Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei | Episode 2 Review

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Episode Two Thoughts

There are a few things I noticed immediately and it’s something I don’t think I will be able to look past. Episode two felt like an episode where we decided to overstate and exaggerate, the feelings of Honoka and Mayumi for the Shiba siblings to a whole new level. Where the two of them quickly fall head over heels for them. But it also, in my opinion, turns the “blossom” and “weed” classification into something that feels a lot more discriminatory which was something that wasn’t too big of an issue in the original series.

Were these things I liked? Not really. Again, I think this has to do with the fact that I do love the original series. Honoka and Mayumi’s feelings for Tatsuya do not develop this quickly in the original series, now granted Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei was 26 episodes long and Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei, by comparison, is only 13 episodes so long so there will be a problem with pacing.

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So with regards to that, you have no choice but to speed things up just a tad to keep within the timeline of the original series. Furthermore, since there are only thirteen episodes, I do not see a problem with spreading out this ‘love for Tatsuya’ over the thirteen episodes with each episode being gradually building on whatever was in the episode before. Unfortunately, you cannot always have what you want, so I won’t be paying attention too much to that.

In addition to Honoka and Mayumi falling head over heels for the Shiba pair, we have First High’s school classifications. Which I feel like was made more of an issue in this series than the original. We see a lot more of the mistreatment between the “Blossoms” and “Weeds”. It feels like a David versus Goliath dynamic. From what I can tell, although Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei is its own series, it tells the first season story of Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei but through the eyes of the women and in particular Miyuki and company. If we were to keep to that, then this issue between the “Blossoms” and “Weeds” will blow over then eventually die down once we get to the school competition. I do not remember ever seeing the “Blossoms” and “Weeds” classifications become such a big sticking point to the point where it takes up an entire episode.

In the original series, there wasn’t much regarding it, maybe that’s because we were following the story through Tatsuya’s eyes and the man is basically a robot, he has little to no emotion. So that can explain why the whole ordeal was never a big issue (to him). Since this is the same story but told through the eyes of the Honoka, Miyuki, etc. All of which have a wider range of emotions than our emotionless Tatsuya, then I understand why the whole “Blossoms” and “Weeds” thing was made such a big sticking point for episode two. Even then, the Tatsuya in this story is not true to the original Tatsuya in that Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei‘s version displays too much emotion.

If Mahouka Koukou no Yuutousei is what I think it is, the story of season one told through the eyes of Miyuki and company, then I will have an extremely had time enjoying this show because all I will be doing is nitpicking each episode and every little detail. I know that this isn’t something I should be doing, but I cannot help myself. Hopefully, the future episodes will be a lot more entertaining than what I’ve watched up until this point.