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「一生大事にします」 (Isshou Daijini Shimasu)
“I’ll Cherish This For The Rest of My Life”
You hear that? The thundering of the heart. The rushing of breath. The elation of surprise. Yes, it’s that time once again: onii-sama time. And what a time it’s going to be if Yuutousei’s first episode is any indication. Magic Jesus might be the true divider of opinions, but I dare say Miyuki (Hayami Saori) is going to give him a run for his magical money.
As highlighted back in the RC Preview – and assuming you’ve seen Rettousei, which is likely if you’re reading this – Yuutousei is effectively the Mahouka-verse’s Railgun, spinning off directly from Rettousei and now viewing its various events and arcs the through the Miyuki light. Need look no further than the OP to get a good idea: the Nine Schools Competition is shown as the dominating focus while plenty of the female secondary cast (and their introductions) are set to play important roles. If you’ve already seen Rettousei you know what’s coming – and know full well it’ll be Mahouka through and through.
While unlikely anyone here has not seen the main Mahouka series, for anyone coming in blind Yuutousei should be serviceable as an introduction to the franchise. This opener did well to relate the key players for example: Miyuki is pampered yet powerful sister who lies within a family keen to keep her abilities under wraps while Tatsuya (Nakamura Yuuichi) serves as her equally capable yet seemingly lower ranked brother responsible for more shady duties. Likewise we got the first mention of Blanche to help indicate the moment’s big bad. Typical light novel premise all things considered mind you, but one which makes sense for any newcomer. Naturally though franchise fans or viewers experienced with Rettousei will get the most out of this; Mahouka’s world building is dense, there’s a lot of unspoken details here easily lost in the void (e.g. Mahouka’s magic system), and until properly introduced a lot of the shown faces can easily bleed into one another. Things will certainly improve as we get deeper into the season, but given the material I fully expect this one not being able to match Railgun in franchise improvement.
And that leads into what will likely be Yuutousei’s main sticking point: Miyuki herself. Shouldn’t need to effuse on this point too much when the girl does it herself. Repeatedly. All the time. Incest? Jealousy? Overbearing love bordering on outright obsession? If you’re new just know this is the tip of iceberg, and if you’re not, well, you know what’s coming. I didn’t know how this aspect would be treated with Yuutousei (given its – spoiler alert – centrality to Mahouka’s plot), but having it played up so strongly this early has me somewhat concerned it’ll become Yuutousei’s defining feature. There’s more to Mahouka than Magic Jesus fawning after all, more to this story than watching Miyuki test how hot she can get before she melts in Tatsuya’s presence. Seeing the teenage crushing take a frontseat to these aspects would be disappointing (and arguably boring), but then again, it’s early days yet; there’s always the potential to pull a rabbit from the hat.
I have no idea whether Yuutousei will find that rabbit, but I’m certainly curious seeing what happens.
Full-length images: 10.
OP Sequence
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OP: 「101」 by Sangatsu no Phantasia
Preview
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This series has an inherent flaw vs the obvious Railgun comparison. Railgun works because, at most times, Mikoto is not with the main Index character Toma. She can go off and have her own adventures, but without him. The other main reason it works is because Index only dabbles in the science world, while Railgun flips it on its head, and instead only dabbles in the magic world.
This series…can’t do any of that. The sister, while not with her brother the entire time in the series, is with him much more than Mikoto is with Toma. Many of the more important events, she is only a side character. The other issue presents itself here as well, in that she remains in this same magical world.
If this episode is any indication, most of the “stand alone” parts she will receive to make her look strong on her own, will probably feel forced, as Tatsuya has already shown to be a constant here, and has shown in the previous series that simple things like, moving through a few floors to reach a terrorist are no trouble to him. The story wants you to feel like he wasn’t there and she had to handle it herself, but simple thought into the other series tells you otherwise.
Therefore, as a stand alone series, this will probably fail, but, if you enjoy the pre existing characters already, and enjoy the world that they’re in, then this could be a nice distraction as side series content.
I think it’s a little too early to draw conclusions from just the First Episode alone since it’s still an introductory sequence. I have read the Yuutousei Mangas before watching this (though albeit wasn’t easy getting through the last quarter chapters as they were not fully translated) and I found some intriguing aspects to this Spin-off that I wouldn’t normally expect from a “Spin-off” showing someone else’s perspective, in contrast to Railgun.
The most interesting part that caught me is the Screentime for characters. You’d normally assume that the Main Focus of the Plot, which is the MC(In this case, Miyuki) would have the most screen time. But after finishing the Mangas, it did not feel that way. Other side characters like Honoka and Shizuku, had as much if not More screentime than Miyuki herself and had more actual involvement in events that happen that the previous Seasons did not dabble on. And Tatsuya rarely even appears, he’s more of a Cameo guy in the background for the most part. But he does have involvement in some events, as already indicated in Season 1 during the competition.
Though all of this might change during this Anime Adaptation, which they’re good at altering and cutting things they shouldn’t, especially this Series…
Agreed with Nico. I don’t think anyone really expects something of Railgun’s quality or format happening here given the stories and characters are inherently different. The goal from what I see is to rather highlight a lot of the secondary details lost in Rettousei, which may be Miyuki at face value but definitely includes the secondary cast as the OP hints towards heavily.
Considering how Rettousei played out just giving attention and depth to anyone not Miyuki and Tatsuya would be success as it could allow Mahouka’s actual strengths to finally show off properly. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Is it just me or are the character designs different?
They are. Studio Connect is adapting Yuutousei whereas Rettousei has been a mix of Madhouse and 8bit. No real shocker designs would look different given the production circumstances.
So we get entire episodes of the FMC saying “Onii-sama” seven thousand million times? Hello tinnitus!!
If anything you’re understating the true amount 😛
Seems like a suitable beginning for the new show. Looks nice, moves nice, sounds nice but… loopy dialogue, dismally contrived drama (e.g. the stupid child setup), all it was missing was the juvenile, authoritarian moralizing of the original. Artwork was great. I really liked how they captured some of Miyuki’s expressions, especially in her eyes.
As commented above, this show can’t really go full Railgun (although they did manage to loot Saten-san’s ‘Onee-chan, arigatou’ moment, along with having a ‘pyrokinecisto’ menace). Miyuki is forbidden from hanging out with random lowlifes and it would be a cold day before the family let her get out and about like the characters of that show do. Railgun’s first episode was fantastic, whereas this is perhaps just fine. Of course, the music fails in comparison.
That all said, I enjoyed it but maybe we’ll get more Honoka time along with the other students who received limited screen time in prior shows.
I think we can expect a lot of the side characters to get a good deal of screen time in this one, they wouldn’t be teased so heavily if they were going to follow their Rettousei appearances.
Yeah, I was a little surprised to see some of the characters getting such prominence in the ending or the promotional art (e.g. Aimi). Also, I thought that in the previous show, there was some implied stuff, for example about why Miyuki wasn’t particularly concerned over Honoka’s hunger for her brother, and maybe this will be used to flesh that out a little.
Dunno if I’ll follow this as I still have to watch S2 + movie of Onii-sama main series, but I’ll at least appreciate the effort you took making some of the screenshots and full-length images. 😀
Theoretically, this show should take place before any of the movie/s2 events so seeing it out of order likely wouldn’t be disruptive to the long-term narrative. Of course, I neither know nor care to know what’s written so take that with a grain of salt.
Ah yeah, you’re right.
If there’s a scene which warrants a full-length image, best be sure I am going to deliver. Or at least try to XD