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「来訪者編ⅩⅢ」 (Raihou-sha-hen ⅩⅢ)
“Visitor Arc XIII”
You now, for a predictable finale, Mahouka’s season conclusion wasn’t that bad. While there’s plenty to be said (a lot of it the usual remarks) about Tatsuya doing Magic Jesus things, I’m not going to complain too much: the art was fun, the animation nice, and Miyuki likely deserves more of the credit for letting Tatsuya be himself. Also lack of appreciable Miyuki-isms, that never hurts either.
In the end, however, this arc did as I expected it would by largely serving as the bridge to Mahouka’s later material thanks to both introducing the NSF and their abilities alongside confirming Minami as Miyuki’s bodyguard. The reason and purpose of both are naturally ambiguous right now (especially the latter), but rest assured, we’ll be getting both explained in anime form before too long. Well, likely after that Miyuki side-story of course, because obviously we know who’s the best girl in this series (*inches closer to Erika*). Anyway, impressions time!
Final Impressions
When looking back at Mahouka’s latest affair, there’s honestly little more to be added than has already been said on this very site. This is a series which probably represents the best and worst of light novel adaptations – and makes no qualms about featuring both aspects in noticeable quantity. It ain’t perfect, it’s fully deserving of all criticism, yet it’s also a decent romp when approached with the right sort of mentality as this season highlights.
The thing I like most about this season is without a doubt the narrative control. Outside of Tatsuya (a whole topic in of himself I won’t touch on here), Mahouka’s biggest issue is arguably its infodumps: they are long, they are dense, and usually featur more technobabble than a normal anime-only viewer is able to handle. While this season had a few, particularly a critical, plot-relevant one, they were remarkably constrained compared to before, helping to let Mahouka’s action-focused aspects shine. I wouldn’t go as far to say Mahouka fully embraced the “show not tell” approach for this sequel, but it often let its world mechanics speak for themselves and let the viewer fill in the blanks while the visuals did their thing. This for me let me enjoy the show more by actually being able to watch an episode from start to finish and never feel the need to rewind, rewatch, and read a wiki just to get the gist of a particular plot point. If Mahouka’s future seasons can keep this up going forward, I dare say it’s on the road to anime redemption.
Of course, not all is roses here, and the major issues as expected revolve around characters. Secondary cast and giving them an opportunity to strut their stuff without main character intervention remains a perennial problem (albeit a very subjective one), however, the larger problem is definitely Miyuki and the focus on her more possessive aspects. Compared to the first season, Miyuki’s brotherly love ramped up severely this time, reaching beyond the usual lines of acceptance to at times go all-in on Tatsuya obsession. While Miyuki and her desires are admittedly a part of why many like Mahouka (not to mention an aspect which only increases in importance as Mahouka’s plot kicks into high gear), they are conversely one of this series’ main anchors and part of what definitely could be handled better for the anime. Might just be my memory playing tricks, but if Mahouka handled Miyuki similar to say OreImo (at least in terms of blatancy), I think the problems would be less pronounced.
In the end though, Mahouka, outside of a few structural changes, offered no major surprises and kept on doing what it does best (or worst). Fans of the series will find plenty to love, critics won’t be changing their minds anytime soon, and we can all look forward to seeing what’s next in store for the veritable Magic Jesus and friends. I may not be in the camp of Mahouka adherents, but I’m certainly down to seeing just where this story and its characters decide to head next.
For me, first season ; 8/10, second season 6/10.
Feels like this was made just to be had, like Index 3, no feelings put behind it, just made to exist.
