Impression
It’s strange to think that Mayumi, Mari and Suzune were talking about struggling to stay ahead in last week’s episode – from our perspective, First High don’t know anything except victory! Even the underground Chinese bookmaker terrorists are quivering in fear. Admittedly, the guys are doing crap (to put it simply) while the girls are excelling at pretty much everything, but I take back my previous comment a couple of weeks ago about Mahouka having feminist leanings. The girls may be doing much better, yes, but when all the praise is being heaped onto Tatsuya for organising everything from CADs and activation sequences to strategies (to the point that the other girls lament about him not handling their CAD) and not the girls themselves, no way can I even begin to call it feminist. It’s still right-wing though.
So yeah, Tatsuya can do no wrong! Even though he supposedly can’t use the magic he developed for Shizuku, his girls managed to sweep the podium for Speed Shooting – and similarly, his little glare trick managed to net Honoka a clear win in Battle Board. By the time Shizuku was up for Ice Pillars Break, I didn’t even care whether she was fighting against an opponent any more – rather, I was more concerned as to whether Madhouse would animate her displaying her yukata in all her cuteness. And thankfully enough, they pulled through with that. Even Ichijou (the guy who covered a training room in Third High with the blood of lots of unfortunate birds) is singing Tatsuya’s praises without even having met him. And in a one-on-one, his “Decomposition” can apparently beat Yotsuba Maya’s “Night” – he’s just stated that he can defeat the head of the Yotsubas, a family standing at the pinnacle of the Ten Master Clans, and therefore by extension Japan’s magic society itself. Is there nothing this guy can’t do? Also, Honoka is in love with him, but I think we all get that by now.
At least Miyuki did something cool this week. While I have no endearing feelings for the anime version of Miyuki, I have to admit that her Pillars Break match was my favourite part of the episode. We normally see her worshipping onii-sama, so it was great to see Miyuki forget about all that and show her opponent some true despair with her Inferno magic. It’s incredibly difficult, but that magic is pretty much a cheat sheet for the entire Ice Pillars Break competition – what the anime didn’t mention is that Miyuki only used a single spell, instead of two like it looked like she was doing. Inferno divides the target area into two halves, and removes all heat from one half – diverting it all instead into the other half. Conveniently, that keeps Miyuki’s pillars nice and solid while destroying her poor opponent’s pillars, which brought about her quick victory. I’m glad they animated that scene nicely, it was pretty cool. That and Shizuku’s yukata made the episode for me.
But seriously, everything else today was mostly everyone and their dog lauding Tatsuya. Look at this fine alpha specimen. Such manliness.
They went seriously overkill on the Tatsuya praise. Shizuku wins 1st place in the competition: “Great job Tatsuya, you really won everything for us!”
Me: Um… people… what about the folks who ACTUALLY WON the competitions? It’s nice that you all worship the ground this guy walks on and the air he breathes and that every girl he meets now wants to have his babies, but it comes across rather insulting when practically all you’re doing is praising a guy who isn’t even competing while the athletes themselves just seem to get a nod and a smile.
The 9SC is quickly becoming another platform through which Tatsuya can be worshipped. I feel sorry for the winning athletes… though you know Azusa had it pretty bad too, being shafted to her face by Honoka.
Conveniently, it’s of course a group of cute girls he works with (and is subsequently praised by). Wonder what would have happened if Tatsuya was made to work with Morisaki instead 😀