving OJesus-sama grief. Nothing is fundamentally changed outside of us not needing to see that kind of systemic conflict since it no longer matters.

What will always matter, though, is the sheer number of combat systems the show never shuts up about. Episode 1 shoves 5 combat systems down our throats with basically no breathing room to explain any of them. There are 3 hand-to-hand fighting styles they don’t really go into explaining and so they’re essentially interchangeable. There’s regular magitech that come in the forms of both the run-of-the-mill school level CAD stuff and highly dangerous non-military magic,, military magitech, regular military equipment for its own kind of combat, and giant robots. Good luck figuring out how a lot of these work for a while, especially when everything except for regular military equipment and giant robots are thrown in during the 2nd half to turn 5 systems into 7. Obviously, magic systems are going to be intricate and complex a lot of the time, and whenever super cool and highly specific techniques are thrown into the mix, they’ll often still fall under the umbrella of a primary combat system that require an explanation the first time before they just become standard usage. Look at most shounens like Naruto, Fairy Tail, etc. Even RWBY, which eventually has a lot thrown at you with almost none of it making any sense or being consistent, at least allows you to really get to know a lot of the basic mechanics before it starts breaking them or introducing new ones.

Mahouka does not do any of this. You don’t have room to breathe in the first episode, and a lot of the more broad explanations of the mechanics come later. This hurts worse than you think, and that’s not just because there’s so much you need to keep up with at once lest you just tune all of it out altogether. It’s also because they KNOW this is too much to process, and will spend every single solitary episode sitting you down for lengthy exposition dumps of what just happened, how each magitech device such as CADs are supposed to work, and what each and every technique does and how they work. This is all done in excruciating detail, and can take anywhere from 2 to what feels like 10 minutes. Pacing is utterly glacial as a result, as more time is spent talking about and breaking down the fight scenes than actually showing us the fights! By the second half, the act of watching a cavalcade of cardboard cutouts freeze up and suffocate the viewer with exposition dump after exposition dump with each and every episode, without fail, becomes nothing short of maddening! This right here, more than the nightmarish protagonist, more than the repugnant messaging and implications, more than the broken and inconsistent worldbuilding and narrative writing, is what makes this anime an absolute nightmare to watch! It isn’t just outrageous to the point of inducing anger or being offensive, it’s simultaneously boring enough to drain one’s life force until they wonder if they’re even conscious before they start screaming in existential terror!

There’s no point in bringing up dead and unearned emotional climaxes. There’s no point in detailing how some students can do magic on their own despite the show establishing you need the use of CADs to do it. Some CADs can be gauntlet things, while others can be magic guns, which makes it really weird that they can be used in duels where “no weapons are allowed” like in the second episode. They’re more minor issues compared to the sheer level of indigestibility the pacing, character writing, and exposition dumps all have. That said, these issues could still bug you whenever they come up...assuming you can pay attention to any of these without your eyes glazing over as they beg for mercy.

Yeah, the show looks like shit, too. The artwork isn’t the problem here. The art style is fairly plain for LN adaptations, and it at least has some intricate detail regarding people’s hair. The animation, while being passable at best during the action scenes, isn’t the big issue, either. It would still be a relatively lukewarm production on its own merits, but what utterly tanks it is how blinding everything is. The uniforms are probably the tackiest, gaudiest pieces of clothing ever, with the peppermint greens and whites being so bright that they hurt to look at. Moreover, the lighting in the show is some of the most oversaturated one may have the misfortune of coming across. The backgrounds and environments are as plain as they can get while being irritably blurry to boot, so they heavily clash with and do not justify such blinding lighting. Sure, it makes the magic look more “magical”, shiny, and flashy, but they’re still eye-searing.

At least in No Game No Life --another 2014 MADHOUSE show--, the colors are generally vibrant, varied, and saturated enough for the lighting to feel at home, even if that show is visually very busy and another example of an anime where you might need to squint at while watching. Here, it makes no sense. We’re forced to shield our eyes because the director, Manabu Ono, really lights ultra bright colors. Just look at shows he’s made since this one such as both seasons of The Asterisk War or Sword Art Online: Alicization. His aesthetic is bright and sunny, with eye-popping colors. As blinding as The Asterisk War can be, and even though the colors in SAO Alicization are a bit much, they at least make more sense regarding their aesthetics than this show does! It’s an aesthetic mismatch that utterly kills to look at.