IMO it’s not as bad as Index 3, the season can be seen as bland, but it did not rush as badly or have as terrible production as that sequel. Only serious hatchet jobs should be compared to that disaster 😛
This was a decent watch, and having just recently watched the movie, it is of my opinion that the movie served as a better coda to this arc. It just flows more smoothly, but this 2 episode diversion is quite good enough as a bridge to the next arc, should it come. This series continues to be a flawed series and those who were unimpressed with the first season will most likely come away from this second season still unimpressed. I found myself looking for a decent magic based action, so this served its purpose quite well. Perhaps one of the major criticism of this season is that it is not friendly to first time watchers, or even those who watched the first season and was never into it. I fall into the second category, and I could barely relate to the characters this time around as if it requires one to be a BIG fan first before one can fully appreciate it. Still, should the next arc come, I would still watch it.
Oh yes fully agreed, Mahouka is not anime-only viewer friendly. It’s one of the legitimate criticisms of this series and something which I think heavily affected the first season. Part of it stems from the sheer amount of world building provided, but it also comes from the adaptation not making any serious attempt to adapt the light novels to anime format – it’s more or less just light novel advertisement. As a result it’s a show only fans will find a lot of joy in given the anime stands a good chance at turning off people expecting something different.
Well, despite not watching the series, I still have this burning question for this season of Mahouka:
What’s Miyuki’s total “onii-sama” count for this season?
(Previous season [excluding the movie] for reference, 167 times she says “onii-sama” in total.)
P.S.: Best of luck for those making a drinking game out of it. o7
Nobody actually bothers doing that anymore. It’s a dead meme.
Not even for sh**s and giggles? I was under the impression there’s (still) fun to be had making fun of Mahouka‘s incestuous subtext (among other stuff about the series to make fun of).
Oh well… How long has that meme been dead?
I mean if you really want to know, you can just watch it and count for yourself. Aside from that, there’s not much else I can think of to make fun of the series, even setting aside the incestuous innuendoes. Most of it’s faults are from the awful mismanagement of the Anime Adaptation itself (Mainly due to awful Directing).
It’s been dead since the Movie I guess? Nobody ever mentions that meme anymore, not even the Reddit pages. Never checked the Discord though, maybe one of them actually counted.
I did a search for ‘onii-sama’ (or ‘お兄様’ specifically) in the subs and came up with 172 hits in the first season. So that suggests that it was spoken five times by someone else. Miyuki should investigate in case someone else is calling her Tatsuya that.
Regarding this season… in the first five episodes, it’s said 27 times (but most of those come in the fourth episode).
Damn. Thanks for going above and beyond for the sake of an old meme.
27 mentions of”onii-sama” (All from Miyuki?), just from the first five episodes? *chuckles* Won’t be surprised if the “onii-sama” count is less than the previous season, but I’ll LMAO if I learn it exceeds the previous season.
No idea. I simply did a count of all instances of ‘お兄様’ in the texts, so it was only a few seconds of work. If I ever see the whole season I’ll update this number. And for what it’s worth, I don’t believe in memes 🙂 It’s obviously a feature of the story and I was mildly curious. Since the effort required was so low….
I think you’re right about that. This season feels a little different from the first — the characters are all more mature. Miyuki is growing up, and her feelings for Onii-sama are evolving from idealisation into hunger. I think that the writing is a little better as well (of course, the bar was pretty low to begin with). Overall I enjoyed it and will watch whenever more comes out.
Oh… I should add that the first five episodes of season one had 57 instances of ‘Onii-sama’, so the rate is about half.
Welp, saw one this coming. As an LN reader, I can’t begin to express how much I’m disappointed at how this adaptation was completely and utterly butchered. Not only was the plot butchered, the Characters themselves were brutally dumped out and disfigured by the horrible adaptation, making them almost irrelevant and lifeless. This Season was the worst offender, they did the most alterations compared to Season 1. I see they never learned their lesson from Season 1 when Madhouse was in charge, and now I’m honestly disappointed at 8bit for this poor direction.
Here are a Few glaring examples of what went wrong and what the changes were that made the whole thing worse.
