Notes of Mahouka Koukou Rettousei Episode 6

We are here to save the day.

Summary of Mahouka Koukou Rettousei Episode 6

• In the previous episode we saw a debate take place on discrimination between students, and suddenly gunmen attack the school; students began to repel the attackers.

• Summary of Episode Six: the attack is underway and Tatsuya and friends learn that this is all a diversion. They go after the masterminds stealing valuable data from the library. Sayaka is having second thought about her lending a hand to the attackers, and after she gets into an argument with Miyuki she escapes, only to battle with and ultimately, lose to Erika. When she wakes up, she reminisces of the events leading to the attack. Tatsuya decides to pursue the members of the organisation Blanche.

My Impressions

• I feel bad about being harsh on this show, but there were two things that really annoyed me in this episode.

• The first was the shouting between Tatsuya and Leo during the free-for-all brawl. Tatsuya is running away to the library, getting farther and farther from Leo every single second, and yet when he calls out to him telling he’s going ahead they can hear each other just fine through all the ruckus and shouting and noise going on around them. This happens sometimes in anime, especially shows geared towards younger viewers, and it annoys me every single time. Come on Mahouka I’d have expected more realism from you. On the other hand I’m not going to pick on the other thing they often do in fighting anime, which is Leo calling out loudly his attack’s name – they explained it as the CAD being voice-activated.

  At least his attack looks cool.

• The other scene which upset me was when Tatsuya and Miyuki break down the library door and get into an argument with Sayaka… and the other three guys hell-bent on stealing data are just standing in the background. Okay, they are shown being disarmed, but… shouldn’t they, like, keep on attacking? Or try to escape? It just doesn’t make sense. Were they under the assumption that everything will go according to their plan? Didn’t they have any backup devices? It seemed to me as if the anime forgets about their existence while the students battle out the differences between their viewpoints – like when the villain and the hero have their big clash of ideals in movies and time just seems to stop. I don’t like that in movies and I certainly didn’t like Mahouka doing what I see as the same thing.

  Any moment now…

  Oh wait, they do attack – after Sayaka is made to see the error of her ways. They conveniently waited so that we could see Sayaka’s reasoning be taken apart. I think this just proves my point.

• Sayaka is so slow… Her goal is to abolish discrimination between First course and Second course students. Didn’t it strike her as odd that her accomplices may have ulterior motives when they told her they will be stealing documents from the library? Or why did she go with them if they didn’t let her in on the details? Furthermore it doesn’t take long either for Miyuki to get her to reconsider her stance…

• Apparently the whole thing started with a misunderstanding on Sayaka’s side. Instead of confirming why her sparring partner (as it turns out, Mari) refused her, she made up her own interpretation of the refusal and this lead to her taking part in Tsukasa’s shady organisation. I kind of felt bad for her, but I think she went overboard with all that crying, considering Tatsuya pointed out she didn’t spend the past year in vain.

• I think Tatsuya is heading down a perilous path. In modern societies the police are there for exactly this reason – to avoid civilians taking matters into their own hands. It’s not that the police are compromised and they can’t rely on them anymore. I understand their wanting to avoid Sayaka’s attempted robbery coming to light, but I don’t think this justifies the “okay let’s exterminate them bad guys” approach. Tatsuya sure looks cool though when he says that.

  My manliness detector was overloaded and broke.

  What I was surprised about is how he knew that the student counselor lady was eavesdropping; maybe he used his intruder detection skill we saw earlier (was that a nice skill or what?!). How the counselor lady knew about Blanche‘s location is another question, something I couldn’t deduce the answer to (or maybe I missed something?). Anyway it appears that most of those present – friends of Tatsuya and members of the Student Council – are going after the attackers. I don’t really get why Erika and Leo are so eager to get into harm’s way when they don’t have to. Not like that they have some personal scores to settle here.

  

  All are going except those who get the “if I can’t go you won’t get to go either” treatment.

  Even the leader of the rivaling kenjutsu club, Kirihara is begging the head of the Disciplinary Committee to let him join the action. This was yet another surprise in a row of surprises: I thought he and Sayaka were rivaling heads of rival clubs, but it turns out he always admired her dedication to kendo. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and won’t suggest he has some sort of twisted affection for her. I’ve seen a few times in anime that if a boy likes a girl he has to be mean to her; and his actions fell nicely into this pattern.

• But not all was wrong with this episode. It’s amusing to see how good old-fashioned force can win against a presumably skilled magician. In this case, Tsukasa, the mastermind behind the events, thinks he can escape justice.

  That expression is priceless.

  And I mentioned Tatsuya’s intruder detecting skill (for lack of a better name) earlier, which was visualised in a very neat way.

• Though my eyebrows started twitching a few times throughout the episode, it was an okay one and I’m curious on how Tatsuya & co. are planning their attack in the coming episodes. The pacing is still slow in my opinion but I feel there is more and more action ahead of us. So I’m looking forward to the next episode.