The show isn’t just a visual nightmare either. This form of sensory torture is also an auditory endurance test. To be fair, this is not the fault of the OPs or EDs. The OPs are both actually quite good. The first one, “Rising Hope” by LiSA is a quality J-rock banger with more personality than the rest of the show could ever hope to muster, even if it does cut off weirdly. OP 2, “Grilletto” by GARNiDELIA, is even better and grander, even if the climactic breakdown at the end is very ill-fitting for the show itself and the lifeless still image of the main siblings sleeping on grass together.

The real kicker here is the OST. Taku Iwasaki is not a bad composer by any means. His work on Akame ga Kill and Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann are proof enough of that, and apparently there are still decent pieces here. Good luck finding them however with how badly the OST for this show is implemented. Half of the tracks are extremely ill-fitting for the myriad of exposition dumps, in particular. Incredibly pleasant, almost peppy music during dumps, and weirdly dramatic music during the scenes get played a lot, too, when we’re just being briefed on whatever magic is going on this time in a certain fight scene or what have you. The flavor of techno he went with is also very gaudy here, and it plays constantly. However, the worst has to be this one track that plays during several scenes in the second arc where characters are just standing and talking. There’s this one incredibly high-pitched beeping noise that plays over a very dull, otherwise barely audible background track. It’s such an obnoxious sound in its own right, especially when it goes through a cycle every 3-4 seconds that never changes. However, when combined with how agonizingly dull the scenes it gets played in are, and for how many episodes this plays, that particular beeping sequence becomes a form of mental and auditory torture that has been embedded into my memory, and it can still be heard while this very paragraph is being typed. It’s a fucking trauma! Do you see how one can be led to absolute madness when viewing this piece of shit?!

Let’s be clear, here. You are absolutely allowed to like this show. Absolutely no one has the power, let alone the right to directly take that away from you. Overpowered protagonists in power fantasy scenarios resonate with teenagers for a reason, and escapism is perfectly fine. If you like this show, then it might be the equivalent of a water park or amusement park for you. Sure, you have to do a lot of standing and waiting around, and that can be incredibly boring unless you’re into that sort of thing and like to process everything. However, the rides, or in this case, GodSuya no-selling people and being perfect, is what tends to leave the biggest impression. Sure, I’d never self-insert into this since it’s not even like the characters would be fun to interact with. However, some people just wanna be a cool guy surrounded by cute and pretty girls as he gets proven right all the time as everyone grows to care about him. That’s ok.

It’s just that one would hope there was some semblance of a soul to go along with that fantasy. Neither that, nor any semblance of decent writing is present in Mahouka, and that’s why it’s so much worse than most other seemingly generic or broken LN adaptations and school battle harem shows can be. The show has nary a hint of humanity, and in its place lies a mix of soul-sucking boredom and headache-inducing rage. Very few shows embody both of those extremes, even on an audiovisual level, so at least there’s that to help this show stand out. Whether that's something to be proud of...now that's something to think about.

I don't do reviews. This show annoyed me enough to actually write about it, and I only watched all of it to be sure of what I was writing about.

This show has 5 major flaws:
1. Show is dull as hell and the plot doesn't appear to be going anywhere
2. Main char is a cardboard cutout power fantasy
3. Next to no character development anywhere
4. Miyuki and treatment of women
5. The main values expressed by the show are militarism, nationalism, xenophobia, and elitism

So in most shows, you have some kind of central conflict that the story needs to resolve. Which girl does the guy end up with? Will the invaders be repelled? Who's the real killer? etc etc. This show looks like it's going to be some class vs. class thing at the start where some talented guy (our main char) gets oppressed despite his talent, which sets up an progression where in the end, he manages to prove how great he and the others who are oppressed are indeed valuable through the power of teamwork and friendship or whatever, but no. Instead, it's almost immediately shown that the main char is actually one of the elites in basically all ways, and everyone who matters recognizes him as such almost immediately on meeting him. So, what's the conflict? I watched the whole damn show, and I still have no idea because it seems like it's just this ridiculous mess where a good 75% of the dialogue is about just how awesome the main char is, and the rest of it is devoted to actions sequences where he crushes everyone in his path with ease.

