Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei Episode 9 Discussion

Sande said:
Funny how this arc is better than in the original.

malMaxi said:

It might have been because i tried to reply in a thread for a later episode.
Well, no worries :)

malMaxi said:
I would agree that people that dislike things usually go to greater extents to justify themselves than people that like things. Therefore, in a situation where people that like things are just generally "<3", people that dislike things offer more ideas and explanations.

Dislike is also definitely easier to engage with [...]

Once you get past the engagement hurdle, positive emotion tells you much more about what the work actually is. With negative emotion, the only thing you can tell with any certainty is what the work isn't, and can only arrive at some true conclusions about it through process of elimination (which, in the sea of infinite interpretations, is in itself kinda pointless).

For example, you can definitely tell that Mahouka is not a great romance :). However, i bet you don't <really> understand what exactly is so appealing about the relationship displayed :). I am reasonably certain that while people with a specific fetish are definitely part of the crowd, this is not the main appeal for overwhelming majority of viewers. F/ex i do actually like the concept of main duo relationship. It is a time-honored "conservative protector" vs "free-spirited princess" dynamic. I just think it could be executed better and relies on fetish as a crutch much more than it needs to.

malMaxi said:

I don't have any strong notions on perfectionism :D. My own perfectionism has more hindered me than helped me, so i learned to kind of keep it suppressed. But that is most certainly a matter of personal style, not something i'd generalize for everyone.
What i do insist on is that perfectionism is fine and good, but you do need to sit down and test results in the form of an actual story (however small compared to grand vision). No LotR without Hobbit.

malMaxi said:
As for the dynamics of the original franchise itself, what really drives it forward for me is not so much the nature of opposition that Tatsuya faces, but rather the nature of his relationship with Miyuki that forces him to engage such opposition. The real antagonist of this series is the freedom-loving princess who keeps putting her protector on the spot, causing him to constantly go to even greater lengths for her sake..

The problem with Mahouka is how long it takes the series to actually sink its teeth into the real heart of the proceedings, which is the internal situation of the main duo's family. Basically, the entirely of adapted material up to this point doesn't even begin to touch on the main conflict, instead engaging in rather inept worldbuilding.

In some ways, the author uses an excuse of escalating external world threats as an excuse to delay getting to the interesting stuff. Which is why the threats appear so inept (and only function in the story at all as long as they show the friction between the main duo).

malMaxi said:

I'll admit One Piece kinda lost me after the timeskip :(. The whole Haki thing kinda overburdened by own suspension of disbelief for the power system of the series. The way the crew got split up and then reassembled feels absolutely tacked on as well. In my own eyes, One Piece basically ruined its core aesthetic of "family".

I also kinda failed to parse what exactly compelled Mugiwaras to follow Trafalgar's lead. The fact that they did, however, also ruined the sense of "adventure" for me (because now it isn't an adventure, it is a political coup).

Good to hear it's still working for you, though :D. Maybe i'll catch up to it next time i'll have a week or so to marathon the series.

malMaxi said:
I also like the fail/success at the waterfall bookending :D. The problem is not that Naruto fails.

The problem is that Naruto's whole motivation at that point was "be Sasuke", with "be Hokage" being completely put aside. Naruto, by that point, spent more than two cours of episodes basically doing nothing but refusing Sasuke's rejections (which, ultimately, led to Sasuke escaping, which IMO was a stroke of genius). Naruto doesn't even notice when Konoha itself accepts him, in the form of all Konoha's kids following him into pursuit of Sasuke. He is basically Hokage at that point, but that doesn't matter to him anymore. Naruto is forever trapped in pursuit of Sasuke and is no longer able to take "no" for an answer. In some ways, he is no longer a free agent. What can he even do other than be in limbo after Sasuke leaves? And how can Sasuke even be a meaningful antagonist to that? Naruto is not even capable of feeling his antagonism anymore.

Well, i don't disagree that this can be viewed as a planning problem. In fact, this is actually a rather good example of a planning problem. The author lost sight of his original plan, which got subverted by what i can only see as a great audience reaction to Naruto/Sasuke relationship.

malMaxi said:
Explaining why (i think) Kubo couldn't handle Arrankar s actually quite simple. While Kubo's style began as this unconstrained flourishing of teenage street art / fashion, Kubo himself chose to constrain that style with all the white kimonos and general white walls of Soul Society arc. This actually worked great because of the sheer artistic tension between the two things: there is nothing more natural for teenage hero than to tear down the white walls of traditionalism around him. Also, the contradiction between the white traditionalism of Soul Society visuals and individual personalities of the captains worked extremely well.

