Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei Series Review – Will This Spin-Off Satisfy Irregular Fans?

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei Series Review
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Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei is an anime I approached with great enthusiasm.

After all, I had loved The Irregular at Magic High School and thought Miyuki’s character had a lot more to say than she’d been given the opportunity for when playing support to Tatsuya’s overpowered main character.

However as a spin-off it is inevitable that Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei would be compared to its parent story. And even outside of that, the approach taken here of shifting an action fantasy into a more cute girls kind of story with a bit of magic thrown in had been done before by Index/Railgun only I kind of feel that franchise understood its audience a lot better and what would make for a more interesting story.

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutsousei

Which ultimately meant that while Mahouka Koukou no Yuutsouei, or The Honor Student at Magic High School, is perfecty watchable, there’s little here that would lead me to recommend this over the original. Even people who enjoyed Irregular would probably do better rewatching that as there’s little in this iteration that is done better, not so much added, and a lot of world-building and the aspects that make the magic high school franchise so interesting just feel lacking here.

Is Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei worth watching?

At thirteen episodes and covering the Enrolment arc (including the attempt by terrorist group Blanche to attack the school) and the Nine Schools Competition Arc, Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei packs in content that was covered across 18 episodes in Irregular. When you also consider that episode 1 is essential before the story of Irregular starts you really only have 12 episodes to cover this content. It was inevitable that something was going to suffer from this.

And by and large, what suffers is the world building itself and the context for the various sub-plots.

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei

While Irregular had Tatsuya finding out who was behind the various plots and foiling them in order to keep his sister safe, Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei follows Miyuki and her friends and the various plots only kind of brush past them while they involve themselves in school activities. Not to mention we lose a lot of the information about how magic in this world works and how Tatusya excels at engineering spells.

For viewers who have watched the original series, you can fill in the gaps just fine and see how the events here run parallel to the events there and support the overall narrative.

For new viewers I kind of feel like this would feel like Lord of the Rings if you only saw Aragorn’s story and never followed Frodo, Sam, or Gandalf. Don’t get me wrong, Aragorn is a cool character and gets some very solid moments. However ultimately Frodo and Sam get to Mount Doom and Aragorn is essentially playing decoy. He isn’t the main event.

Miyuki is very much like Aragorn in that she has some amazing moments, her magic is very cool (quite literally at times), but while she’s competing in the Nine School’s Competition, Tatsuya is the one foiling another terrorist plot only in Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei we barely see Tatsuya’s contribution which makes the story feel a little incomplete.

Don't mess with Miyuki - Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei

The other core problem that Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei ends up suffering from is it is hard to really surprise your audience when they already know how events play out. There’s little or no tension during the enrolment arc as we know none of the main characters suffer harm from it. Equally, the Nine Schools Competition has little bite when you already know the outcome of every event.

At times, this spin-off is actually up to the challenge of finding other ways to draw the audience in.

For instance, during the enrolment arc they have Eimi teaming up with Shizuku and Honoka to play detective in a previously unseen side-story about the girls wanting to help out Tatsuya without letting Miyuki or Tatsuya know. The girls are charming as a group and the sequence is fun and energetic and even knowing they weren’t going to really solve the case or get into real danger they managed to make this scene engaging and as the girls find themselves in some peril it really drew the audience in.

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei Episode 4 - Eimi, Shizuku and Honoka

If nothing else, this sequence firmly establishes why these girls are such big fans of Miyuki going forward.

Furthermore, when we get to the nine schools competition, clearly they knew they couldn’t rely on tension with the outcomes already shown in the original series. Instead, they worked on upping the emotional stakes for the competitors themselves and nowhere was this more effective than in the competition between Shizuku and Miyuki for winner of Pillar’s Break.

The audience will probably all know exactly how this competition ends but they really made us care about it and this was perhaps the pinnacle achievement of Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei. Too bad it wasn’t actually the climax as it was certainly the highest emotional point the series reached.

Shizuku - Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei

Which probably brings me to a positive I should mention. While the theory behind magic and how it has been blended with technology is only very loosely explained in Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei, the actual use of magic by characters in the events of the Nine School Competition remains very impressive. The versatility with which the characters use the various magics makes for some visually very interesting sequences and ultimately one of the things I always loved about this franchise was the thought behind the magic system here.

