「来訪者編III」 (Raihou-sha-hen III)
“Visitor Arc III”

And now we return to the scheduled programing. What, really thought Tatsuya would play second fiddle for two weeks in a row? Your prediction skills need some work there young padawan. When it comes to Magic Jesus he’s going to find a way to dominate the headlines, and you can be damn sure you’re going to love every minute of it. After all, Miyuki certainly does.

After the setup for this arc in the preceding couple of episodes, the question was more or less how Tatsuya would find a way to solve all, and I dare say we found out. Crashing the party not once but twice? Now that’s proving your worth. Honestly it shouldn’t be any major surprise to Mahouka veterans that we had Tatsuya both upset the latest villain attempt at magical bloodsucking and reveal Lina’s true identity; given this series has consistently moved towards the guy being the end all be all of in-universe living weapons, it was just a matter of time before the inevitable happened. The real disappointment for me rather is that Tatsuya happened to upstage both Erika and Mikihiko who, with a little writing push, likely could’ve handled the situation themselves (or at least fought both Lina and vampire to a draw). Not everything in Mahouka needs to be about Tatsuya doing Tatsuya things, and this was a prime moment to try and realize that.

Going forward, however, the intrigue will be in how Lina and Tatsuya now deal with one another. Considering Tatsuya pretty much divined Lina’s identity earlier on thanks to momentary rush of tough girl gone fangirl, I doubt this week’s cliffhanger will lead to any major shock on his part—or result in any concerted fight between the two. Both kids are after the same enemy after all, and given said enemy is still running loose, a temporary truce between them is probably in the cards. And following that? Expect that Tatsuya charm to smoothen out any antagonistic wrinkles Lina might retain. At least until Miyuki senses competition mind you, because nothing says trouble like angry pouting sister trouble.

Yeah, Mahouka is now pretty much returning to time-honoured form, with the only question being how our sibling tag-team (and their blondie support) wind up solving this arc’s big mystery. Might be a couple more detours before reaching that point, but I don’t think we’ll have to wait long before everything is properly revealed.

 

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9 Comments

  1. I think your missing a major point of this arc though, originally Lina was sent to Japan to find Tatsuya, and him constantly getting in her way is just going to make a confrontation with her more and more likely. So don’t write off a nice fight between them off yet.

    “Not everything in Mahouka needs to be about Tatsuya doing Tatsuya things, and this was a prime moment to try and realize that.” While generally true, this isn’t going to be the case for Mahouka it’ll be Magical Jesus strutting his stuff all the Way to the end.

    Tegual
    1. Oh no I haven’t forgotten the point of this arc, I’m just expecting Lina’s whole purpose in being in Japan right now to be quietly sidelined later on after Tatsuya has a chance to show her how he’s effectively invincible.

      While they’ll probably have some sort of showdown considering who Lina is and her mission, I seriously doubt it’ll amount to much. I’m open to being proven wrong though!

    2. And that’s the problem here. The only thing to resolve it is sending magic jesus to a corner while the rest do things that arent magic jesus when the rest are capable of offering a good show, like opm does with saitama. It’s not rocket science, it’s cooking a better dish with the same ingredients.

      cvb
    1. I’d mostly chalk it up to just letting Tatsuya strut his stuff against Lina and the rest (because he clearly doesn’t do it enough already), but it’s not unlikely to think the heat of the moment limited some sort of tacit agreement between the sides.

      Lina is there to uncover Tatsuya after all, wouldn’t put it past her to try and use the opportunity to eliminate the guy, especially if he popped up out of nowhere.

  2. In a normal shounen cliche fashion Tatsuya’s sensei who came to Miyuki would be one of the infected/parasite wielders, and he would attempt to kidnap her to stop Tatsuya from
    interfering with their plans and/or make him help them fight US spies, but thankfully Mahouka is not a generic shounan trash and this will be more complex than that. Just my thoughts.

    John

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