The main character himself is just ridiculous and makes me cringe at how he confirms stereotypes. Like, if someone who hated anime were to imagine the kind of power fantasy their idea of a neckbearded, friend-zoned, basement-dwelling, fedora-wearing, anime-watching dork would have, they'd probably get pretty close to the MC of this show: a teen who's supposedly this badass spec ops guy and stone cold killer, who is also the world's best engineer, and is truly the paragon of logic and reason because he has no emotions (except for love for his sister which he expresses, as any loving brother would, strictly through murder), and who's only flaw apparently exists to show how OP he really is. He starts like this from episode 1, and basically everything that happens is him just stomping on everything and doing everything better than anyone else possibly could and women just throw themselves at him but he's above that 'cause no emotion and logic and reason and stuff. The guy is impossible to identify with, impossible to like, and impossibly boring.

So with no conflict in the plot, and ridiculous MC, I suppose it comes as no surprise that there's no character development of any kind. Like, almost all of the characters exist for one purpose: to show how awesome the MC is. If they're a girl or woman, that usually means being saved by the MC one way or another, or if they're a boy or man it means either first being hostile to the MC before soon seeing their error of their ways 'cause omg the MC is just so strong and cool or immediately choosing to side with him because it's so obviously apparent he's the best and strongest and most right. Villains are just props to be throw away as soon as they're destroyed by the MC. It's laughable.

The one non-MC character they spend any kind of real time on is his sister, Miyuki. As the relationship the show spends the most time on, it's like it's this is what the writers wanted to hold up as an ideal relationship and Miyuki the ideal woman. So the sister, who is supposedly ridiculously powerful and strong and smart and better than everyone who isn't her brother at basically everything, can't make any decisions on her own and has to as her brother for permission for everything, can't walk down a hall in a military-secured hotel on her own without her brother escorting her because it's "dangerous" (despite the repeated occasions she kills everything in her path with ease), and of course she worships her brother to the point of wanting him sexually. Miyuki is less of a character with free will than she is a puppet, and that's this show's ideal woman. Speaking more generally about women, it's kind of disgusting how almost all in the show are depicted to be immediately attracted to the MC, and how many are shown as too stupid to be allowed to pick their own clothes to wear as the MC corrects them about what's the proper thing for a woman to wear on so many occasions.

When you start to think about what message the show actually carries, it's odd: the MC, who is always right and just and strong and cool and the best, is shown repeatedly as serving his country and his people, fighting off foreigners and terrorists (who are, of course, foreign backed). This is usually done by helping the student council which is pretty explicitly a tool of the larger powers in their society, the "Ten Master Clans", or the military (some action on screen, some action implied). Either way, it's virtue that the MC believes in is expressed by supporting the authorities in power, usually via combat or by providing them with weapons as they fight off foreign threats that, for whatever reason, happen to express themselves at this fucking "high school" he goes to where, apparently, a large percentage of the students have military backgrounds. Think on that: the military is recruiting middle school students, or younger, and putting them in combat situations. At least two chars are clearly shown as having participated in battles (and massacring the opposition) when they were 13. So, virtue, to this show, is serving an obviously authoritarian state that uses and abuses children for war, but none of that matters because it's all for the sake of fighting off the foreign aggressor.

I've watched bad shows, but it's pretty rare that I run into one that actually disgusts me, and that's the only word I can really think of to describe this one: disgusting.

The story hasn't ended but the only way I can see it being redeemed is if, in the show, some foreign power invaded Japan, killed the MC and most other chars, destroyed the existing power structures, gave them democracy and left. Like, if this magically turned into a "we got better than we deserved in WW2" show, I'd laugh so hard and give that a fucking 10, that'd be amazing. I'm not going to bet on that happening, though.

The year 2095 is drastically different than the world we live in today. If you have magic ability, you can attend one of several special high schools designed to nurture your talents.

This series did something a little different with magic. On top of having to have the natural ability, you need a special device called a CAD to control it efficiently. I liked that they did it this way. It gives a little glory to the folks who write the programs and create the devices. Usually the series focuses on the one wielding the power, because it’s something that they’re born with. Then they have to seek out some kind of “master” and train in the mountains or somewhere similar. After training for years, they still aren’t prepared for the big battle. Then they have some emotional breakthrough and BAM they win.

In this story, we follow two main characters and their classmates through some challenges. One is a magic phenomenon who controls some incredibly strong spells. But she wouldn’t be as efficient with out her well programmed CAD that her brother, the other main character, does all the engineering for. But they don’t have the talent in the other aspect. So without each other, they wouldn’t be able to do anything. Of course the school has classes to develop both of these talents.