Not to mention, totally beautiful.

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei Episode 8

The other real positive I am taking away from Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei is the additional screen time given to the girls from Third High. It was kind of nice to see another school humanised this time around and while those characters didn’t get quite enough screen time to really become favourites, Airi and Shiori certainly gave the competition their all and by the time the series ended I kind of wished the spin-off had just jumped from first to third high and given us a totally different take on this world.

Actually, I’d watch that spin-off. Airi and Shiori at third high, convinced they were the strongest of the new generation magicians and then coming smack up against the Shiba’s. It would be awesome to see what they do next.

Equally, it would have been good if we’d had a couple more episodes to get to know these girls before the competition started as they could have been really stolen the show I think.

Honor Ep9 2

As I said at the beginning of the review, Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei is watchable. There’s some fun moments along the way, some great magical feats, and the competition is enjoyable enough with rival characters given enough substance to be entertaining.

Ultimately though, it doesn’t do enough to break free from the shackles of feeling like it is just filling in cracks in the original. I almost feel like the best way to watch Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei might be just to figure out where each of these episodes fit in conjunction with the originally series and alternate between the two perspectives.

Honour Ep2 5

That said, for fans of this franchise, this isn’t bad. While you might, like me, find it a little lacking in punch, you will get to spend time with the girls from the first course and you will certainly get many more moments of Miyuki and Tatsuya together.

As always, I’d love to know your thoughts on the series if you’ve watched it so be sure to leave a comment below.

Images from: Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei. Dir. Hideki Tachibana. Connect. 2021


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Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei Episode 13 Impressions – An Almost Off-Screen Massacre To Make Space For A Bath Scene

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei Episode 13
Review posts of Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei are sponsored by Crow's World of Anime.
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I often wonder with stories, such as Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei whether there ever really was enough ‘untold’ story in the original series (in this case The Irregular at Magic High School) to justify the spin-off. As episode 13 of Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei comes to a close with a few reveals about the bloom/weed system and a minor flashback for the Shiba siblings really the only take-aways, I’m kind of left thinking that there wasn’t in this case. Though that didn’t stop this final episode being pretty.

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei Episode 13

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei never really found its own identity.

When the best part of the nine schools arc really was the ending with Tatsuya single-handedly taking out the terrorist organisation that threatened his sister, I always wondered what Miyuki would offer up as a finishing act. While we get a brief glimpse of the massacre that closed out this arc in Irregular, the focus here does remain firmly with the girls but mostly that just makes me wish I was watching Irregular instead.

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei Episode 13

Which isn’t to say this was a bad episode.

Airi, the blonde girl from third high who set herself up as Miyuki’s rival in this arc, puts in a promising performance in Mirage Bat. As a mid-season episode or even background to the events in Irregular, this was a pretty decent showing.

The two girls dominated the final of Mirage Bat and both were emotionally invested in the competition which really helped draw the audience in for this final event in the competition. Unfortunately, it didn’t engage me as emotionally as Eimi’s dramatic battle during Pillar’s Break and it didn’t come close to Shizuku taking on Miyuki.

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei episode 13

Ultimately, Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei was a victim of earlier successes with characters we liked a lot more making it so much harder for a Miyuki/Airi match-off to really be a show closing event.

It also didn’t help that Miyuki’s only driving force here is to promote her brother. She brings nothing new to the equation and finds no other goal. Meanwhile, Airi’s motivation is reiterated and enhanced through the flashback of her conversation with her mother.

While Airi has been a character who I’ve had mixed feelings about she definitely got the best moments of this final episode and it would have been great to have seen her right at the end and find out what is next for her and the other girls of third high. After all the effort this spin-off seems to have put in to me investing in these characters, seeing them after the competition and their next steps would have really consolidated them whereas it kind of feels like they just disappear here.

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei Episode 13

All that aside, a chunk of this episode is given to a bath sequence. While it is good that Airi and Miyuki finally actually have a conversation, not sure why it is set in the bath with the other girls playing with water magic and ripping robes off each other (actually I know exactly why – fan-service – but I’m just not sure which audience this scene is trying to appeal to given I’m sure people who would really appreciate this scene probably checked out from watching this anime half-a-season ago).

