Impression
Looks like Madhouse are laying it on thick with the foreshadowing, both through Mizuki’s astute observations as well as several of Tatsuya’s inner thoughts – with the latter being a very welcome addition. Tatsuya was “forced to become a magician” by a certain lady even though he couldn’t use magic – I won’t go into any specific detail on it, but while it sounds rather exaggerated it’s something that should be taken literally for now. While it was nice that they went into lots of detail on some of the magic physics at work (like the 4 different movement-speed based sequences needed to move an egg from one surface to another) it’s a pity that the Miyuki scene following that explanation was cut out. Tatsuya’s practical involved constructing an activation sequence within 1000ms, and he managed to clock in at 940ms after three tries – but when Miyuki had a go, iirc she managed to finish it in 200ms or so. It’s just one of those things that would have helped to highlight her awesome abilities, that have instead been removed to pander to the imouto trope, as I’ve mentioned several times before. Well, that’s life for you!
Although I won’t say that Sayaka and friends are unfounded in their claims, they clearly haven’t thought things through properly – both Tatsuya and Mayumi (there was lots of Mayumi, which left me happy) managed to prove that this episode. They want the school to improve conditions for Course 2 students, yet they haven’t come up with a concrete way through which to do so – as Mayumi said, it’s as if they want the student council to come up with an answer to a problem they themselves proposed in the first place. Of course, with everything technically being equal (bar their lack of teachers) what the coalition are really after is the removal of social discrimination. And that’s not something you can just simply enforce – changing the very way people think isn’t something even Mayumi can do, as wonderful as she is. She did go some way towards it though, as indicated from all that applause. Officially, the terms Bloom and Weed are already banned – but that hasn’t stopped anyone, has it?
In a way, this is no fault of their own – because the leadership behind it all aren’t actually after social equality like Sayaka is, but are instead merely using the coalition as a stepping stone through which to cause a ruckus. Groups like the one Tsukasa Kinoe invited Mizuki to would have been subject to the same thing – that club for those sensitive to spirit particles would have just become another outlet for protests. The incident where the coalition barricaded themselves could have escalated into something bigger, but stopped short of it after Tatsuya casually defused the situation – it was evident that they would try again during the public forum, although the terrorists somehow had the courtesy to wait until after best girl had finished abusing it as her speech podium. It’s a fairly safe bet to say that those masked guys are affiliated with Blanche, while the rebel students are in Egalite – I’m not sure (i.e. I can’t remember) what role Sayaka and her antinite ring are taking in this, nor what she’s been led to believe by Tsukasa. What I do know is that something’s starting at last, and that we’ll be in for some great action next week – hopefully a fitting end to what’s mostly been an expository first arc.
Great Review! I really think that this episode is quite symbolic of the manner in which most problems are presented nowadays. You always have a small or large group of people who identify a problem and protest about it but have no clue on how to resolve it and when the time comes to actually solve the problem the fixing is left to other people because the people who protested in the first place have no idea how to solve the problem and only know how to complain…
I agree, it’s a scenario that’s occurred a lot in society. The protesters only have a vague idea of what they want, hoping that whoever has the power to grant them that will wave a magic wand and wish it into existence. On the off chance that they do have a solution, it’s often too unreasonable to implement.
Although the way it’s been used as a pretext for a terrorist attack is hopefully not representative of our society 😀 The coalition wants to make moves towards ending discrimination, while Blanche is like a left-wing extremist version with views that are far more radical – I’m sure they are two very different things that have somehow had the lines blurred between them by certain people. Something like Egalite is probably meant to serve that purpose, acting as a stepping stone between school and real-world politics.