Like many other series out there, the main characters have a secret past that nobody knows. They slowly let out the secrets throughout the course of the 26 episodes. Another similar plot device that this series uses is that the side characters pick up on little things here and there. They start to question what they’re seeing. While it isn’t a unique method to force out the main characters background, they do a good job of it. And they don’t let the side characters in on it right away. I liked that they left them all guessing.

Goofy nicknames everywhere. We meet a handful of characters with actual battle experience, and of course they have war born nicknames. “Queen so and so” “The something Prince”. I always laugh when a series does this. I know what they’re doing with it, but I think there are better ways to get the same point across. If they spent a little more time developing the characters history they could so that they’re as much of a badass as their Royal nickname makes them out to be.

My main gripe with this series is the way it ends. There’s so much build up in the story and there’s a ton of possibilities of where it can all go. But they rush the ending. It’s like they had it scheduled for more episodes and someone pulled the plug. The last story arc reveals a lot about the main characters, but then end it so suddenly. I hope that they have something in the works for another run. They even leave the last episode on a cliff hanger.

Overall this series does more right than it does wrong. You really get invested into the main characters and all their family secrets. And even though I wasn’t a fan of how it ended, it did leave me wanting more. If they announced a new season I would definitely add it to my watch list.

For more reviews please check out https://medium.com/@AnimeDave

Start by reading recommendation in here, then get the hype to watch this series.
Start pretty well, good concept, a little harem but the good news is there're still some other guy get their own girl. It won't be interesting if the main char get all the girls.
Story arc one is good, second is better, the last one is a hell . . waste of time.
Too overpowered main char, stupid lame weakling enemy. Even the strongest enemy being taken down too easily and that's only ONE char.
And whats with the student vs an army of enemy anyways? Even the police and military didn't do much.
9 magic school, only their school have a ton of ace. And 2 strong char from 3rd high school. The remaining is a joke, as if they never existed.

Good art n sound, decent story, enjoyable fighting scene (from story arc 2). The rest is absurd . . . . .

Not for you who want a really good anime to watch, just skip these one.

"Onii-sama", these words are the very heights of the human spirit, they are the essence of a male soul. It is the light that will guide a man during his darkest hour. Make your imouto recite these holy words exactly 167 times over the span of 10 hours and you will be granted what your heart truly desires, my child.

Mahouka is like solidifying the shit your dog left on your mattress with liquid nitrogen then dipping it into gold and expecting people to buy it just because it's shiny. And well, people buy it. Apparently. ...Well, actually, that's not quite the case. Mahouka should have been just another forgettable fighting magic school themed story adapted from a novel, except for some inexplicable reason, it gets popular. Mahouka is really just boring op-magic-imouto-harem garbage that adopts a not-quite-so-distasteful complexity within it's written dialog. About the only positive thing that I can really say in it's defense is that it somehow manages not to be torture. — Ah, yes! This is proof that the otaku culture is truly a bliss!

Every damn magic spell is accompanied by long winded explanations and technobabble. None of which is used for world building, characterization, or whatever else that it could possibly be used for. Zip, zero, nada. The "intelligence" in the script is just there for the author to stroke himself — or I should say Tatsuya Stuba's dick, technically?— Perhaps it's actually an abstract form of fanservice, it follows this sort of mentality of "the more complicated the vocabulary the more depth the character has", uguu! It's similar to the intelligence-fetihization of a loli in the whatever plethora of lolicon tittles I couldn't be bothered to mention. Hey, I would even go as far as to say that the whole series was built around this technobabble. I mean, if you're going for needless complexity in such volumes, why not go all the way and write a pseudo-political thriller a la Code Geass instead? We already have Spinzaku here, and Tatsuya is pretty much scumbag Jesus anyway. At least that would have been more eventful than all of the nothing that happens in the twenty-six episode run of this anime. Something else I should mention, they try to incorporate this idea of discrimination but they don't do anything with it. They had actually tried to justify the puerility of these teenagers pretending to be mature just to rather quickly brush it off with an empty speech. Funny because, this whole issue of "labels" could have stopped Mahouka's script from further plunging itself down the drain. The script is actually pretty terrible whenever you aren't being bombarded by technobabble. It's either harem garbage, hue hue not-really-incest heh heh heh heh, or indirectly stroking Tatsuya's dick. The action scenes can also reach irksome levels, almost as bad as what you see in hollywood movies. The Incompetence displayed by the terrorists can be described as simply sad. You would think that being equipped with sub-machine guns and RPGs one could be able to at the very least kill one person in a considerably populated school.