We then have the dance party tying up loose ends and we finally find out why first high has two different uniforms and course one and course 2 students. I’m just not sure that Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei needs to exist in order to get this explanation. Still, if you have to do a spin-off at least give me some information that I missed out on in the original.

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei episode 13

Anyway, that’s all for Mahouka Koukou no Yuutsouei. I’ll get to a full series review soon and I kind of hope we get more stories set in this universe but honestly I’ll happily go back to Tatusya as the main character.


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Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei Episode 12 Impressions – She Can Fly!

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei Episode 12
Review posts of Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei are sponsored by Crow's World of Anime.
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Okay, there’s not a lot learned this week in terms of plot with Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei. Sure the shadowy bad-guys discuss a plot to kill like a hundred people in the audience and shut down the competition after their sabotage attempts were thwarted by a brother with a sister complex but largely this episode wants to celebrate pretty outfits and Miyuki’s magical flying feat in the qualifying match for Mirage Bat.

Don't mess with Miyuki - Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei
You do not mess with Miyuki.

It is definitely pretty and Miyuki’s genuine joy at utlilising her brother’s magic is a joy to see. Though I think this might be the first episode of the Irregular at Magic High School Spin-Off that has actually mentioned Silver and his engineering (I could be wrong but I don’t recall it coming up previously in this season), which means perhaps some viewers might have been left in the dark on this one.

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei lets Miyuki fly.

Miyuki’s magical feats, made possible by her brother’s excellent engineering, in the original series were more a by-product rather than the focus. However Mahouka Koukou no Yuutsousei makes her flying the actual point. The how and why are just kind of thinly sketched in and we spend most of this episode admiring the outfits of contestants and watching the girls jump for shiny balls of light.

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei Episode 12 - Miyuki at Mirage Bat

Which actually is kind of rewarding in its own way and has its own charm. I’m just not entirely sold on this series as a whole and it doesn’t surprise me that this is all the tension, drama, or even spectacle it can must for a penultimate episode.

Sure we’re heading toward a showdown between blonde girl from third high and Miyuki, though the outcome would be a foregone conclusion even if we hadn’t already seen this match up. There’s just nothing else that has been given any kind of substance here so if they suddenly decide to focus on the terrorist plot that would feel like a weird way to go in a final episode.

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei Episode 12

On that note, blonde girl (whose name I swear I will learn by the final episode) finally grew on me this week. Her acceptance that she’s about to be outclassed was pretty decent and yet she won’t just give up. Even knowing she’s probably going to lose, she’s going to give it her all.

Meanwhile, if Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei wanted to make Miyuki endearing it has kind of missed the mark. I don’t dislike her, but this season hasn’t exactly made her any clearer as a character or made me more interested in her. If anything, I kind of feel there’s even less to her than I suspected while watching Irregular. Which is a shame because when they let her cut loose with her magic she is actually pretty fun.

Right, we have one episode to go and some more pretty flying to be had, one hopes. I wonder if the rest of the episode will be filled with celebration of First High’s victory? Otherwise I am just not sure what they are going to fill the episode with.

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei Episode 12

I am sure we’ll get some more Tatsuya and Miyuki closeness and I’m equally sure the President will mock them for it.

And food. There should definitely be food.

But all this speculation is just sugar-coating that I have very little to say about episode 12 of Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei. It was there. It did its thing. If you wanted some great outfits to cosplay, there are plenty of cute anime girls here. Also, Mirage Bat is way more entertaining to watch than Quidditch. Just saying.

Images from: Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei. Dir. Hideki Tachibana. Connect. 2021


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Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei Episode 11 Impressions – The Girls Play Detective Again

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei Episode 11 Review
Review posts of Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei are sponsored by Crow's World of Anime.
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When I said in my episode 10 impressions of Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei that it was unlikely that the boys will get much screen time, I didn’t know just how true that was despite a chunk of this episode did deal with the final of the Monolith Code event. But we’ll get back to that.

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei Episode 11

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei just keeps charging forward.

Perhaps the most egregious issues I’ve found the whole way through this Irregular at Magic High School spin-off is the pace at which it tackles each narrative arc. There’s no time to set things up or establish characters. No time to really understand how people are feeling or are responding to what is going on. Half the time it feels like the main plot line is actually just background noise.