However, Kubo couldn't find a proper evolution to his art style in the Arrancar ark. White walls changed to white landscapes, but it didn't really change anything. White kimonos became an even stricter white chitin-like carapaces, but that also changed little. Kubo is now starving for new ideas and begins, artistically speaking, retreading old ground. This is a weakness of visual artistic vision compared to thematic vision. Thematic vision gets stronger on retread, while artistic vision wears thin. Arrancar are less compelling than the Captains and, ultimately, the whole arc is less compelling than Soul Society.

It isn't like it was completely hopeless: there were some individual shots of Aizen appearing downright sinister and definitely unlike anything Bleach had before. However, Arrancar show off none of that sinister appeal. It is one thing to imply that the characters you are dealing now are death itself and it is completely another to actually paint a convincing image. I think Kubo recognized the pathos of what he aimed at, but ultimately couldn't find the proper artistic language.

Well, he might find it one day. He certainly has the talent for it :)

malMaxi said:
I find that entertaining and well executed stories can't help but have thematic meanings, even if these go over the head of the immediate viewer. I definitely didn't think "nice youth vs death conflict" when watching early Bleach. It was entertaining and well executed :D. However, what made it entertaining and well executed in my eyes is that it was speaking to that fundamental aesthetic that i share.

malMaxi said:

Lol, i keep asking you about YOUR reasons :). We can get to the objective truth later (if at all). In fact, getting to objective truth requires having well-defined personal viewpoints to begin with, so by delaying a proper definition of what YOU like you are not doing anyone any favours :)

Symons1m said:

Don't know about that when I see people talking about their dress and stuff. It implies that they do find the event visually entertaining in a way. Also, the method Eimi used to broke the pillars of her opponent was also enjoyable for many fans.

The thing is, most people simply don't want to listen to the explanations (very apparent from the comments), so they're instead mentioned while something else is happening. It also helps the anime to prolong the scenes where people use magic, as they would end much faster otherwise.

Yeah, that's why I mentioned the need of nice production budget and highly skilled anime producers. Though it won't happen when the producers don't even feel the need to do so. (as they're already getting the results 'they' want)

Yeah, the anime producers have no intention to introduce the rhythm in the fights, so we can't do anything but criticize them I guess. Even if the transition from one medium to another is troublesome in the case of this series, they should still try to be creative when showing the fights in a visual medium like anime.

Instantaneous fights aren't bland or boring - look at famous westerns like The Good the Bad and the Ugly. All their confrontations are resolved in 1/2 shots, but tension is built up before to give these spontaneous fights more meaning and impact than long drawn out ones. It requires competence but it feels very visceral and real.

Symons1m said:
Honestly, you can't do anything about it in the first place. There's various events where someone or other would have an unfair advantage over others, so completely removing any event from the competition due to it isn't really a practical option. For example, Subaru and Airi's abilities give them an unfair advantage in cloud ball. Juumonji would also have an unfair advantage in events like Ice Pillar Break, cloud ball, etc. There's over a hundred types of magic and you'll always find people naturally suited for an event, giving them an unfair advantage.

Though do note that the events of the competition change periodically, so it's not like Ice Pillars break is going to be an event every year.

Symons1m said:

Obviously, such things offend the LN/manga fans of series receiving such treatment a lot more than any anime-only viewer. They wait for their favorite series to get a proper anime adaptation and then end up seeing a very inferior version of it. One could imagine how much it pains them.

Symons1m said:

I'm talking about the majority, not the minority of the fans Mahouka has outside Japan. If you don't know this already, Mahouka is like ten times more popular in Japan, so much so that even one of the biggest anitubers, who wrote it off as a generic series after only watching a couple of episodes, is totally baffled by its popularity over there.

Reading the comments of the Japanese, you won't find people talking about fanservice so much. And like I mentioned earlier, they have even rated this spin-off series very low because of it. So many comments literally mention that they don't like and watch Mahouka due to such things.