"There's no one who can possibly defeat my brother." - Miyuki.

Repeat the above piece of dialog thirty-or-so times with slightly different variations and you can begin to see the quality of writing in Mahouka, if you haven't already. Also, yup, what Tatsuya has isn't just any piece of armor, what he has is reinforced plot armor that's heavier and thicker than a whales hide.

Suffering several bone fractures, damaged organs and massive hemorrhaging? Not a problem, he'll just magically restore himself back to perfect health. Getting shot through the heart? Barely so much as tips him off balance a bit. Catching bullets with his bare hands? You betcha~ — There's absolutely no tension when a character is this powerful. And that isn't even the worst of it, the biggest offender of all happens in the last episode. It speaks for itself really.

No, better still is his ability to make girls drop their panties faster than you can say "bullshit". He does this in his usual inhumanly calm demeanor without so much as lifting a finger. No, he doesn't even flirt with the girls, the reason for this being because imouto pussy is best pussy. Just about every female subconsciously gravitates towards him and instinctively want to have his babies because they just know that he has superior mating capabilities.

No, wait, wait, wait, wait!! Tatsuya is a deconstruction of the Gary Stu archetype as he's actually a pathetic fatass okatu in a show that's actually a clever self parody.— Just an instance of Mahouka's brilliant comedy, when a high-school girl whose been hiding behind a tree gets her position compromised, she escapes her pursuers in the most dramatic way possible: by getting on a cheap looking scooter that actually takes off with two jet engines. You just have to see it for yourself, I'm clearly not writing it down correctly.— Tatsuya may not look like a fatass with an imouto fetish... but that's because you're already under his spell, see? Yeah, it's a spell of his that affects all your senses so you can't tell. When Miyuki asks if she looks weird in the new apron she bought for him to see her in, he replies with "You look lovely. So much so that I want to secretly display you in a glass case just for me." See? This is proof that he's a fatass basement dweller. It simply won't do you any good to deny facts.

Oh, wait, how could I forget? Whenever these two say anything incestuous it's just a joke.

Final verdict: 0/10 Nowhere near racist enough, needs more propaganda. - 10/3/14

Mahouka is something like what would happen if the magic and technology elements of Toaru Majutsu no Index were combined with the male protagonist from Mondaiji-tachi. It is a rather cool premise where magic is real and becoming more commonplace as special Fitbit/iWatch devices, called CAD, allow magic practitioners to use magic at will, circumventing the speed and user processing limitations of traditional magic. The world is racing to develop talented magicians and we follow a group of young Japanese magicians as they begin their high school training. How will our sibling protagonists adapt to this new environment full of talent and discrimination? How will the school be challenged by those opposed to magic development both within Japan and abroad?

Though the show seems to initially suggest a slice of life approach, ordinary events are often crossed with political motivations, espionage, and some pretty bloody fights; it's one of those shows that goes from having some lovely tea with an infatuated group of girls underneath a warm sun to magically sniping the eyes out of antagonists from two kilometers away a few scenes later. If you're looking for a light thriller and can deal with an overwhelmingly powerful (though modest) protagonist and constant bro-con moments, this should be a fun watch. Do note that the story is still relatively incomplete as there are many elements that are hinted at but not yet fully explored. It's not a perfect work but they do a good job of making the show engaging despite powerful nature of the protagonist.

Animation:
Maouka is well drawn overall with nice detailing and superb shading and effects. The overall coloring is slightly under-saturated and some scenes could use more detail in the backgrounds. There is some CGI usage though it isn't overly abused, and used mostly to render unimportant things. There is a large cast of important characters and the series does a good job of making everyone distinguishable. The school uniforms are pretty cool too with the nifty semi-transparent outer layer. Character facial expressions are average, and you shouldn't expect much from the calculating and always level-headed Tatsuya. Perhaps Miyuki's constant showering of affection towards her brother is meant as to balance this out, though potentially alienating those tired of the onii sama fetish.