However, even assuming the idea was to shift the focus on to Miyuki and her friends, the girls in the rookie competition for Mirage Bat really got the short end of the stick this week.

First we see a group of shadowy business men being shadowy as they openly discuss their sabotage plan, which had a lot more impact in the original story because we’d actually seen the bus-crash play out and the acts of sabotage were very much what Tatsuya was dealing with. It was the main plot line whereas here its been mentioned once or twice, we did see the accident for Battle Board but really there’s been nothing overt until the boys got blown up last week.

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei episode 11

Almost instantly we cut away and instead of actually seeing much of the match with the rookie girls, we instead see the girls in the stands congratulating Tatsuya for being amazing. Sure we get to see the celebration the girls have on placing first and second, but even then they are waving to Tatsuya and then the event is done. We saw maybe one animated leap from both girls.

The short cuts in animation aren’t limited to the events this episode of Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei. It was actually fairly obvious throughout that this one didn’t have the polish of previous episodes. The magic when Miyuki was casting it lacked its usual brilliance and pretty much everything felt a bit flat.

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei Episode 11

I guess then they realise that they needed to give us some different take on this whole sabotage plot, so instead of seeing Tatusya actually getting to the bottom of things, the girls group up to play amateur detective and do manage to shut down one ploy in a series of scenes that have minimal movement and even the one decent action sequence ended up going to the girls of third high and the animation was pretty stilted.

Honestly, the trouble here is you can’t help but compare Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei to Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei, and this arc is coming up very much a sad second because they haven’t given us enough to make the girls competing the focus (outside of the pillar break match up) and the way they’ve delivered the sabotage plot is just not satisfying. Even if there was no original take on this arc, this episode really butchered both potential plot focuses.

And then we get to the boys in Monolith Code. They don’t bother to re-establish who the other two boys are helping Tatsuya as the reserves or what their abilities are. They barely get any lines at all. Then when you see the boys walking together both to the even and after it is over, they are so badly drawn you can barely recognise which one Tatsuya is (and I’m sure their heights changed at one point).

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei episode 11

Add in that we barely get stills of arguably one of the best match ups of the Nine Schools competition before the whole thing is over and really there was little to cling on to in this episode that is satisfying.

Unless of course you really like Eimi running meetings for wannabe girl detectives.

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei Episode 11

Anyway, Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei has 2 episodes left, we still need to see Miyuki compete in Mirage Bat and I guess that will be where this series ends? I’ve tried to remain optimistic but really this isn’t must watch additional material for fans of Irregular. It’s added too little and with the quality definitely taking a dive in this episode a lot of the charm has pretty much worn off of it.

Images from: Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei. Dir. Hideki Tachibana. Connect. 2021


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Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei Episode 10 – Impressions – Victory and Defeat

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei Episode 10
Review posts of Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei are sponsored by Crow's World of Anime.
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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.

Eimi - Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei 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.

Shizuku - Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei
She does look very impressive and determined.

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.

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei - Miyuki

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?

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei Episode 10 - Miyuki and Tatsuya

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.

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei - Miyuki is Jealous

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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Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei Episode 9 – Impressions – Yippee Ki-Yay

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei Episode 9
Review posts of Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei are sponsored by Crow's World of Anime.
https://www.crowsworldofanime.com/

I really wasn’t expecting much from Eimi’s match against Shiori from Third High this week on Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei. Given the conclusion was inevitable, I expected it to be relatively fun to watch but unmoving. I mean, Eimi’s last match was fun but this isn’t a character I am particularly invested in.

How happy I am to be wrong. For perhaps the first time this season The Honour Student at Magic High managed to get me fully emotionally invested in a scene and as Eimi delivered her tired ‘Yippee Ki-Yay’ at the end of the match I both had a tear in my eye and a smile on my face.

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei Episode 9

Eimi stole the show this week in Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei

This was just a masterfully put together match with two characters they’ve tried to build up during the tournament so we’ve seen them enough and new their names and they’ve really worked at giving us a reason to care for them (even if it hasn’t always been effective). Both entered this round of Pillar’s Break determined to win and with strong engineers behind them. So the real question came down to whether a controlled and planned tactic could overcome Eimi’s raw talent for destruction.