Symons1m said:

Considering how multiple male characters in Mahouka are indeed likeable (at least going by the number of votes they have gotten in popularity polls and the number of people discussing about them), I guess it should mean that the characters in the series are good after all. It seems that you don't think so (or you'd not have mentioned it), but in the end, that's just your own subjective opinion if others think differently. However, I think that your opinion is equally valid as the anime has striped the characters off the characterization and development you get to see in the source material. For example, do you know why Leo was loitering around in the night when he was attacked by a parasite in the second season? Do you know that Erika already knows Tatsuya is from the mighty and fearsome Yotsuba family at some point in the Visitor arc? Do you know how Tatsuya confronted her when she mentions her speculation to him and how she reacted to him? Just a couple of examples to show how various occasions of characterization and character development have become non-existent in the anime.

Symons1m said:

I know it's your bias (?) talking, but Mahouka is far from a dumb LN about an overpowered MC defeating bad guys and getting all the girls. In a series where things happen in such an unorthodox way that seeing cliché things would actually make you appreciate them, it's pretty hard to make a distinction between truly good and bad guys. And let's not talk about getting all the girls when even the extremely lacking anime adaptations have managed to show and hint at otherwise.

Symons1m said:

As this stuff is from the spin-off and not from the original LN, it took me time to gather enough information about it. In the context of the scene in question, Shiori actually generates virtual waves instead of real waves. Basically, rather than directly applying the waves to the ice pillar with magic (as it is protected by fortification), she sets up an area (the air around the pillar) which causes the phenomenon of applying such waves to the pillar. The moment the virtual waves come into contact with the targeted pillar, they become real waves within the target and affect it in reality. So we know now why there is no loss of vibration.

Symons1m said:

I'll just make it clear that manipulating the effect of inertia on something is nothing special in Mahouka, and most of the characters you see in the anime are capable of doing it.
For example, Erika uses its application to strike the target with blows weighing 10 tons, with just her sword.
The greater and more complex the manipulation, the more talent and/or magic power as well as a suitable magic spell are required to manipulate any phenomenon in the series, as you're literally attempting to overwrite the reality. Similarly, just because one can manipulate inertia to some extent doesn't automatically mean they can also use it in a destructive way.

Symons1m said:

True. The anime adaptations have done nothing but disservice to the source material. Although they at least managed to convey what the whole final battle was about (magic is superior to ABC weapons), the presentation was awful. In the end, we can only criticize the anime producers for the serious lack of effort showed by them.

theGodde said:
Interesting.
I would say however that learning what something isn't is a useful thing to know. Especially regarding Mahouka. I know what didn't work for me, but that doesn't necessarily mean I know all the things that didn't work. That said, it is just as important to know what did work for many people. And this is the best place to start. You don't start growing a tree by pruning its branches. First you let it to grow branches for you to prune. And in the same way, you can do a lot with 'what works' on its own, but cannot do anything the same 'what doesn't work'. We agree on something - nice

That said I think you're trying to make Mahouka's relationship conform a little too much to the trope you're thinking of. Mayuki feels more for Tatsuya than Tatsuya may know. He sees her as his beloved sister who he must protect, and so if I were to pin their dynamic in a single sentence, it would be unrequited forbidden love. Mayuki desperately wants Tatsuya to see her as more of a woman, but at the same time is afraid of change, afraid of disrupting her current status quo; and so is therefore in conflict with herself. Meanwhile Tatsuya is a broken, empty shell of a man whose last emotional connection is Mayuki. He goes through life with an empty smile and calculated charm but there is little too it beyond the surface level. Mayuki is his only remaining reason for living.

at least that's my take on their dynamic. You've experienced more of the series than I have, but I just feel like Mayuki isn't much of a free spirit. She's very tied down and dependent on Tatsuya for almost everything. That's part of her character to me.

I went through a phase where no idea I came up with was ever good enough for me. However that's not what I mean by perfectionism. I mean when you take an idea, flesh it out, and don't stop until you feel you have done everything you can to fully realise it. And then once you've written the story you continue to reread and change it over and over again until you feel like there's nothing more you can do. That is functional perfectionism.
I dunno about the testing aspect. It's more about experience. If you're not confident in your story concept, then a "pilot" story may be necessary, but tbh once you have the desired skill/experience and confidence I see no problems.

