The story starts in a futurist setting (literally 2095 - that’s mad) when the Shiba sibling pair, Tatsuya and Miyuki, starts their high school experience. The two are put in different classes that teaches magic different. While Miyuki is placed in First Course, which is recognised as students with high magical skills, Tatsuya was placed in Second Course, despite being first in scoring the theory examination. They meet new characters as they continue their school lives, and from then on, things start to get interesting.
The story of this anime splits into three arcs, filled with the intended action. As the arc progresses, it usually gets more serious and eventually more characters show up. A little tip when watching Mahouka: as long as you don’t spend so much time trying to memorise all the characters, you’re fine. (I’ll touch on that later.) Each arc tells a different story and they follow a typical ‘introduction-problem-solution-conclusion’. There is a lot of explanation into magic which may either bore or excite you but I wouldn’t care much about it, unless it relates a lot to the story.
Indeed, a lot of people have been criticising Mahouka because of the story. I have to agree that it has some problems. One of it being that there are some parts of the story left not elaborated or kept as plot holes. I wasn’t really satisfied of how the story went because of how it was executed. Occasionally, I felt that the story forgets a certain point and just moves on. Another problem is that the story is sometimes predictable. Some factors have arose to this problem, including the characters’ personalities and actions. Predictability is always a problem in shounen anime, and Mahouka fell for it.
Another huge problem about Mahouka is the pacing. Many have said that the pacing for this anime is too messy. While there are parts where a lot of explanation and dialogue were used to slow the pacing, there are also parts which misses some points that may confuse the viewers due to the amount of action added and so this rushes the story.
Don’t get me wrong, but I absolutely love the setting, although there are similar ones out there. Sure, it could’ve been weird at times, but it tried to vary the content they want to showcase. But with all these problems, it basically screws the whole story up.
As I said before, more characters get introduced in every arc and probably in every episode. It’s tiring, I know. I would like to categorise the characters in three sets: the main, the supporting and the minor. The main characters are the Shiba siblings, of course. The supporting characters are those who involve themselves with the siblings and to what has been going on in the story. Finally, the minor characters drive the story so that at least there’s some content to look up on.
The main characters have some form of a backstory which isn’t largely told as the story moves on. And as they start school, they seem to cling together as ‘sibling love’. The depiction may have led into many misinterpretations such as incest, but truth be told, Miyuki’s personality shows that she totally loves his brother a lot.
The problem with the story has to lie with Tatsuya. You may have known already, but Tatsuya is definitely overpowered. It frustrates me looking at the way he never puts himself in much danger because he’s basically indestructible. He brings himself to the battlefield like there’s never a serious consequence to follow. He fights against his enemies and at the end most of the time, he feels like nothing has happened. You have to wonder: why is he even on Second Course? It’s really stupid to see him in this way, honestly.
Miyuki, on the other hand, does nothing much really. Aside from being with his brother and showing affection to him all the time, she gets herself involve in some fights, crazy ones included. She doesn’t seem to fit like a main character at all, hence it feels like the story just revolves around Tatsuya alone.
The supporting characters are a good bunch. The characteristics vary and they seem to be pretty cool as you are introduced to them. These characters have been supporting the Shiba siblings since the start of the story. At different arcs, they have different roles of playing in the story. Each arc focuses on a set of characters that relate to the events leading in the story. It’s hard to remember all of them since it’s a huge cast, but all you need to care if how they are involved in the story.
There’s seldom character development in the main characters because of their personalities and actions - they act as how they act overall in the story. The supporting characters may have showed some development but it doesn’t give a role in the story. It’s honestly disappointing, since there is some potential in Mahouka. I know that many shounen anime are like this, but Mahouka really have some potential in making the characters more brighter and varied.
Looking at the art in Mahouka, it isn’t surprising that it has some nice quality. The sceneries all around look great, both exterior and interior, and I like the atmosphere around them which makes the scenes alive. The colour choice looks a bit stale, like there’s no beautiful touch at all. The character designs are nice as of what you expect in a shounen anime. Most of the time, the emotions expressed by the characters are good.
Mahouka combines technology and magic and both of them work alongside. It’s creative in the sense that there are a variety of magic a character can spell out. In action scenes, the magic captures brilliantly. There’s some cool smooth animation that follow as well.
Before even starting the marathon, I already fell in love listening to Mahouka’s first opening. Rising Hope, sang by LiSA, is catchy and the instrumental is awesome. Her vocals are strong and it matches what you may have expected watching the anime. The ending song is totally opposite. Millenario, sang by ELISA, is such an emotional song. It may have been weird since there’s nothing in the story which invoke such feeling. I love her vocals so much in the song as she sang fluently and the instrumental is great and dramatic. It’s hard to love the second opening and ending more because their predecessors are too awesome to loop. GARNiDELiA’s grilletto has a similar feeling to Rising Hope, and if you have heard their ‘ambiguous’ opening song from KILL la KILL, it sounds almost the same. Rei Yasuda’s Mirror is great and it’s more cheery than Millenario.
If you know Taku Iwasaki, you may have recognised Mahouka’s background music. Overall, it is awesome. With the varying genre from techno to classical piano, the background music knows what to play in a particular scene. If you’re sick of techno, you may be disappointed that music on most action scenes are based on it. The voice acting is good too. The voice actors did well in expressing their characters’ thoughts and emotions well enough. They are a number of well-known and experienced voice actors, so you wouldn’t feel let down.
So yeah, with the let-down of the story and characters, you may expect that I didn’t enjoy Mahouka at all. While I see that many do hate it after watching a full around, I think that you shouldn't be too serious when watching it. It just blows your mind off with this much explanation to remember, so lay back and watch for the action.
I personally enjoyed the first arc a lot. There are certain parts of the story which are uncalled for. The next two arc gives off a lot more problems, hence I felt a bit bored watching after a while. Hence, I’m having mixed feelings after finishing Mahouka. While I definitely love the setting the story holds, the execution is very disappointing.
But who cares, right? This anime is too famous.