Right from the opening buzzer, Eimi went on the attack with her usual cavalier attitude that the one who strikes first, wins.

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei Episode 9

There might be something in that claims, because to be honest, I’m pretty sure if Shiori had attacked faster in the second half of the match she’d have left Eimi without any moves but let’s not rewrite the match.

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei gave both of these girls screen time as we watched them attack and counter and moved between them, the audience who were reacting to each move and making predictions about who had the upper hand, and even cut to the two engineers behind the players once or twice.

This really helped feel the impact of each attack and the building tension both for the contestants and those who were supporting them. If we took out these comments and commentaries basically we have one girl hurling ice pillars and another blocking attacks and a lot of the excitement of this sequence would have just disappeared.

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei Episode 9

That the battle ended with both girls collapsing on their podiums more or less said it all. While Eimi emerged the ‘victor’ both had put up a worthy fight and honestly deserve props for a fantastic effort.

On the back of such a strong first half, Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei tried to deliver an equally emotionally second half but just couldn’t do it.

First we had Shizuku choosing to face Miyuki in the final round of Pillar Break even though she could have just taken the three way tie. While I know this sets up a cool face-off between the two, we already know the outcome so the build up here is not doing a great job at making me anticipate the next episode. Then we cut to Honoka’s final in battle board.

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei episode 9

Now Honoka has had some great moments in this spin-off series. Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei has really allowed this timid girl to have some shining sequences and honestly she’s had the most character development of any of the cast across the nine episodes. Therefore, this match should have been one that naturally drew us in.

I’m not entirely sure why it didn’t given we had a solid rivalry between the two characters, some solid magical shenanigans on the water, but it all felt a little by the numbers.

Still, I did really enjoy the first half of this episode and the second half works well enough even if it isn’t quite as moving. I’ll look forward to Shizuku’s match against Miyuki because maybe they’ll really manage to show-case the best of those two characters the way they did with Eimi and Shiori this week.

Images from: Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei. Dir. Hideki Tachibana. Connect. 2021


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Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei – A spin-off focusing more on the group than a main character

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei - Article
Review posts of Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei are sponsored by Crow's World of Anime.
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I’ve been covering Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei (or The Honor Student at Magic High School) episodically this season and while I will probably have a few things to say about it in my review, mostly it has been an enjoyable enough experience. However, while watching it, one thing has become fairly clear to me, and that is that despite all the write-ups that described this story as a retelling from Miyuki’s point of view, I really should have paid attention to the added on information that MAL gave which is, “and the other female characters“.

That’s actually fairly important because while we are spending more time with Miyuki than we did in the original anime (Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei) we’re actually spending far more time with the supporting cast including Honoka, Shizuku and Eimi.

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei Episode 4 - Eimi, Shizuku and Honoka

At first I thought this was a little bit strange but then I started thinking about other spin-off series that have taken much the same approach and lost the focus on a main character to instead flesh out a supporting cast and taking on a more slice-of-life (and usually cute girls doing cute things) approach and I realised there’s probably a solid marketing reason behind this kind of decision making.

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei isn’t the first to take an ensemble approach.

The obvious comparison for me came when I was watching Honoka, Shizuku and Eimi playing detective and getting in over their heads in Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei to the cast of A Certain Scientific Railgun.

Airing in 2010 and being a spin-off to A Certain Magical Index, Railgun more or less ditched protagonist Kamijou from the original and Index is almost a no-show, as the focus shifts to Misaka Mikoto (the Railgun herself) and her friends including a number of characters that quite regularly get in over their heads because they aren’t protagonists but do hang around with them and somehow get involved in extreme situations involving terrorists, conspiracies, and end of the world scenarios.

railgun

The formulaic approach to building a cast of bubbly female girls with powers works and in Railgun many would argue (including me) that it far surpassed the enjoyment of the original series. Giving us the world we loved, some of the key events from the original plot, but also providing us with fresh situations and scenarios ranging from the deadly serious to the absolutely frivolous. More than that, Railgun got the balance of cute girls being cute with the more serious action sequences just right.

While Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei hasn’t had quite the magic of Railgun, its cast is surprisingly enjoyable. While Shizuku and Honoka were present in Irregular, they were definitely not in the inner circle as they are Miyuki’s friends and not necessarily Tatsuya’s. By shifting the focus away from Tatsuya, we essentially shed a lot of the characters from the series that were in his class, cutting down the large cast, and giving the girls around Miyuki much more screen time.