Having just come out of Naruto when I binged One Piece, it felt pretty natural to me. But certainly once you get over the absurd power scaling of Haki, the actual stories being told do improve pretty significantly (although IMO the pacing is even worse than what it was earlier on).
As for the split, I'd agree. Pretty sure it was inspired by DBZ's timeskip which is by far the best handled timeskip in all of anime (love or hate the show overall).

I personally liked Trafalgar's addition. It was entertaining to see him and Luffy interact with one another - being such polar opposites. Law does have a very strong presence in the story for Dressrosa, his backstory is directly related to it and as a result his team up with Luffy does pay off (IMO). I would say that you could see this Coup as a loss of adventure, but I feel like it was handled in One Piece's typical swashbuckling adventure style nonetheless. As the story further progresses, Law realises how futile it is to force Luffy to follow his plans, and so instead constructs plans around Luffy's chaos energy. This gives the straws hats essentially complete freedom while allowing Law to make satisfying and devious strategic plans that are slowly orchestrated over potentially hundreds of episodes.

That is true. But I think with a bit of reframing it could have been handled well even then. Use the cliche Angel and Demon dynamic. Have Naruto be the "angel" that sits on one side of sasuke being the voice of good, and an opposing force (say Orochimaru or Obito) being the "demon" - the voice of evil.
however it's hard to really see whether this would have been much of an improvement over the actual thing. The real issue with the whole story is that Naruto is obsessed with Sasuke even when the particular arc in question has nothing to do with him. I think they should have used the two year timeskip to do the opposite - make Naruto get over Sasuke. Put him in a position where he won't actively seek out Sasuke, but instead decides to wait for him to return - basically reposition the situation so that Naruto is still framed in a heroic light but is less proactive in his obsession with Sasuke - similar to the dynamic between Captain American and Iron Man at the end of Civil War. The timeskip could have been used as a tool to reposition the characters and set up a whole new story with the same cast going forwards.
I think what we can agree on is that the story we got wasn't a true continuation in the same spirit as the story Kishimoto had originally written.

]You're probably spot on. I'd agree that the story had no thematic basis, but misinterpreted what you originally said as implying he had no story at all and was just going with the flow.
I've heard the Burn the Witch manga is good. The 3 episode OVA series has a bad wrap so I haven't seen it yet. I'm not familiar if he's made any later works outside the Bleach universe, but it'd definitely be interesting to look into.

I don't know if I would
label all of storytelling and visual design as merely a "fundamental aesthetic", but you're certainly on the right track lmao.
To me there are two ways I judge a work.
The first is the characters and their journey. Are the characters relatable, fleshed out, and do they have a motivation? Then after that the question is how the story is going to challenge that motivation, and how the characters are going to overcome it. If this is done well, it will be a good story on a fundamental level. Demon Slayer is a good example of that. It's a very barebones story, but it's fundamentally incredibly solid.
The second thing I would judge is presentation - the animation, direction, voice acting, and tone. Animation and direction are the two most important. If you have good direction then you'll probably have good tone. Good direction makes things easier to follow and allows the story to be presented in more subtle and nuanced ways. Good animation makes it more pleasing and enjoyable to watch. It can often be the deciding factor for a lot of people (at least many claim it's a deciding factor but more often than not they'll still unconsciously put story above animation).
At a fundamental level, themes are simply recurring ideas that are built up through a series. If it's got a consistent tone then it will probably begin to naturally develop themes. That said as we agreed above, a good story is usually built from themes, and so if that is the case then those themes will clearly manifest themselves in the story.

May as well get into it then lmao
for me personally, I like the idea of Tatsuya as a sociopathic genius. Not necessarily the execution, but sometimes his sociopathy shines through. I am personally very similar to Tatsuya. IRL I consider myself a borderline sociopath who barely feels emotional highs and lows but learnt to simulate emotions with intellect. I can empathise but only on an intellectual level.

I'm also interested in engineering/creative design and as a teenager dreamed of doing similar things
...
I also really like the magic system. Once again not necessarily the execution but the concept itself of science and magic combined is really cool.

