STORY: 8
On a basic premise, the story follows a pair of siblings to a magic high school and their daily life. But in this world of magic technology you discover the class system it places in Japan and on these two, and besides the societal structure you will find out much about the rules behind the world itself. I absolutely love the concepts that are explored with the discrimination between magicians and those who aren't and how that is reflected in the two, especially in Tatsuya, as well as the logical explanations following how magic works. Which I will say that I greatly nerded out because I was taking Physics at the time and I would say that how magic works in their world draws some parallels to. (For example, in introducing the "Cardinal Codes" and how there has only been one identified, this is similar to Particle Physics where we've identified one particle called the Higgs Boson suspected to affect gravity). But if this idea of scientific info might be too technical for you than you might struggle with this.
ART: 9
Although not too over the top in the character designs themselves, the animations for magical sequences and movements are extremely fluid and beautiful. There is also a rich color palette that isn't too overbearing. Oh, but there is some shameful CGI usage in one particular scene and, without a second look through, also some spare usage in mass amounts of background characters just walking somewhere.
SOUND: 9
The soundtrack works very well for what it does in the anime. Although by itself it's definitely a little harder to get into because it's definitely more monotonous. The openings and endings are wonderful and have a little techno edge to them that suits the content of this series. Voice acting suited the characters and nothing was too remarkable or horrid.
CHARACTERS: 8
I'll definitely say that as this isn't really a character driven series in the normal sense of character growth and development. But I will say that it's character driven in how these characters are molded by their environment and how we as the viewers are let on to more and more of that. So every main character is presented as they are and that will not change, but what changes is that we understand why they are like that from the world setting.
ENJOYMENT: 10
I'm a sucker for world building, especially if done as intricately and detailed as this where I can see references of actual physics. But I'm also just largely a huge science fiction fan and I can see that Mahouka is probably in that genre although magic is technically fantasy.
OVERALL: 9
I know most people say that this series is terrible because they went in overhyped. Which I can believe that because I will say do not just watch this just for Tatsuya to slay people even though he does and it is also animated awesomely. But the highlight of this series is in its rules for magic, its society and how that animates the characters. And if you really like any of those aspects then check it out!