Honour Ep2 2

And honestly, they are pretty fun characters.

Where they haven’t quite managed to hold their own is that they’ve not been given a huge amount to do. Even when playing ‘detective’ Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei didn’t really give them any new material to uncover or their own plots to explore and so we constantly end up back at events we’ve already seen and know these characters don’t necessarily play a pivotal role in. Railgun managed to find new challenges in amongst the ones we’d seen to provide the characters with a bit more scope.

Still, seeing Eimi saving Honoka and Shizuku from club recruitment by riding her horse into a crowd or watching the girls rally together in defence of Tatsuya, or even just their preparations for events as we see them behind the scenes confronting their own insecurities, has been pretty fun. With a bit more effort on the plot side this mix of characters could have definitely surpassed the original series.

Honour Ep4 7

Equally, because of the characters we’ve shed from the original, now that we’re at the Nine Schools Competition, Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei has been able to build up one of the rival schools and the characters the girls are competing against. They are no longer just the faceless opponent to be overcome or represented entirely by the one male character Tatsuya will end up facing off against, but now they’ve become real people with their hopes and dreams of competing and winning the competition.

It would have been awesome if the story had slowed down a bit more and given us time to really get to know these characters and watch them prepare for the competition and interact with the cast we know a bit more, but we continue to race through the events, I guess in an effort to wrap this arc up by the end of the season. Again, in principle, the new characters could be great, but the execution hasn’t really allowed them to spread their wings and win over the audience.

Honour Ep6 9

But, if we want to think about why Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei took this approach at all, I guess we just need to compare the promotional images of the two series and think about which audiences the two shows are targeting. Also telling that the ‘action’ tag has been removed from Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei. Just look at the girls’ school uniforms. While there are one or two females who do hand-to-hand combat in the series, most of the girls are more stand back and use ranged magical attack types so the focus of the spin-off was never going to be action.

It’s an almost identical trend to the changes from A Certain Magical Index to A Certain Scientific Railgun in terms of the promotional image, though Railgun didn’t lose its action tag because the girls in Railgun are just as likely to get involved in a fight as the boys.

There’s some definite positives to this approach to spin-offs. It does allow characters who were more in the background a chance to come into their own and shine, and when done well this can enhance the world-building of the original series as well as help craft a solid individual identity for the spin-off show. Equally, you can expand the audience beyond the original series by appealing to a slightly different demographic.

The key consideration is whether you’ve done it well and whether the spin-off does stand on its own as a solid piece of entertainment.

I’m still not completely convinced that Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei has managed it, though the approach it took wasn’t wrong. Hopefully by the end of the series it will have found its groove because there’s certainly enough potential in the cast.

Images from: Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei. Dir. Hideki Tachibana. Connect. 2021


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Karandi James


Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei Episode 8 Impressions – Something Old, Something New

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei Episode 8
Review posts of Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei are sponsored by Crow's World of Anime.
https://www.crowsworldofanime.com/

Rewriting Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei

I started thinking this week while watching Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei that rather than following the girls of first high, this spin-off would have been significantly stronger if it had left first high behind and followed the cast of third high. We could then entirely reframe this sports tournament and have the underdogs of third high trying to outclass the master engineer Tatsuya and his severely overpowered sister. Just saying, it would probably make for a much more compelling story.

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei Episode 8

Not that this week’s episode is actually bad, because this was a perfectly watchable episode.

We even had some novelty in seeing a magical tennis match (was it Cloudball or something?) play out which hadn’t appeared in the original series of Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei.

Now was this very brief match with none of the main cast from first high appearing particularly compelling? Not really. But it was nice to see that Isshiki Airi really does have some decent moves and in a slight retelling of the story could be the protagonist. That said, she’s going up against Miyuki later so we know she’s going to lost, which is kind of sad.

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei doesn’t have room for more overpowered characters at the centre.

While her bratty demeaner in her introduction at the banquet didn’t exactly win me over, Airi has demonstrated she has some fairly solid personality traits. She’s determined and hard working. She is also willing to re-evaluate a situation and strategize, so she isn’t just flinging raw power at a situation and hoping it will stick. She looks out for her friends and team-mates. And basically other than not being from the right high-school she ticks every box for protagonist material. Definitely a case of a character who has everything that they should need to win being robbed by the necessity of plot.

