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And so ends Mahouka. This Anime is undoubtedly exactly for you, or not at all. All of what's written below is spoiler-free, and a bit long. Without wasting any more words, i'll start by stating the 3 main reasons for the somewhat large dislike of this Anime.

One of the problems with Mahouka and it getting average ratings is that it realistically lacked in the action department. The Light Novel is actually incredibly hard to properly animate, it has alot of terminology and alot of explanations. The info dumps we were getting in Mahouka are still nothing compared to the real thing. Despite that, it still ... felt monotone, so most people simply got sick of it. I, however, admire the attempt of sticking to the original story at the expense of action.

Then there's the protagonist, without a question one of the most important elements of any Anime. Typical "love or hate" character, Tatsuya is extremely strong, extremely smart, good looking, popular with the girls, kind yet ruthless, humble yet confident - in short, he is almost flawless. Fortunately for me, he is just what i like watching, but many still prefer the established "forever weak, but strong-willed", or "gradually-improving" type of MCs. I admit, it's pretty hard to get excited about a new villain when you know what Tatsuya is capable of, but, again, i find joy in that.

Then there's the other main character - Miyuki. If you still like Mahouka despite the aforementioned "flaws", this is the final challenge. The brocon characters have long existed in Anime, so here's another one - light-yandere type. As her profile page says, Miyuki Shiba has feelings stronger than sibling love for Tatsuya, and this is made apparent in every episode, specifically by the (over)use of honorifics, blushing, the usual Japanese anime drill. Once again, this is not a problem for me (she is nothing compared to the abomination that is Kirino Kousaka), in fact, i thought she was cute, especially considering hers and Tatsuya's past, which isn't covered in the Anime, regrettably.

These are the 3 factors that tipped the scales against Mahouka in terms of rating, at least on this site. Now that that's out of the way, what follows is my honest rating of this show.

Story: 7/10. The story is vivid, large-scale political-warfare type, mixing magic and science. It is portrayed incredibly well in the LN, but, for one reason or another, it was somewhat hard to get into it with the Anime, not much of the actual story was revealed, and many things were hinted at, but never explored.

Characters: 7.5/10. The characters are well done, consisting of both cliches and relatively new and interesting ones. A big issue is that everyone besides the two main characters has their screentime drastically lessened in the Anime, and because of that they feel like too much of fence-sitters, making it hard to build a connection.

Art: 9/10. Not much to say here, the art is simply very appealing, as expected of Madhouse.

Soundtrack: 8.5/10. Mahouka's soundtrack is very good, whether you like the techno-type or not. Both openings and endings are pleasant. The fact that i even remember it speaks for itself, since there are many animes with pretty much bland, forgetful soundtracks.

This brings my final score to an 8/10. Mahouka is a good attempt at an adaptation of a very good light novel, and if you have patience and a soft spot for strong main characters, you will undoubtedly come to enjoy it.