=Writing & Directing
It's straight up shit. Even though I overall enjoyed the show it's not really good in any regard but its way of being bad can be really amusing. The story itself can be divided into a few acrs each loosely connected around the same theme of how magic affects the world of mahouka: be it discrimination based on ability, technological progress or military resource. None of that really matters cause in the end there's little in terms of exploration or resolution to any of that. The only thing that matters is that awe inspiring Onii-sama is amazing and nothing can be done to stop him.
The show gets a bit more boring after Nine Schools Competition arc cause more focus is put onto side characters and plotting evil organisations but action also steps up a notch so I guess it's fine.
When it comes to characters it's about as mediocre as every anime out there, most of them can be adequately summed up with just one word that described the way they feel or act majority of the time, some are permamad, some are always halfway to orgasm and so on. The spotlight of course is magnificent Onii-sama who apparently can't feel a damn thing other than hatred for anyone who dares hurt his sister. It would be a huge downside in every other series but seeing him knock every asshole or a confident prick down a peg is so satisfying that it's probably the sole reason I watched the show. The thing is, at first virtually every other character hates the great Onii-sama simply because magical test and class systems in his school are kind of dumb, so despite being a prodigy when it comes to engineering and theoretical knowledge of magic, amazing Onii-sama is considered a second class citizen cause his practical use of magic is nowhere near good. His otherwise otherworldly skills are the reason why people say there's no tension in this show, there isn't because it's not a question of whether fantastic Onii-sama will win or lose, it's a question of who will he destroy today.
Another part of writing that's important to note is the sheer amount of unstoppable exposition and technobabble, it's gonna take a simple thing like blasting someone with magic really hard and then try really hard to present it as complicated techno-magic science which sometimes makes glorious Onii-sama's victories all the more amusing.
Don't have any complaints when it comes to directing, it doesn't stand out but it's still competent when it came to pacing and delivery on exposition dumps. I've seen better shows that were harder to get through due to above being badly done.
=Art & Sound
While the designs for almost everything are bland, the color coordination, use of digital effects, filters and overall consistency are fairly decent and animation quality is good when it needs to be. As for sound the music while not great still did a decent job of setting the mood and feel for some scenes. There were some questionable things like constant autotuned vocals with occasionally jarring engrish or one comedy track that had rasta influences but otherwise there's some good variety to it and it doesn't feel like one of those cheap OSTs made by an doujinshi circle of amateur artists whose specialty are tracks so bland you would never be able to tell who made them.
Overall it's a really shit anime but it's kind of shit that's fun to look at in the right mood.
