It is finally time for the match between Shizuku and Miyuki in Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei.
When Shizuku said she wanted to take on Miyuki in the Pillar Break final for some that must have seemed crazy. Eimi, still a bit shaky after her match with Shiori last week, certainly wondered why she wanted to take Miyuki head on early in episode 10.
However, maybe that’s all just a sign of how determined Shizuku really is. This episode saw her pull out some impressive works of magic including specialised attacks and using more than one CAD simultaneously. Though, as usual I’m left wondering if the significance of that would be lost on some viewers given we really haven’t had as much world building in this spin-off.
Are crowd reactions enough for Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei to get the idea across?
It seems Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei was aware that some of the audience at least wouldn’t quite get how impressive Shizuku was being when she pulled out the gun shaped CAD as they pulled out a whole slew of audience members to react and comment on the action.
And while this approach would have gotten people up to speed that what they were seeing was both unusual and impressive, it came at the cost of slowing the match down. See Shizuku pulled out the CAD and then stood there while everyone reacted before she finally launched her attack. While one could argue there was the calculation time as well as building up the spell, all it effectively did was give her opponent time to react as well and make the contest feel large in scale but slow.
That said, I won’t take anything away from Shizuku. Given Tatsuya had only started training her in using two CADs 15 days prior, she put up an impressive fight and pulled off something adult magicians in this world would have had difficulty doing. That she was always outclassed by Miyuki doesn’t reduce how amazing Shizuku is.
Equally, at the end of the match, when Honoka goes to comfort Shizuku, Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei managed to land a rare truly emotional moment. While everyone who had watched The Irregular at Magic High School new this outcome, seeing it from Shizuku’s perspective and really feeling her frustration at her loss, was actually well played and the scene worked very well.
What about Miyuki?
You can kind of tell Miyuki has never had the chance to really have friends before coming to first high. Certainly she never had any kind of friendly rivalry. It was interesting to see her reaction to learning Shizuku wanted to go head-to-head with her and was contemplating beating her.
Though one does have to wonder what Miyuki thought would happen when students from the same school competed in the same event? Or did the protagonist of Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei just assume that the other students acknowledged she was better and would step aside? Given her personality, that seems unlikely.
It seems far more likely she just never considered it until Tatsuya made her face the possibility that a friend of hers wanted to test their powers against her.
And so the match concluded with the expected outcome.
What next for Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei?
The next event in the Nine Schools Competition was Mirage Bat and that has gotten off to a flying start (pun intended) with the rookie event launching here.
However, I was surprised when we saw the rookie boys team being taken out in their comp. While this was a major development in Irregular, given that plot focuses on Tatsuya, I wasn’t sure if it would get any screen time here or how it would really fit. Now I’m curious as to what they intend to do with this.
With only 3 episodes left, Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei has mirage bat to conclude and now this potential story line for the boys (and it seems unlikely they’ll get much screen time given the two others that Tatsuya recruits have barely appeared in the spin-off). I can’t help but feel this will be a rushed conclusion but I guess we’ll see.
Images from: Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei. Dir. Hideki Tachibana. Connect. 2021
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Karandi James
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