Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei: Tsuioku-hen

The extremely talented siblings Tatsuya and Miyuki Shiba shine bright in their own right as they start their second year at First High School, the premier institute for magicians. Seeing as the pair are inseparable, it seems unimaginable that their loving bond did not exist just four years ago. Back then, the middle schooler Miyuki was uncomfortable around her older brother. She and her family thought of Tatsuya as nothing more than a lowly servant to perform guardian duties for Miyuki; a mere tool lacking emotions and his own will. However, their relationship was fated to change forever once their innocuous family trip to Okinawa transformed into a life-threatening incident.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Shiba, Tatsuya Main

Nakamura, Yuuichi Japanese

Shiba, Miyuki Main

Hayami, Saori Japanese

Yotsuba, Maya Supporting

Saitou, Chiwa Japanese

Kuroba, Ayako Supporting

Uchida, Maaya Japanese

Shiba, Miya Supporting

Inoue, Kikuko Japanese

Sakurai, Minami Supporting

Yasuno, Kiyono Japanese

Sakurai, Honami Supporting

Endou, Aya Japanese

Kuroba, Fumiya Supporting

Katou, Emiri Japanese

Al Supporting

Akachi, Kouga Japanese

Ben Supporting

Ono, Yuuki Japanese

Sotokawa, Akihiro Producer

Kimura, Yasutaka Producer

Funatsu, Tatsuya Producer

Nakajima, Masatoshi Producer

Reviews

May 29, 2024

hexashadow13

Recommended

tl;dr: A flashback that’s doesn’t add much new plot or world building wise, but helps flesh out the main pair considerably.

This special is a flashback to four years prior to where the second season ends, primarily chronicling the Okinawa Defense Naval Battle and the surrounding circumstances. This was an incredibly important event for Mahouka’s story, the impacts of which have been felt throughout the series. It’s been mentioned explicitly throughout the series a number of times, as it was the beginning of the war between the GAU and Japan which played heavily into the events of the first season. Tetsuya played a critical part in ... the conflict, resulting in him being feared as ‘Mahesvara’ by the GAU. His Regrowth and Decomposition abilities spawned rumors under the names of ‘Demon Right’ and ‘Divine Left’ respectively, terms that have popped up a number of times throughout the series. This special explicitly shows and thus makes very clear a lot of the things that have been referred to throughout the series. However, ultimately it doesn’t really add much new in terms of the world building or in terms of explanations of abilities.

What it does contribute heavily to is Tetsuya and Miyuki’s characterization. It explains a lot of why someone like him is in the position he is in terms of his place in the Yotsuba clan as well as his connections to the military. It also explains why he has such a coldly logical personality and why he’s so obsessed with Miyuki. On the flipside it explains part of how Miyuki fits into the Yotsuba clan and how that’s resulted in her trying to be ‘perfect’. She also has an entire character arc where she becomes humbler and learns to accept her own feelings. And of course the special also explains why she reveres Tetsuya so much. There’s a bunch of other stuff to that it touches upon, such as broader background on the Yotsuba clan or specific members of it, but this special doesn’t go into as much depth as in the novel. Still, it seems that the anime adaptation isn’t skipping this content entirely, but rather seems to want to try to cover it differently as shown by the filler arc in the second season which already touched upon much of it. And the pacing of the special definitely benefited from the heavier focus on Tetsuya and Miyuki, so overall I feel this worked pretty well.

The art and animation are solid enough. Though it has the length of a film, it isn’t a theatrical release, so it should be no surprise this has the same production values as the TV anime. The designs are as good as usual but there was nothing new particularly worth mentioning. The soundtrack was decent but didn’t really stand out at all, which is surprising considering the soundtrack in all the other Mahouka anime have stood out quite a bit. The ED song was over footage of the epilogue and was solid enough, though considering that characters were talking over all of it, it didn’t feel like an ED and more like an insert song.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Feb 28, 2023

robert788

Recommended

Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei: Tsuioku-hen (2021)

As far as films covering a backstory goes this was greatly done. I appreciate most of what happens here is spoken about in various episodes of the existing anime beforehand but at least here it is all put together and also has a visual viewing rather than a story on its own.

The art is the same as the show always is, I love this. It doesn't change apart from being more polished which again I love. Some shows change art between seasons from different companies and it kind of ruins the feeling unless it's epic. Take Attack on Titan, ... the art style changes so much that you can always tell when a new studio took over.

The sound is great and fills the room. Voices are the same as always and welcome.

Characters, we know them, love them, hate them, whatever. If you are watching this just to learn who the characters are then this is not for you. Watch the rest and come back.