I also do martial arts and used to say edgy stuff like "we're not really demonstrating our martial arts unless we use them to kill". I can see so much of the human aspects of tatsuya, and this is why I feel the inhuman, unrealistic aspects of him even more acutely. His secret agent status is something I certainly do not share lmao but I personally found it entertaining despite how cliche and cringe it is on paper.

Can't say I like any of the characters though (except for one or two - like Mayumi, who really feels like a fleshed out person with more going on than just her interactions with Tatsuya). I also hate the animation and especially the action. That in general is how I feel about Mahouka.

But I've be making a post about what I've identified people feel about Mahouka. It's already massive but I'm not quite happy with it. Maybe I never will be, in which case it will never be posted. As you can see I have a bit of Tolkien's perfectionism in me lmao.

malMaxi said:
I'd say the mechanic at play here is that we do not really know Miyuki's actual character because it is just so poorly executed. She does indeed have this "demure feminine passiviity" thing going for her, but this also is very deceptive.

Every time she really wants something, nothing can stop her, not even Tatsuya. In fact, she will readily and quite effortlessly put Tatsuya in a bind if she thinks he isn't doing enough. She pushed him into joining the Disciplinary Committee, she is also the major reason for Tatsuya to work as hard as he does during the school festival. In fact, i'd go so far to as say that every story arc where this dynamic is absent simply doesn't work, because, like you already observed, nothing else except Miyuki can even remotely touch Tatsuya.

I guess it isn't incorrect to view Miyuki as part and parcel of the society she grew up in. However, i think viewing her as bound by her status is a mistake. She aligns with her status not because she is bound by it, but because she embodies it. While it isn't unfair to say that her ojou-sama lifestyle is similar to a prison, i am not sure she herself is really feeling the walls.

Well (and do pardon the crude metaphor :D), except for the big pole in the middle that is Tatsuya of course :D She literally can't get enough of feeling that one :)

I don't think she relies on Tatsuya so much because she is forced to. I think she relies on him too much because (a) it really is convenient - Tatsuya is nothing if not competent, (b) she genuinely wants his attention and getting him to do things for her seems like the only way to get it.

malMaxi said:

I will point out that once you initially fleshed out the idea, you already have your "pilot" and are therefore already testing the execution of your idea. This is actually a pretty good example of why you can't just have a plan but also need execution.

I am not sure if the kind of skill/experience that allows to get everything right from the start in a reliable fashion is even possible. All competent writers / artists / creatives i interact with tell me that such flashes of inspiration are not only rare, but also often misleading. Ultimately, it seems wherever you go getting any one thing right still takes countless iterations. The difference is that the experienced people increase the speed of their iterations by various methods.

That being said, superior planning definitely helps with iteration speed. Superior planning allows you to isolate a problem and work on it specifically instead of rebuilding everything from scratch every time one scene goes wrong :D

malMaxi said:
I guess i won't be able to comment more on OP until i catch up on it (which is unlikely to happen until winter, but oh well).

malMaxi said:

Within that interpretation, it is interesting to think about where exactly that spirit got broken.
Was it still intact during Sasuke escape arc? Or did it break earlier?
I'd sake the moment when Naruto officially lost me was the first waterfall fight. However, it is also fair to say that by that moment Naruto didn't even feel like a separate character anymore. People like Neji, Shikamaru and Chouji were that much more interesting, while Naruto already devolved into being basically a one-track pony.

I guess the moment i felt Naruto's character "solved" was during the time he saved Sasuke from Shukaku. That's when his infatuation with Sasuke should've ended. Their next fight (on the roof with the water tank), while i remember it being sort of awesome in a fight choreography sort of way, already made little sense for me narratively.

malMaxi said:

Burn the Witch ep.1 didn't click with me at all, and i didn't follow it up (or even think about it) since. So can't say anything on that topic.

malMaxi said:

It could be that my focus on themes is my way of rationalizing the things you mention in a more general way. For example, once i see a character that is being relatable, fleshed out and having motivation, it usually isn't hard for me to come up with something that seems to be that character's theme (at least, in my eyes). Same thing with presentation. If i see animation, direction, sound design (voice acting included) and tone working well together, i can then almost always name the theme they are working well together towards.

