Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei: Raihousha-hen

Following the events of "Scorched Halloween," the world is introduced to a terrifyingly powerful Strategic class magician. In an effort to uncover the identity of this person, the United States of the North American Continent (USNA) dispatches the most powerful asset in its arsenal to Japan on a covert mission—the elite magician unit "Stars" and its commander, Angie Sirius.

At First High School, Tatsuya Shiba and his friends are having a farewell party for Shizuku Kitayama, who is leaving to study abroad in the USNA as part of an exchange program. In her place, the group welcomes the beautiful Angelina "Lina" Kudou Shields. Around the same time, Tatsuya is informed about the USNA's plan to uncover his true identity.

Elsewhere in Tokyo, numerous reports arise of seemingly random bodies found drained of blood. Dubbed as the works of a vampire, it does not take long for Tatsuya to connect the dots and realize that it is almost impossible for the timing of these events to be mere coincidence.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Shiba, Tatsuya Main

Nakamura, Yuuichi Japanese

Shiba, Miyuki Main

Hayami, Saori Japanese

Kudou Shields, Angelina Main

Hikasa, Youko Japanese

Saegusa, Mayumi Supporting

Hanazawa, Kana Japanese

Chiba, Erika Supporting

Uchiyama, Yumi Japanese

Kitayama, Shizuku Supporting

Tatsumi, Yuiko Japanese

Mitsui, Honoka Supporting

Amamiya, Sora Japanese

Shibata, Mizuki Supporting

Satou, Satomi Japanese

Watanabe, Mari Supporting

Inoue, Marina Japanese

Yoshida, Mikihiko Supporting

Tamaru, Atsushi Japanese

Kananiwa, Kozue Producer

Kosuge, Hidenori Producer

Niwa, Masami Producer

Nakajima, Masatoshi Producer

Reviews

May 28, 2024

hexashadow13

Recommended

tl;dr: A sequel season that handled its core plot pretty well, but does a pretty bad job with its characters and magic system world building.

This is the second season of Mahouka. It was quite a surprise when it was announced. There was a large gap of seven years between the first season and second season. But more critically, there was a filler film released in the middle of that, but the chronological placement was a bit strange. The film actually takes place right in the middle of this season, more specifically it takes place half way through episode 11. Furthermore the film draws heavily on ... what happens this season, primarily in that fan favorite Lina plays a part. That they would choose to release such a film basically felt like they were giving up on the anime in favor of appealing more to novel fans. But apparently they changed course due to Mahouka’s rising popularity and from 2020 onwards there has been a barrage of Mahouka content.

This season adapts volumes 9-11 of the light novel though it touches on a bit of volume 12 as well and has a filler arc to help fill introduce things from the novels that were left out of the anime. This season is called the Visitor Arc for a number of reasons. The most prominent being the presence of Linda, an exchange student at First High who is also ‘secretly’ a Lieutenant Colonel of USNA’s magician special ops division Stars. I use ‘secretly’ because although she’s technically undercover, she’s terrible at it, and Tatsuya figures out who she is pretty much immediately. She’s been sent to hunt down deserters from Stars. This is made more complicated by the fact that they’ve been attacking Japanese residents, thus also putting them in the cross hairs of the Japanese police and military. And this is made much more complicated by the fact that they’ve been taken over by information entities from another world know as Parasites.

Overall this is a really great arc and the anime adaptation is able to capture a lot of what makes it good. For example, the plot with parasites involves a pretty interesting mystery and this anime is able to handle how it’s conveyed pretty well. The world building at a political level involving the Ten Clans was also very interesting. However, there was also a lot that I feel the anime didn’t handle very well. The biggest issue would have to be how it handles Lina. This season fleshes out a few returning characters further, such as Honoka, Mizuki, and Mikihiko, but overall it doesn’t really do all that much with them. The focus was much more on Lina and by extension the bonds she forms with other members of the cast. But most everything about her is really underdeveloped. Her friendship with Miyuki and crush on Tatsuya are barely present, even though they’re critical to her character beats. Her thoughts and motivations in general aren’t really conveyed properly at all, to the point that I don’t think it would be clear to most what her character arc even is. She still has some great moments, but the narrative fails to properly build up investment in her and thus they don’t land nearly as well.

The world building regarding magic also wasn’t handled very well. The Parasites operate dramatically differently from most of the magic from season one and need to be dealt with very differently. There was some explanation of Ancient Magic and Crystal Eyes in the first season, but not to the degree that most would be able to understand how it played a part in this season. And absolutely no explanation was given regarding the more complicated aspects such as what Lunar Magic even is. There’s a lot of great action, but in the absence of proper explanation for what is going on, it all just seems like a bunch of ass pulls and deus ex machina. It also results in the moments of Tetsuya or Mizuki being overpowered not landing as well. Tetsuya being a Gary Stu is a core part of Mahouka but this season didn’t really convey that. Most of his overpowered scenes this season are just repeats or lesser versions of what he did in previous arcs, which isn’t all that exciting but is decent enough. And the few moments related to new elements weren’t explained properly and thus didn’t seem as amazing as they should. Though to give credit where credit is due, the filler arc was a major exception to that in that it definitely portrayed Tetsuya being overpowered really well.

The art and animation were pretty good. The basic design work in general in Mahouka is great and this continued that. There wasn’t really all that much new that stood out however. The OP and ED were both solid in terms of song and visuals. The soundtrack was mostly good, but there were some really off and weird parts. Like what the hell was that after the OP in episode 11?

