emoen - 2014-09-28 13:20:45

Keep in mind that I am making this review after the anime has finished, unlike the other reviews so far, seeing as this anime just finished less than 12 hours ago or something like that. This reviews the entirety of the anime while other reviews don't.

Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei (AKA The irregular at Magic High School) is often hated by people for having characters that are "bland" or "have no development". I'm sorry but that is not true at all. If you analyse it closer you will see a lot of character development, and realize that the characters are not bland at all (I talk more about this in the characters section). Mahouka also has many other positive aspects that are completely disregarded by Mahouka haters.

Story:

Mahouka's story is a very interesting concept, and pretty much everyone agrees with this. This world consists of magicians just like in many other shows, except it is much more advanced in time. Meaning that the Magicians have CADs which are used to speed up the casting process, and are very important for spells to be cast, giving engineers a more influential role.

In this world there are also Magic High Schools, and the MC Tatsuya and his sister Miyuki go to one of these. In these schools students are divided into Weeds and Blooms, where the Blooms are the strongest and the Weeds are the weakest. This gives the show a look on discrimination between the weak and strong. Tatsuya is part of the weeds while Miyuki is part of the Blooms. 

Another very god part about the story is that everything is explained extremely clearly, leaving little room for plot holes. This also allowsthe viewer to get a full understanding of the world of Mahouka and how exactly everything functions. Although there are a lot of explanations, there are also a lot of action scenes, especially towards the end of the anime (the third arc is riddled with action scenes).

Overall the story is very good and consists of three arcs, the first one being an introduction to the whole show with the end of the arc being more action based and the start not as much. The second arc is about these magical Olympics between the Magic High Schools which keeps lots of consistency in terms of action scenes and development. The third arc starts with a considerable amount of action, and ends the last few episodes with a massive amount of action scenes. There isn't a lot of character development in the last arc, but it isn't needed since it already occurred beforehand. Overall the story is a 9/10. Sorry for the rant in terms of story.

Animation:

I have always liked reviewing animation, because the quality of it can't be opinionated, only the art-style can. There isn't anything to dislike in terms of Mahouka's art style. It is very well animated and is a modern art style. Can't ask for much more in terms of animation, 10/10.

Sound:

Sound is also perfect in my opinion. The OST is very well composed, it is played in fitting situations, and the entire OST fits the style of the anime perfectly. Keep in mind that there are at least a dozen other OSTs I would rather listen to, but I can't deny the fact that this is very well composed. The OPs and EDs are also great (especially the OPs). The voice acting is also great. Mahouka has a very large cast, and so it is very hard to get great voice actors for everyone in this massive cast. But Mahouka accomplishes that perfectly. When i think back to all the characters and the voices they have, I can't possibly imagine them with any other voice. Every element of sound in this anime is polished to near perfection. However after downloading so many OSTs, I don't think this one deserves a full score therefore I give it a 9/10.

Character:

Now here is where most people have problems with the show that I don't. People think that for a character to be a good character they have to start weak and end up strong. I think that's complete and utter bullshit. Just because a character starts as a strong character doesn't mean that it can't develop or be a good character.

The MC Tatsuya is shown right at episode 2 or similar, to be an extremely overpowered character compared to the rest, and be better than everyone at pretty much everything. He is also one of those characters that almost seem like they don't have feelings. However Tatsuya receives a lot of character development throughout the series. At first you assume he is only smart and isn't strong, but then you realize that he is indeed strong just not in the same way as others are. Later it is said that Tatsuya basically has no more feelings except for the empathy he feels for his sister. Later you also realize that Tatsuya does indeed have feelings since he has empathy for his other friends at school. So Tatsuya is indeed a character that develops considerably.

I can't spend too much time on characters, because this show has a considerably large cast, so I can't describe them all. There are several characters that I believe are worth mentioning though, since they are good characters. This includes Leo, Erika, Miyuki (Tatsuya's sister), the President, Mari, and the 2 guys from third high school. They are all god characters with considerable character development. This is one of those anime that manages to give very high amounts of character development to each character despite the very large cast. For that reason I give the characters in this show a 9/10.