There's a fair amount of fighting in the show though mostly involving magical abilities. The choreography is above average with some clever use of slow motion and good camera positioning. The genre of magic is very broad ranging from elemental (water, fire, etc.) to strengthening of objects and even spirits. The show does a good job of mixing and explaining these elements as well as balancing out abilities (except those of the protagonist of course). Expect a fair amount of killing and bloodshed just to make sure you don't slap on the slice of life tag too quickly. Tatsuya has many, many weapons at his disposal. However, his favorite is a pair of magic pistols, which he with the skill of a gunslinger. There is relatively little ecchi except for a few fan service scenes at the onsen and the now obligatory bust size comparisons. The Shibas are perhaps a bit too close as siblings and Miyuki really doesn't hold back in that regard.

Sound:
The show has a pair of OPs and EDs to go with each season. Both OPs are action-oriented light rock pieces with fittingly electronic undertones in the background; I prefer the melody in the second. The first ED is a slow, cool down piece with a really nice melody by Elisa. The second ED isn't as nice as the first, with more of a rock-based focus. You can also expect to find an above-average BGM with electronic-based instruments and memorable, tension-building pieces during the fight scenes.

The voice acting is very good with Saori Hayami doing a great job as Miyuki and Kana Hanazawa in a prominent supporting role (a different type of role than what she's most famous for). Yuuichi Nakamura also does a good job of giving Tatsuya a lot of confidence and poise without him degenerating into another Persona 4 lead clone. At least a sixth of the dialogue in this show is either about explaining a magic concept or explaining how Tatsuya just destroyed an opponent, so be ready for it.

Story:
This is where there's going to be a lot of debate for this show. The crux of the issue here is that the show does a poor job of figuring out what story it wants to tell. Sometimes it's about Tatsuya growing a harem of female supporters (especially in the school tournament arc). At other times, it's a dark tale about sacrifices made to safeguard one's family. At yet other times it's about the geopolitical maneuverings to gain magical supremacy. And yet at other times it's about school rivalries and discrimination. None of these are developed to completion and many of them become prominent in one arc only to completely dissolve away (with no resolution I might add) in another arc. That being said, I was able to overlook the competing subplots and focus more on the character interactions and action/thriller aspects.

The show is divided into three chapters, easily identifiable directly in the episode title. The entirety of the show spans a fair amount of time and so there is some time gap between each chapter. The chapters each have a main subplot with a corresponding group of antagonists and suitable resolution. There are many overarching subplots that span the entirety of the show, many of which remain unanswered by the end of the show. For instance, Tatsuya attending a magic high school is like Einstein attending a preschool math class; the only way to possibly make things interesting is to severely limit his capabilities, only for him to unlock them in a pinch as the ultimate plot shield.

I would still claim that this is primarily a thriller with a lot of cliffhangers and fair tension. Though there is action, its presentation is a lot like in Dragonball; during a battle, the attention will often shift to onlookers who comment or attempt to explain what is happening, since the magical elements would otherwise go way over the heads of us plebeian viewers. If you're looking for raw battles like in Kurokami, you're going to be disappointed here. If you're looking for an underdog fighting his way up, you're also going to be disappointed here. However, if you're just looking for a thriller where you actually root for the antagonists to challenge the godly protagonist, this is one for you.

Character:
If you are tired of bro-con/sis-con relationships, stop reading here. Go back and look for another series; this is definitely not a show for you. For all those who are able to put up with a little sister-brother mischief, this is a fairly decent watch. There's relationship-based growth between characters but ultimately most of the characters are static, i.e. you don't feel them grow themselves. This sort of makes sense given how overwhelmingly powerful the Shiba siblings are relative to everyone else. The enjoyment here is mostly from seeing how they will work to help their other schoolmates overcome some pretty ridiculous situations. The cast is pretty varied in character traits leading to some nice comic relief moments. Some supporting characters are rather unnecessary but perhaps their purpose will become clearer if there ever is a sequel.
The title suggests that the show is about the "irregulars", i.e. extras in class 2. However, I think a more fitting title would be "Miyuki and Tatsuya's World Domination: Part 1". Expect the show's character importance and screen time to align more closely to that title.

Value:
While not the most innovative or exciting show in the genre, Mahouka is a fun watch with good entertainment value. While development is a bit lacking, the plot keeps things interesting, and the multitude of the cast helps to balance out the primary protagonist's overpowered nature. As there are still a lot of interesting but underdeveloped subplots, I'm willing to wait it out and look forwards to a sequel.