I would say it could be higher than an 8 but it just isn't. Since I paid attention and read the manga related this is just a re-telling of a story we have been told throughout various episodes done visually. This is fine, but being that it's not totally new then it's an 8.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Mar 19, 2025

FrankRebin

Mixed Feelings

Overall Recommendation (Spoiler Free):
If you are interested in watching this series, begin with this piece before the main show. It requires no prior knowledge and will set you up with context that should greatly increase your comfortability with a core element of the series.


Review (Spoilers Ahead):
The Irregular at Magic High School: Reminiscence Arc demonstrates how creative choices can result in the poor execution of a good premise. The purpose of the prequel special is to develop the audience’s understanding of how the unique dynamic between Tatsuya and Miyuki came into being, but it fails to do so in a number of ways.

Firstly and most crucially ... the personalities of the siblings appear throughout the runtime to be exactly the same as they are years later in the main story. Tatsuya is completely unchanged from his later incarnation by the producers, which tells the viewer that he is already formed as the man he will become before the events of this prequel, thus taking a dimension of character development from the piece. Miyuki likewise exhibits from the start an overwhelming similarity to the Miyuki we know of in the main story, though her personality does show slight differences.

The relationship between the siblings is almost the inverse of what we know. Tatsuya and Miyuki have a rigid dynamic which informs the viewer of Tatsuya’s low status as a servant of the family but it is made apparent to the viewer that all characters are aware that they are siblings. Explanation of this status difference only begins at 58:00 - the piece having a runtime of 71 minutes - when Miyuki’s mother tells her that Tatsuya could not be accepted as a member of the Yotsuba Clan because one must be a magician and his ability to wield magic is so little that it may as well not exist. She delivers her lines in the typical refined, calm matriarchal manner which has been established, but the issue lies in that this scene immediately follows one in which Tatsuya raises Miyuki, Miya and their maid from death without any trouble. Shiba Miya dismisses the abilities of her son on the grounds of their uselessness with a dismissive “well I suppose it did just save our life”, as though possessing the ability to reverse any damage and revive the dead does not contradict the reasoning given for why Tatsuya is not a member of the clan. Despite its unconventional expression, Tatsuya obviously has an absurdly powerful gift which - humans being what they are - the Yotsubas would exploit, not dismiss due to a technicality. This is one example of how the characters behave in unrealistic ways which undermine the story being told.

Furthermore, Miya describes how she had Tatsuya surgically altered to artificially improve his ability to wield magic, at the cost of all his emotional architecture. Miya decided that if he could be left with one trace of an emotional impulse, it should be love for his sister rather than love for his mother, but in the same conversation proclaims that she has no motherly love for him and otherwise evidences disdain for and shame over him as a perceived failure. This dialogue of Miya and Miyuki does not adequately provision the viewer with a validation of Miya’s cold treatment of her miraculous son, whose abilities even a young Miyuki identifies as literally “kiseki [a miracle]”.

The behaviour of all the characters is stilted and unnatural, not matching up with expectations. This goes beyond being excusable as excessively formal Japanese inter-class division. For example, at 54:12 the unnamed soldier escorting Tatsuya tells him “We’ll be waiting outside” and leaves him to speak privately with a distressed Miyuki. The producers had the soldier say so in a neutral manner, when in fact he should have clicked his tongue or shown some other cue of annoyance and delivered his line dismissively. This is because these cues would imply to the viewer the soldier’s frustration with the boy’s antics in the middle of an emergency, which is a far more realistic behaviour in a disciplined soldier whom the audience knows is aware of Tatsuya’s precociousness.

The valediction of the maid Honami is touching and clearly impacts Tatsuya. This is a strange choice by the producers as Tatsuya never exhibits being troubled by the things she said later in his life in the main story.

Miyuki’s conclusive monologue exposits that she died figuratively as a result of the climactic events of the piece and this monologue does succinctly express how she has been traumatised, answering a number of important questions. But this monologue also comes in the credits... My overarching point is that the premise of a piece demonstrating how Miyuki and Tatsuya’s uncomfortably close relationship came to be is achieved, but the creative choices made throughout the whole runtime result in a prequel that falls far short of what it could have been.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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	Poll: Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei: Tsuioku-hen Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - Dec 31, 2021	68 replies	by Alvie48xi »» Jan 2, 10:30 AM
	Poll: Watch order ? xnub - Aug 25, 2023	7 replies	by xnub »» Aug 28, 2023 11:42 PM
	Can you watch this before the series? Geeljire - Jan 1, 2022	9 replies	by xnub »» Aug 25, 2023 1:33 AM
	Those LJNs should have adapted this just after or close to the first season when Mahouka was still fresh. removed-user - Jan 23, 2022	2 replies	by CrazyButNot4U »» Jan 23, 2022 12:50 PM
	Why Miyuki's mama.. (SPOILER) sakkyun - Jan 1, 2022	16 replies	by sakkyun »» Jan 23, 2022 6:33 AM