Enjoyment:

10/10, I really enjoyed this anime. Very well explained leaving few plot holes, tons of action scenes, and goes from a small perspective of one high school to a major perspective of terrorists from another nation attacking Japan. The action scenes are all extremely well animated, and are extremely enjoyable.

Overall:

Overall I really liked Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei. In terms of technical factors such as animation and sound it is near perfect, and in terms of characters and story it was also very well written. And most of all it was extremely enjoyable. I would recommend this to almost everyone, especially those who like action-packed anime with strong characters, and those who like anime without plot holes. 

lhoeger - 2014-09-27 23:54:14

Seriously you cant stop after episode 5 it really picks up at about episode 13 or so, but it is so good i really hope theres a second season that or i will have to read all the books but u gotta watch it!

freida54 - 2014-09-14 21:05:21

"Oni chan too op"
Mahouka is a worthwhile watch if you like a good story without having to be tensed up by constant annoying protagonist issues. Its awefully refreshing to watch a protagonist kick ass from the get go.

Most people seem to dislike the fact that protagonist is too strong but all animes cant be about naruto aka character so weak its annoying but omg so much potential.

Show is about a brother sister journey through magic school. Show has interesting characters and decent story buildup. This anime would rank 6 in intensity with all other categories around 8. If u want a break from an awfully intense anime you just watched, this is it.

schiller.jerel - 2014-09-08 15:57:07

I wrote this review after watching episode 23 of 26 when I was clicking around the site and noticed that only nice people have reviewed the show and they did it before it even started airing.

Technical: The animation is clean but not particularly dazzling. A lot of moving mouths and motionless bodies during dialogue while the camera pans around they don't accidentally trigger your Evangelion PTSD. The action scenes are typically resolved by calmly pointing your CAD (a magic casting tool) at the enemy and pushing some buttons while colors flash in the air. The magic is 'pretty' but nothing really stands out with it. The sound effects are not memorable (literally can't remember any) and the music was probably ripped from an elevator music CD.

Plot mechanics: The magic is fairly occult, but digitized. Under this magic system, you could draw circles on the ground, expend your psions or whatever, and you would get your result. This has stepped into the technological era with wrist-mount computers that automate all of this, you just 'program' in a magic sequence and rewrite the laws of physics. There's some pretty cool sounding psuedo-science that almost sort of makes sense when explained if your a fan of that sort of thing. Each of the plot arcs follows the same sequence, with a fairly normal school thing happening, Tatsuya trying and failing to fly under the radar, terrorists trying to be relevant, and then our reluctant hero murderizing all of the terrorists. For some reason, this is an acceptable thing for high school students to be doing and he takes his friends along with him, who barely even consider that he might not actually be a regular student after all.

Characters: Hope you like unabashed sibling complexes. Everyone else outside of the main siblings are fairly generic and not worth commenting on. They are really just utilities for the magic that they can perform as far as the MC is concerned, and quite frankly as far as the entire show is concerned.

The MC is incredibly overpowered. I'm trying not to spoil here, but it's revealed in the first few episode that he has a sort of invincibility mechanism going on. He is not able to cast spells very quickly, or use very powerful spells, but he is a god-tier programmer and makes up for it with his criminally efficient cast sequences and innate ability to use low-level spells with higher than normal precision. While he is a decent strategist, you'll never be left with "OMG moments" like in other strategy-centric shows such as Death Note or Code Geass. He just approaches situations head-on and uses a blunt methodology of getting what he wants that is fairly obvious and rarely impressive. Some folks have commented that they appreciate that it is more realistic this way, but if I wanted realism maybe I would go outside instead of writing a shitty anime review.

The sister is similar, but has a helpless personality and her brother just takes care of everything for her. She is probably capable of fighting her own battles, but chooses to allow her brother to dote on her while on-screen.

Overall enjoyment: the various discussion threads on reddit and 4chan have been enjoyable with the "one true tatsuya" circlejerking. That said, I am more stimulated by the joking around than I am by the show itself. I would not bother watching this if I wasn't getting involved. If you're considering this show for your backlog, pass over it.

keyon98 - 2014-08-08 16:11:47

When you watch the first episode of a series, you normally feel one of three things... It overwhelms you with way too much happening (too much), you feel bored and underwhelmed (too little), or it amazes you and you demand the next episode (just right).
This show made me feel so extremely underwhelmed it was painful. 