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Mar 1, 2024

Kang_Iqbale

Mixed Feelings

As keen on the Mahouka series, I turned eagerly expecting Raihousha-hen to delve deeper into the sector and characters I had grown to love. However, I discovered myself suffering to keep up with the breakneck tempo of the storyline and the avalanche of the latest records added in every episode. While the motion scenes have been as exhilarating as ever, I couldn`t shake the sensation of bewilderment and frustration because the plot raced ahead, leaving me behind. Raihousha-chicken may also fulfill die-tough fanatics hungry for greater Mahouka content, however for me, it turned into a dizzying and overwhelming revel in that in the long run ... fell brief of expectations.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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May 4, 2021

Doctor_Life_MD

Not Recommended

This is one of those shows that I would like to write my opinion and review on, mostly because I really wanted to like the show and its premise, and I do enjoy seeing Gary Stu-type characters more than Mary Sue-type characters because of one reason: Gary Stus have a goal. And in the first season, one could argue Tatsuya's goal was to make the world a better place by the integration of magic into non-military affairs. In the second season... well, the second season is a drop in terms of quality, music and plot, all of the things that made the first season somewhat ... decent to me.

Story: It's about a bunch of parasites that somehow made their way over to Japan and were created by an experiment gone awry, as well as a young agent of the USNA's Stars special forces who is completely incapable of doing any spycraft and whose pseudonym is too on-the-nose for it to be an actual cover for a high school girl with strategic-class magic. It was really nonsensical and steered so far away from the first season that, if this season were named anything other than The Irregular at Magic High School, it'd fall through a black hole itself without the previous season's charm. They do attempt to explain their magic system somewhat, like where energy comes from, so that's at least a point up.

The "discrimination" parts seemed about as shoehorned into this show as they were in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. Magic was shown to be an overall net positive for humanity, especially given the first season's introduction and the entire Yokohama arc that featured using magic for nuclear fusion. Thusly, the whole "anti-magic" story bits were forced in to perform some kind of virtue signalling when there was no room for it in the topic it tried to signal in.

Art: good and at least somewhat appealing, which is mostly thanks to the established lore of the first season. I noticed there were a few odd animation style switches here and there which is a pretty bad mistake to make.

Sound: the memorable and catchy tracks from the first season are completely gone. I don't remember a single track they used during the episodes themselves. It felt like they tried too hard to mix rap with electronic music, the result of which was absolute horror. At least the few tracks that had rap music were used smarter in the first season, with only their best parts included which truly made for some memorable scenes. Oh, and voiceovers and ability sounds were good, just that the overall score, in my opinion, suffers because of the lack of memorable music.

Characters: Oh boy. Oh, dear Lord I hated so many characters in this. Miyuki is the same annoying brat who thinks incest is a good thing and she just needs to stop breathing, right now. I hated her from the very beginning of the series, and I hate her even more now. Even more so now that for some reason she also has locked powers. And Miyuki is even more irrational and irresponsible in this than in the previous season as she dumps Honoka at one point when there was a real danger in the school, one which Honoka has nothing to protect herself against. Every single time there was an incestuous scene between Tatsuya and Miyuki, I had to skip it. I can't take it. I'm not going to sit here, watch this show and pretend as if it's "fun and wholesome" when it's nothing more than an actively abusive relationship where Miyuki seems to hold a Stockholm syndrome-affected Tatsuya to herself.

Honoka felt like she was shoehorned in to provide some "competition" for Miyuki, but anyone with half a brain knows that the writers would not dare strip Miyuki away from Tatsuya for even a few scenes that involve other characters.

Erika was more or less the same tease as before, so that was fine by me. I lamented how little there was of Tatsuya and Leo teaming up together, especially because I liked Leo as a character, what little there was of him, in the previous season. Mikihiko seemed to receive an upgrade in his powers and Mizuki also saw her ability to see things others can't used more, so that was a plus.

Mayumi Saegusa was my favorite pick for Tatsuya's sidekick / love interest. She was shown to be very powerful, possibly on par with Miyuki, she showed genuine interest in him, she was kind enough to him and even cooperated on a lot of things with him. The fact that the show, during the first season, even suggested Tatsuya should marry with Mayumi was a positive for me. Alas, that's me lamenting how the second season is so much worse than anything because here, Mayumi is downgraded into an envious, hate-filled airhead who seems really unstable and bipolar, going so far as to actively wanting to cause as much dissatisfaction towards Tatsuya as possible, which is a huge disconnect for her character between season 1 and the standalone 2017 movie.

And then there's Tatsuya itself. Oh boy, how they downgraded my boy in terms of strategy, intellect and initiative. The biggest plot hole by far is Tatsuya just not using Gram Demolition every two seconds to solve his problems, and given that Gram Demolition is one of his signature moves, alongside Regrowth, Flash Cast and Material Burst, that meant that every fight scene was too tacky to even enjoy due to the plot downgrading the star Gary Stu of the show, except the two times he actually took on Angelina Shields. Unlike in the first season where he actively was able to team up with others, this season forced Tatsuya to say no with everyone just so we could see more abusive incest between him and Miyuki.

Enjoyment: I was forced to skip a whole lot more scenes in this than in the previous season. I can't stand cringe, incestuous, nonsensical or poor plot moments and that's saying something when a season that's half the length of the previous one forces me to skip four to five times more. I hated every eye candy scene, they made no sense and, in my eyes, served purely to distract viewers from the poor writing. I was quite possibly mentally suffering by the end of this season, it was just that bad.

Overall: Spare yourselves the agony. Watch the first season, skip incest scenes, and don't watch the second season whatsoever. You'll find greater enjoyment there than you would here.

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

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