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei Episode 8

Anyway, Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei continues to churn through the events and we finally see the first couple of matches of Pillar Break.

In this, Eimi finally gets a chance to shine and also gets some development as a character afterwards. She’s usually such a high flying and enthusiastic presence, it was actually kind of comforting to see her reaction to Miyuki’s first round as it really made her feel a little more human.

Still, you have to admit, that any character, red-haired or not, who uses the strategy of destroying their own pillar to mow down the opponents is kind of cool. That’s the kind of reckless and fun plan that no one ever really suspects and is kind of hard to defend against. Plus, it looked pretty amazing. I mean, in terms of strategies, this one is simple but so incredibly effective and just fun to watch. Okay, Eimi’s Yippee-Ki-Yay and go move may very well be the highlight of this series so far for me and for a character I barely remembered existing from the original she has pretty much become my favourite of the bunch here.

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei Episode 8

But, we really should talk Miyuki.

You know, one of the frustrating things about Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei is that we aren’t learning more about the Shiba’s. We still have the mysterious aunt and family obligations but no new light has really been shed on how all that works. Instead, we just get more half-comments and incomplete conversations.

Yet, Miyuki really does want to look out for her brother (at least when she isn’t zapping him to the ground herself in a fit of jealousy). There’s a sweet moment at the start of this episode where Miyuki is genuinely trying to comfort him, even though he seems fairly stoic, because once again he’s pushed himself out of the lime-light because of all of their family baggage.

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei Episode 8

Equally, Miyuki’s match, while we had seen this particular strategy the first time round, is still an exceptional display of magical power. One thing everyone watching that round of pillar break should be aware of is not to mess with Miyuki. And she wasn’t even up against a strong opponent. It promises some fairly interesting matches to come even if we do know the outcome and honestly, I think this episode has probably been the most fun to watch yet.

Images from: Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei. Dir. Hideki Tachibana. Connect. 2021


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Karandi James


Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei Episode 7 Impressions – The Rookie Tournament Kicks Off

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei Episode 7
Review posts of Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei are sponsored by Crow's World of Anime.
https://www.crowsworldofanime.com/

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei tries to humanise the competition.

One of the key problems with spin-offs in general came to light this week in episode 7 of Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei as it made a gallant effort to humanise the girls from third high and yet it was very hard to buy into the story knowing already the outcome of the event.

No matter how tragic a backstory you present or how fierce that friendship with Airi is, the bottom line is we already knew that Shizuku was going to win that event and all this backstory did was make me feel kind of bad that Tatsuya is such a cheat level magic engineer. Which I somehow don’t think was the point. And if this hadn’t been a spin-off and there was some genuine will she/won’t she tension, perhaps I’d have really been drawn into the backstory though ultimately it all was a little heavy handed and cliche.

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei Episode 7
You are amazing, but you are still going to lose.

On the other hand, we did move far away from Miyuki this episode after the questions she raised last week with her actions. This week she’s more or less only appearing in occasional scenes in the crowd and in support as this episode isn’t about her or her events.

Which then of course leaves me wondering whether Shizuku, whose event was front and centre this episode, actually got any additional development from this retelling of the story. And thinking it through the answer is a firmly no. Any additional information was given in the form of making her opponent a little more than just an obstacle, and we already established that didn’t really work, and Shizuku mostly just had the same series of scenes as we’ve already seen or at the very least the scenes in this episode didn’t add anything.

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei Episode 7

Now, that doesn’t make it a bad episode per se. Seeing Shizuku dominate in her competition, supported through Tatsuya’s engineering and the strategies they planned is pretty impressive and entertaining. It isn’t necessarily new, but it was still fun to watch and be reminded that Shizuku, quiet as she may be, actually has a fierce competitive streak and is actually a pretty impressive magic user in her own right.

I also liked that this episode did finally get into some of the magic engineering aspects that I really quite liked in the original series as fundamentally what drew me to Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei was the unique world building around the combination of magic and science. So having the engineering feature in Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei for perhaps the first time in these seven episodes, was actually kind of delightful.