So far I have only seen episode 1 and I DON'T plan on watching anymore episodes.
This show didn't grab my interest in the least, rather it did manage to annoy me with how bad it was. 

Art (8/10)
Okay so first I'll start off with animation, which is pretty nice. Not over the top amazing, just nice. 

Sound (8/10)
Again nice, that's it just nice. The voice acting was overall nice and the background music, to say the least, was smooth and appropriate. 

Story (1/10) 
Okay so this is where it gets bad. I can't even figure out what this show was about. All I know is that they go to a school for people who do magic. In this school you are either an elite or a nobody. The main characters are a brother and sister who are waaay too close. The brother has some sort of mystery background going on. That's all I could really figure out.

Character (2/10)
The character category honestly doesn't even deserve a high of a 2... Anyway the characters are boring and cliche. You learn literally nothing about any of them in the first episode. And some characters just come in and now their relevant for some reason. 

Enjoyment (2/10)
I've never been annoyed with an anime this much since I watched SAO. 

Overall (4/10)
I have no more to say about this monstrosity. 

windler.vincenza - 2014-07-16 07:25:38

First Impressions: Dear God the MC is overpowered and badass.

alexis.tremblay - 2014-05-01 08:28:12

Anyone who reads the light novel knows just how awesome it is . One of the most awaited anime series and i'm looking forward to it.

marvin.anibal - 2014-04-20 05:43:25

It may only be the third episode but i can see this is a great anime, the main is rather emotionless but that makes it even better when he destroys the blooms. The most interesting part about this anime is how he is looked down upon only because of his rank in school, but when he proves them wrong it only makes it that much better

wyman.scottie - 2014-04-09 21:44:58

I've been waiting for this since 2010.........As of right now, I am loving it.

Between the First Episode of Mahouka and No Game, No Life, the disaster of Mahou Sensou has been purge from my mind.....

armstrong.fiona - 2014-04-05 23:07:22

Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei, or Mahouka for short, follows the story of two siblings Tatsuya and his brocon-sister Miyuki in a world where Magick and Science coexist to provide people the tools for all kinds of things, the main reason being for warfare application. I think the narration mentioned that World War III happens around 2020 and then new technology featuring magickal properties comes into play and stops everything from going nuclear or some shit and now in 2040 (since WWIII lasted for 20 years), everyone goes to high school to learn Magick and then go out into the military workforce to become child soldiers useful members to society.

In the beginning, we are introduced to Tatsuya, a tall, level-headed individual who has put aside everything he can (it seems like) to support his sister Miyuki, who can be described as a Bloom. In this school, students are divided into two groups, the Weeds and the Blooms. Really, it's kind of like the Greasers and the Socs from The Outsiders in that the Blooms are the Socs, who have everything (i.e. adept magickal ability, distinguishing patches, good looks, etc), and the Weeds being the poor, untalented, wasted human beings. Of course, with Tatsuya it's a different story. From the beginning I was getting this vibe that Tatsuya isn't all that unspecial as he's cranked up to be. Due to his demeanor, and some carefully placed body language, it seems as though Tatsuya is holding back quite a bit more than he's letting on. Of course, since he's the main character that's to be expected, but it seems to me at least that this anime has a bit of a psychological quirk mixed in the fray. This point is further exemplified when the Blooms and the Weeds get into a brawl after classes one day and one of the socs get stabbed Tatsuya is carefully breaking down the situation, and then even goes so far to extinguish it. And then there's the whole part about the cult of perverted fighting bald monks, but that's not really important.

It seems at least like Mahouka will be more interesting than the other shounens I have watched and read in my lifetime mostly due to the fact that the MC actually seems to have a good head on his shoulder. He's not an idiot, he's cool and calculating no homo, and best of all, he isn't a total retard when it comes to members of the opposite sex. That could from his ability to read the situation though.