Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei - Review

Welcome

Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei, tells the story of a couple of brothers who love each other (too much), an older brother and a younger sister (a No Game No Life) - who enroll in First High School, an academy of elite magicians . When enrolling in the school, all students are evaluated for magical ability and sorted accordingly. Those who show promise in magic are classified in Course 1, and are known as "Blooms" by the students. Those with less successful results in the practice magic exam, are classified in Course 2, and are referred to as "Weeds". Naturally, there is a natural hierarchical order in this school, and the Weeds are at the bottom of it. Miyuki, the younger sister, becomes a Bloom because of her extremely large magical potential, while Tatsuya, who scored well on the written exam, but had poor performance on the practical test, is designated as Weed.

With the premise of the previous paragraph, you can notice a helpless in the story. Maybe you can think that this anime will be about the gradual rise of Tatsuya in the hierarchy based on the magic of the school, something similar to Mx0. Or maybe it's about the struggle that the two brothers will face when they try to navigate the complexities of a school system hostile to the interactions of Blooms and Weeds

But ....... no, none of these is not even close to the real focus of Mahouka Kouko. Unlike the protagonists of the typical Shonen anime, the brothers are not gifted, because they have a latent magical potential or seemingly useless, yet powerful abilities that they must still master. They have the gift of being terribly powerful, so much so that they are superior to others in terms of ability immediately after enrollment. Miyuki has tons of magical energy and can cast spells that even high-level professionals can not cast, and Tatsuya is a supergene who, despite not having much magical energy, is capable of performing incredible feats (not to mention all his abilities) , which make him look like Jesus in person.

Well, because they are so powerful, most of the anime is dedicated to creating situations that allow viewers to see how amazing they are, which can make the show sound inaccurate depending on what you like.

The magic system

Let's start with what I think is one of the highlights of the series. The magic system is extremely well thought out and logical. Each magician has a certain fixed amount of magical energy (called psions) that they can channel to a spell casting device called CAD. Then, the CAD initiates the activation sequence of the desired spell, which is a series of codes that make up the spell, and once the activation sequence finishes executing, the spell is cast

Spells must also comply with certain rules. Each spell is composed of basic components, and the more components there are, the longer it will take to cast the spell. Even a simple spell to move an egg from one place to another, all that is explained in the course of the series. For clarity, four steps are in total what is explained in the anime: a component to start the movement, a component to accelerate in the desired direction, a component to decelerate and a component to stop.

Having such a well-defined magic system makes the show more interesting to watch. We have all seen shows where the magic seems to be a black box and where it seems that there is a spell that can solve virtually any problem faced by the protagonists, even if they are supposedly cornered. The magic system allows a lot of complexity in the fights between magicians. Unfortunately, we almost never get to see the full extent of its complexity because ...

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The Protagonists | OP |

Yes, the characters, specifically the two main characters, are so "broken" that the rules of the magic system may not exist. The sister, due to her enormous reserve of magical energy, can cause huge explosions and freeze groups of people effortlessly. The brother, using his incomparable intellect and hidden talents, almost seems to overlook the limitations of the magical system completely

The characters are incredible but, unfortunately, they are also one-dimensional. Being the pair of brothers almost invincible, the two main characters do not really have to change or experience any development in itself. That is understandable, however, what is most unfortunate, and a little less understandable, are the plans of the secondary characters.

From a skill perspective, no one at your school or even outside of it can approach the talent of OP brothers ridiculously. And personal development is practically nonexistent. All the secondary characters are eclipsed by the genius of Tatsuya and Miyuki. Here, I have to point out that a commendable character development attempt was made for Tatsuya's classmate, Mikihiko, but it ended up falling short. Very little time is devoted to detailing his personal struggles or his development, and we never really understand what his conclusion was or how he came to it.

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The Elite and the "others"

And if you're not Tatsuya's partner or part of his circle of friends, then you're not even portrayed as if you were a competent human being. Let me explain what I mean by the contest of the nine schools (CNE) with this series arc. The CNE is an Olympic-style competition between several recognized high schools of magic, including First High School. It consists of a series of different events, including an ice pillars breaking event and magical variations of clay pigeon shooting and wakeboarding. From these events, we definitely see how resourceful Tatsuya and his friends can be. We see them creating an underwater explosion in the wakeboard event to delay the other wakeboarders, and we see them using creative techniques to break the pillars of their opponents in the event of ice pillars.

The events are fun to watch, but after a while, you notice something strange. Where are the strategies developed by the other schools? We are told that the elites of each school have been chosen to compete, and we know that this competence is important for all involved, so why only the students of First High School? Do you use magic creatively? Sometimes, it may seem that the other schools are not even trying to win.

For example, in the battle board event, it is specified that runners can not use magic on their opponents, but that they are allowed to use magic on the water itself. We know from the underwater explosion demonstrated by the FHS competitor that the throwing of magic on or in the water is a very effective method to gain an advantage, so why do we never see the runners of the other schools try to throw magic at water ?, maybe it's just because I have unreasonable expectations, but I have to ask: where is that school with the student whose main tactic is to freeze the water behind it, or where is that competitor from last year who mysteriously can move his board twice as fast as other riders?

The answer that the anime seems to give to these questions, is that these opponents do not exist. The other competing students are just sitting ducks, whose sole purpose is to be there so that Tatsuya and company have a goal for their brilliant strategies. This made seeing certain chapters seem to play at the level of a video game. It's great to see what the main characters can do, but it's not fun if there's no challenge.

Animation and sound

In the simple words, the animation and the sound were great. The spells were flashy and fluid, as well as the effects of accompanying sounds were always sharp and were rarely annoying (poorly executed). The music had good entry into the scenes, although nothing exceptional.

Summary

The irregular in the magical high school seems to have been created as the answer to a thought experiment: "What if we put a couple of incredibly dominant students in a magical school environment typical of the Shonen genre and see what happens?" The result is a series full of seemingly difficult obstacles waiting for the Tatsuya-Miyuki duo to solve it without any problem. In general, the anime is fun to watch, and there is a sense of wonder that fills you with seeing a powerful enemy being defeated in a matter of minutes, but it would be much, much better if the brothers really fought with opponents who are at their level . Here is the hope of a potentially much more epic second season ... but since I follow the novel almost to the last volumes released, I know it will not happen

Thanks for reading the post, and I hope you liked it, bye