Episode 7 – Tatsuya was not supposed take out the soldiers who attacked. In the LN, it was supposed to be Erika’s brother Naotsugu Chiba. Naotsugu eventually takes out all of them, but faces Tatsuya, he loses to Tatsuya and reports it to his family. Then Erika, being a boyish, flamboyant and serious fighter who does not hesitate to take action when family relations/conflict are involved, finds out about his brother’s loss, she proceeds to interrogate Tatsuya without hesitation, she finds out Tatsuya’s true identity, that he is from the most powerful/dangerous clan in Japan(Yotsuba). She becomes conflicted if she should betray his Friend, expose him and reveal it to everyone else Or if she keeps it a secret, but will hold a grudge against him.
– What happened in the Anime? Tatsuya takes out all of the soldiers, and Erika, being butchered in this scene, did Nothing, and she did not find out who he is. And she proceeds to be a lifeless, useless character behind the scenes.
Episode 13 – This one was a complete disaster. The newly introduced characters, Minami and the Saegusa Twins were butchered. NONE of this should have happened, because it didn’t happen in the LN, it was “anime original”.
Minami Sakurai, who was supposed to be Miyuki’s new Bodyguard/Guardian to replace Tatsuya, capable of protecting her from any sort of danger, ended up being protected by her Masters. She is a Meek girl, often silent and shy, but she is Strong as a Magician, she takes her job Seriously in protecting her master, she does everything to protect Miyuki at all costs.
– What happened in the Anime? She became Weak, or at least, portrayed to be weak, and does barely anything. She ended up being saved in the end, when she was supposed to do the saving.
Then there’s the Saegusa Twins, Mayumi’s little sisters. Kasumi, act’s boyish but very Aggressive compared to Erika. Izumi is very Shy but is calm and collective, she behaves better than her twin sister. Both have one thing in common, they are VERY Protective of their older sister Mayumi. In the LN, after seeing Tatsuya talking to their Sister, they Proceed to Attack him without hesitation. Izumi boosts Kasumi and flung her towards Tatsuya at High Speed, Kasumi was about to hit him with a Flying Knee to the face. Tatsuya eventually blocks, Mayumi being a Caring and Dearing person she is, apologizes for her sisters’ acts, then proceeds to scold them in front of Tatsuya.
– What happened in the Anime? Nothing, the sisters just stood there and Kasumi asks Mayumi if the guy with her was her Boyfriend(Tatsuya), while Mayumi was just standing there blushing wildly.
These are just a Few examples, where some characters have had their roles taken out and altered, making them completely irrelevant, regardless of personality. The other side characters I didn’t mention were no exception. They too had their share of butchery in almost all episodes that made them utterly irrelevant and lifeless. The Characters’ personality in the Anime are just mere Shells of what was supposed to be portrayed from the LN, losing most of their potential as Characters in the process.
And for this reason, I don’t see 8bit improving much of the Adapting part for future Seasons. I’m kind of worried the same fate will eventually befall on to the Spin-off series coming this year, but now they have to adapt from a Manga instead of a Light Novel, so I expect a better Adaption on their part. As an LN reader, this was just painful to watch.
Damn, that is one hell of a rant, but I’d have to agree. If this is their plan to push people into buying the LNs, their doing a horrible job. They might even be doing the exact opposite and are making people lose interest in it. So much for “Advertisement” lol.
Also why are you commenting so late? This article had been published for about a Month now, the anime ended a Month ago…
I was late to the party. I just finished watching it recently because I didn’t have time to watch anime for a few months, and I happened to stumble across this article.
But yeah, this was a very tough watch. And I doubt that many who have not read the novels yet actually enjoyed everything else beside the typical Action scenes. Even the people in the reddit community who have read the novels and knows more than I do, hate the Anime Adaptation for what it is and how it was handled. Because of the ambiguous amounts of chopping, altering, and butchering of both Characters and Plot that plagued the Story, and became a boring mess of a “Show”.
If anything, they’re pushing away potential audiences that may want to read the LN because of the poorly directed show, that Previews every bit of experience and storytelling from it.