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei Episode 7

Equally, I like that we’re seeing a lot more of third high’s strategizing this time around and discussions around the medal tally and which events are coming up next. It means we aren’t rehashing the conversations first high had as the tournament went along, and it does at least feel like third high are rivals rather than just a necessary obstacle in this version of events.

The episode ends with jumping to Honoka’s qualifying round and really nothing new is given here but it is great to see Honoka having so much fun while competing (given how nervous she was going into the event).

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei Episode 7

I am kind of looking forward to the next episode of Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei because I want to see if this story can flesh out third high a bit more as the competition gets tighter and whether we’ll get more engineering discussions.

Images from: Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei. Dir. Hideki Tachibana. Connect. 2021


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Karandi James


Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei Episode 6 Impressions – I Have A Few Questions For Miyuki Right Now

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei Episode 6 Review
Review posts of Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei are sponsored by Crow's World of Anime.
https://www.crowsworldofanime.com/

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei continues it’s headlong charge through content.

In my episode 5 review of Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei I mentioned that pacing is somewhat of an issue as this spin-off series continue to skip over the Tatsuya focused events (such as the politics behind the terrorists) in favour of what Miyuki and her friends are doing. While the switch in focus makes sense given that is the whole point of the spin-off, what it has sacrificed is any kind of independent coherence and any real sense of reasoned pacing.

So episode 6 starts with the girls seeing their test scores and being overjoyed that their scores will mean they will be chosen for the rookie team that goes to the Nine Schools Competition. We then have a bizarre scene where Mayumi has Miyuki standing in front of her in the student council office and gives here a really truncated explanation of what the Nine Schools Competition is.

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei Episode 6

While I get the audience of Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei might need a brush up on what the competition entails, this is just odd because we have two characters talking about it when both should already know. It would make more sense for their to be an assembly announcing the selections with a brief overview of why the competition was important to first high or something, rather than this scene that really felt like a shoved in explainer because someone realised that anyone who started with this spin-off would be utterly lost.

They probably would be anyway because honestly this series has really not worried about world building in any meaningful capacity.

After the opening we see Tatsuya meeting the first year girls that he will be the engineer for during the competition and then we move to the evening where Miyuki, in a fit of jealousy using magic to do some serious damage to Tatsuya forcing him to restore himself.

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei Episode 6

Miyuki, that is not considered roughhousing.

I’m left a little bewildered by the choice to include this in a story that is meant to give us more information about Miyuki. While we always knew she had a brother complex, causing him grave harm in an instant of petty jealousy wasn’t something I thought she would do given she’s always been so fiercely protective of him.

Instead, Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei’s decision to frame Miyuki this way has just left me wondering if Miyuki has more than just a bit of a complex but is actually needing some real psychological help. It makes it incredibly difficult to sympathise with her character and really I mostly want to tell Tatsuya to get away from her. He’s unlikely to given on restoring himself he immediately goes back to being her sweet older brother but this scene was seriously worrisome.

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei Episode 6

And all of that before we get to the competition (skipping over the terrorist incident on the bus that is mentioned but not shown) and we race through most of the events for the third years so that we can end the episode with the rookies about to start.

For all of that racing through content though, Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei isn’t above a hot-tub scene with the first year female students that as always contains a serious amount of breast groping. Again, its an interesting choice to not bother to show or animate a serious bus accident but to spend time on such a standard anime trope and while I’m not against fan-service, here it felt really forced and unnecessary and with so much of the story just getting skipped over it felt fairly intrusive.

We also introduced the rival first year students from third high and so far Airi Isshiki, clearly going up against Miyuki, hasn’t particularly impressed given she dismissed Miyuki after hearing her name and concluding she wasn’t from one of the great families. I’m kind of hoping the following episodes give these rival characters a bit more development because otherwise this is going to be a fairly flat retelling of a competition we’ve already seen.

Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei Episode 6

It has probably become clear that I’m a little underwhelmed by Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei so far and I’m a little confused about who their target audience might be. Mostly, I’m kind of hoping that now we’re at the half-way mark maybe things will start coming together.

Images from: Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei. Dir. Hideki Tachibana. Connect. 2021


Thank-you for reading 100 Word Anime.
Join the discussion in the comments.
Karandi James