Light Novel 'Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei' to be Animated [Update 01/01]

some visual from newtype, animedia, & animage

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BdmuRAsCEAA0IEz.jpg:large

Railgun adaption had it easy in that it didn't need to worry about info dumping since the main series adaption took care of that.

Man, I hope Mahouka turns out well... I had trouble just understanding some of the magic concept in the LN. Can't imagine how it'll be explained in the adaption.

The only major good LN-manga adaptation I know is Railgun. And that's a spin off.

haruhi, SAO, etc... Enough

Thread makes me think I should read the LN instead of the manga. Cus I'm getting a lot of "meeh" from that source. I definitely thought that Nakamura Yuuichi was gonna voice Tatsuya due to OreImo, and oh lookie.

Info dump? I am having bad feeling by the way you are describing the series... I care more about the feeling that it induces me rather than just a summarization of events. Especially with infodumping, you can literally waste half of the series but ack, whatever.

that post almost made me feel sad that I dumped horizon after one episode. I liked the story but it really did drag on a lot, maybe they could just make an OVA for the largest of the infodumps? of place the less "highly" important info in the intermission images like they did with shingeki no kyojin?

Infodumps are doable in books because it's a different medium, but in anime people expect different things, so I can see why it'll be difficult, but I really hope they don't just quit trying altogether.

There wasn't even one third of the necessary info in the Horizon anime. There was such a lack of info that it forced a lot of people to look for explanations of everything happening in each episode from peoples who read the volumes. I don't think I ever heard of an anime with such a huge problem before.
They definitely tried, I could see that they even did a pretty good job in the first three episodes before throwing the towel and focusing only on the action. It's not that they sucked at it, it's that doing any more adaptation of the info dump would have resulted in an commercial failure as most people would have turned away from an anime with too much of this.
Sometimes adapting info dump is just impossible.

I never read Moahouka, but I don't think that info dump is nearly half as massive as Horizon's infodump is. Which could mean that with the experience gained with Horizon's adaptation, they may actually manage well the adaptation of Mahouka.
...Or they could on the contrary throw the towel right from the start, knowing how badly the episodes 1 to 3 of Horizon were received by the viewers after they put so much efforts in it( as I could definitely see the impressive effort made in those) and only focus in adapting the rest, leaving aside the huge amount of info.

For a proof about how bad it was received, see the comments here :
http://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=395715
It's funny that ImO that was the 3 episodes with the most effort and talent put into it. After that they clearly gave up and just adapted what will please the viewers (fights, ecchi, and so on) without trying to explaining why all of this happens. Look at everyone's answer. After a few good comments, in the thread it's only complaints about those. Yep, that's why I'm saying that with that kind of reception they may not try at all to do that again with mahouka and just skip most of the infodump right away.

It's Ono Manabu as the director, I heard that Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon S1 (12 eps) which he directed is all about introductions and info dumps and it was a difficult LN to adapt. I want to believe he would do the same with this with Vol 1-4 and maybe a bit of Vol 5. Anyway, like you said, anything can happen ;)

Some data regarding different LN adaptations:

Index (24 episodes): 6 volumes minus 1 chapter from vol5
Index II(24 episodes): 8 volumes + missing chapter from vol5
SAO(25 episodes): 4 volumes + 1 separate volume(Aria) + 1 chapter from vol8
AW(24 episodes): 4 volumes + 2/3 of vol10
Campione(13 episodes): 5 volumes
Date a Live(12 episodes): 4 volumes
Haganai (12 episodes): 3 volumes minus a few stories/chapters
Haganai NEXT(12 episodes): 5 volumes minus some more stories/chapters
Hidan no Aria(12 episodes): 3 volumes
Infinite Stratos (12 episodes): 3 volumes
Infinite Stratos s2(12 episodes): essentially 2 volumes as they removed 2 volumes worth of material
Machine Doll(12 episodes): 3 volumes
Sakurasou(24 episodes): 6 volumes
Oregairu(13 episodes): 6 volumes
DxD(12 episodes): 2 volumes + 2 chapters from vol8
DxD New(12 episodes): 2 volumes
Toradora(25 episodes): 10 volumes
Golden Time(24 episodes): currently covered up to vol4

It depends mostly on the LN content, length per volume and how each studio adapts it.There's a trend but it's not definite.
It would be ideal for Mahouka to cover only 4 volumes but now that I think it, it's pretty possible to do up to volume 7 if they'll cut down a lot of stuff. In the end, it's just guesswork until we see how they adapt it.
Anything can happen.

I prefer volumes 1 - 4 for a this 2 cour anime (if it's 2 cour).
I prefer not adding volume 5 to the last part of the anime (IMO) since we'll see Which I think is a good way to end.

Adding the Yokohama arc would ruin also the quality.
Plus, I also think that volume 8 (Reminiscence) would make a good movie rather than adding it in the anime series since it's like the prologue of the series. (Like Monogatari's Kizumonogatari adapted to a movie). That's just my opinion though.

Just my input but shouldn't set expectation too high and be prepared in case it get butchered

Two arc sound good (6 ep per volume/1-1.5 chapter per ep) but I don't think that going to happen. With the amount of info dump and exposition, pretty sure most of it will be cut out. Adaption of Light novel to anime aren't always going to include everything

The manga version that cover the 1st arc cut out quite a few things however all the essential explanation and info are there. So if the were to pace say 2-2.5 chapter per ep it would cover the 1st arc in ~8-9 episode which leaves room for covering the Yokohama arc if they skipped volume 5 which I see will most likely be the case

I don't know with index.

Mahouka Plot story :
- Politics
Everybody has their own agenda, familly clan, other Nations.
Everybody seek for more power, more weapon.

- Discrimination
Modern magic with ancient magic, Magician with non magician.
Normal human hate magician. Just like Coordinator with Natural in Gundam Seed.

- MC hide his power.
He's hax, godlike, but the story say that power alone can't solve that problem


Index mahouka similarity maybe Massive Info Dump.

Strike the blood I cannot speak for, but Tokyo ravens has far more potential to expand on their characters using the LN material, It feels like a waste that they skipped some of it (I'm fairly sure they even skipped one or two character introductions.)


Index as a novel beats mahouka imo, I just like Touma as a protagonist far more than I like Tatsuya, nothing against him, Touma just feels as if he has more to him as a character. but as an anime, it suffers the handicap of feeling extremely rushed since studio Deen rarely gives index volumes their proper pacing (Not counting Railgun. that series has another set of problems entirely). I'm hoping they slow down enough to properly do the battle royale arc at least.

I'm going to have to withhold judgment... on the anime comparison until we get to see mahouka animated.

Actually most light novel adaptations adapt around 4 volumes per cour of anime.

Even 6 volumes per cour (ie 2 episodes per volume) seems more common than just 2.

How does this series compare to Index, again?

Interesting......well, personally I'd prefer a decently paced 2 cour that covers vols 1-4, and then I'll wait however long with w.e small/high chances of a 2nd season for vols 6-7+ . But at the same time, if what DarkDoom said about vols 6-7 is true then, I can easily see them trying to rush through the early vols just to adapt vols 6-7 .

Either way, like most of the animes I'm looking forward to this year, I'll try my best not to keep my expectations too high , so I dont get too depressed when they arent as good as they could have been :c

Volume 1-2 will be the first half and volume 3-4 will be the second half.
That's how 90% novel adaptation roll and there's no reason for Mahouka not to follow that formula since it'd fit pretty well.