Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei Episode 17: Desperation

Onii-sama is angry. And one does not simply anger onii-sama. 

Impression

Indeed, one does not simply anger onii-sama – especially when said onii-sama isn’t usually even capable of feeling anger in the first place. The incest was strong this week, and it’s stronger than it has been for some time – I suppose it’s a fitting sentiment to go with the shifted focus towards Miyuki and the Official Division of Mirage Bat. Tatsuya didn’t even deny it when Mayumi called him a hardcore siscon, nor did Miyuki deny it when Erika called her a brocon queen several weeks ago. I have to admit that Miyuki was very cute this episode, even though I sort of don’t want to – all that doting on Tatsuya and her Mirage Bat outfit didn’t really improve my impression of her. Somehow, Madhouse have managed to make her look gorgeous regardless – and they make the incest look so harmless when Miyuki’s just grasping Tatsuya’s hand in her sleep. While Tatsuya does try to keep to himself during these advances, he sort of returns her dotage in his own way – he’ll protect her, and only for her sake can he get angry for real. Oh onii-sama, you’re so wonderful~

The Chinese terrorists are really getting desperate, though the end goal is sort of to save their own skin – they want to sabotage onii-sama at all costs, even if it means making every single one of First High’s players drop out of Mirage Bat. Because that definitely won’t arouse any extra suspicion, oh no. I remember reading about the incident with Kobayakawa in the novels, although it’s a very different experience seeing her terrified face as she plummets to the ground – this was a reminder that magic was a foreign notion that previously existed in fantasy, which contrasts to how the existence of magic is just commonly accepted in the Mahoukaverse. Everything is dependent on a sort of innate “belief” in magic, which you lose after being endangered due to being let down by it – the resulting distrust means that you sometimes can never use magic again, which ruins your career. Repeated usage of these Golden Electron Silkworms was a pretty blatant bit of cheating, but it was just a dumb idea to let loose a Generator on the audience members at the 9SC – it would have been bad for both the competition and the terrorists if the first would-be victim hadn’t turned out to be part of Tatsuya’s 101st Independent Battalion. These “half-dead” Generators are something I’m hoping they’ll go into later, so I’ll leave that alone for now – more importantly is the notion that No Head Dragon have incurred Tatsuya’s wrath. And onii-sama has decided to take action.

Mirage Bat was a fairly entertaining match, although I would have liked a bit more straight-up explanation. Of course, there was little doubt that Miyuki would emerge victorious – the initial narrow margin in her preliminary match was probably due to the fact that, despite her being a prodigy she was still up against older, more experienced magicians. Pulling out Tatsuya’s Flying-Type Magic meant that her victory was all but assured, with the committee’s feeble attempt at levelling the playing field failing after the rest of the competitors got tired due to lack of practice and natural stamina. The end result was that Miyuki was left as the only person flying around in the air, casually dominating the opposition and steamrolling her way to victory.

According to my hazy memory, I’m expecting the Nine Schools Competition arc to last for another two episodes or so. That would leave a mere seven episodes for the following arc, which means that in all likelihood, it’s set to be mutilated beyond all recognition. I’d like to think they’ll concentrate on the interlude volume of short stories instead, but the OP doesn’t give me much hope for that. Actually, parts of Volume 5 might even be necessary, which means we’ll have even fewer episodes for the next arc. Yeah, it’s not looking good.