This could, obviously, be entirely be an artifact of my own way of analysing things. However, i also have some success with analysing things that way, so i kinda stuck with it over the years :)

I definitely can't say whether i think good execution arises from the theme, or the theme is a result of good execution :D. I am solving this conundrum by saying that these two things are literally the same and they either exist together or not at all.

malMaxi said:
I definitely agree that Tatsuya's appeal lies between his ability to socialize juxtaposed with his own sociopathy.
However, the way this aspect appeals to me is less through sociopathy and more through the larger theme of being a soldier. Which, to be sure, features both sociopathy on one side of the coin, but also decidedly social things like service and duty on the other.

I do not actually like how the "soldier" aspect of Tatsuya was explored, though :(. He ultimately ends up feeling more of a hired gun killer bodyguard than an actual soldier.

Either way, here is the first way we could improve on Mahouka: give Tatsuya more situations which explore his sociopathy and the tension it creates with the necessity to provide a protective social environment for Miyuki (thus duty and service). These situations happen enough in the early part of the series but kinda fall off starting the Sports Tournament arc.

malMaxi said:

I touched on the engineering/creative design bit in one of my previous posts, when i talked World Trigger :D. The specific improvement for Mahouka would be: provide more interesting applications of mundane magic. Mahouka does a good job at showing stuff like Miyuki and Tatsuya using magic to run, so the most basic of bases is covered. But i'd love to see more intermediate things, like magic powering some of the school systems, maybe more of magic-based classes etc. The magic-based sports could certainly benefit from a great deal of fleshing out (while you are annoyed by Ice Pillar Break, i am more miffed by the way shooting is portrayed as "point a gun in general direction and push the button" business).

A while back there was this anime about competitive sky skating with futuristic flying skates. I don't even recall the name right now, but i loved the way they approached the futuristic tech of sky skates in that anime. It was like a school club, giving as much attention to that specific bit of future tech as something like "Super Cub" gives to motorcycles. That's the kind of treatment Mahouka needs for its magic, i think :D

malMaxi said:

I love Tatsuya's bald martial arts teacher :D. Easily best side character in the entire series imo. Not least due to the fact that he is both seemingly the only one capable of taking Tatsuya in a fight AND make it look easy :)

I'm perfectly fine with leaving martial arts as something like a fight choreography eye candy, but it needs to be incorporated more. That aspect was completely lost when Tatsuya's actual cookie-cutter toolkit ended up having no martial arts aspect to it whatsoever :(.

Same with the whole ninja detective system that is kinda adjacent to Tatsuya's instructor. It got supplanted by the whole military deal, which is also kind of a waste. The military could've easily all been ninjas, that would be so much more awesome :D

theGodde said:
You can throw as much money at Mahouka's animators and the final product will still look like shit if you have a shit concept. The anime's concept of ...

IMO something should only be adapted if it has something to gain from transitioning to a new medium. But that's my personal opinion, and the anime industry clearly doesn't work like that.

At the end of the day, MAL does not really give a fair spectrum of opinions.

Another big problem is that there are a lot of surface level reasons people may give for watching a show that aren't the actual reason they're watching it.

In terms of storytelling the concept of an overpowered power fantasy protagonist is dumb. It's considered "low brow" storytelling.

And I don't mean physically overpowered, but overpowered in his ability to effortlessly overcome any and all issues presented by the story.

I haven't noticed anything particularly "unorthodox" in Mahouka's story structure, however that's not to say it isn't. If you could provide some examples for what you consider "unorthodox" that would be much obliged.

We have also yet to run into any morally grey "bad guys" in the story so far except for the Stars - in which case I would agree they are certainly not black and white, but in the...

As for the girls, in the anime they have been very poorly directed to the point where it is pretty clearly implied that most of them have a thing for Tatsuya even if they don't in the LNs.

In the end the overall plot of Mahouka and the individual story arcs I've seen so far have aspects of them that most definitely made it through the transition between LN and anime. Although the finer details were screwed over, the overarching plot details seem to me to be faithful to the LN and therefore worthy of criticism for both mediums of the story.

I'm going to say this. If you're going to use virtual waves then it's equivalent to using regular unscientific magic. It's like chucking the word mana onto any normal physical phenomena so you don't have to explain it.
My question would then be...

this is me being a pedantic asshole - but programming is a science.

Isn't Erica changing the weight rather than directly changing inertia?

But in my opinion that was beyond a lack of effort, that felt like it was animated purely off the storyboards.