Another week, I still haven’t killed myself. Let’s get this over with.

• We start out with Tatsuya playing God and judging the world. Fuck you, Tatsuya. Tatsuya has the power to unilaterally dismiss all charges against this girl. He’s basically a dictator, even though he’s supposedly a powerless student. Whatever.

Continue reading Mahouka 22 — Still Not Incest →

The world of Mahouka is a world of moral insanity. Right and wrong are inverted. Discrimination is right, violence is peace, power is justice, and the weak are scapegoated and dehumanized. When the world is this screwed up, what can one do?  Anyone who attempts to rebel is quickly retaliated against, through the main tools in the toolkit of evil: violence and scapegoating. Those who resist the social insanity in Mahouka are brutally tortured and killed by glorious freedom fighters such as Erika. Others who resist are shamed into insignificance, by being labeled as “terrorists” and vilified as traitors who work with foreigners. Their rebellion is blamed on personal and psychological problems and they are considered foolish or mad or insane, even while they are the only sane people in a world that has gone mad.

But even in such a world, Mahouka (unintentionally) offers a glimmer of hope, through the hero of this week’s episode.

Continue reading Mahouka 21 — A Glimmer of Hope in Mahouka →

Well, this is a huge improvement over the last arc. I greatly prefer right-wing nuttiness to endless tedium and boredom.

•  Mahouka does have some interesting ideas, like this one of freeing magicians from their fate as weaponized humans.Some thought and development on this could lead to an interesting theme. Sadly the treatment is only superficial. The author’s vision is basically to replace magicians as warriors with magician drone operators.I fail to see how this changes anything of consequence.

Continue reading Mahouka 20 — International Espionage at the High School Science Fair →

Doing this first so I can watch SAO to get the crap out of my mouth. Yes, I like to make fun of SAO, but Mahouka has made me realize how much worse it could have been.

Episode 17

Uh oh, the Chinese terrorists are about to lose 100 million dollars betting on high school sports. Poor chaps. Time for them to go on a killing spree! The author definitely didn’t pull this out of his ass at the last minute after realizing the rest of the book was boring as shit. Continue reading Mahouka 17 – 19 — Will it Ever End? →

You may have noticed I’ve fallen behind on everything and haven’t even picked up a fourth or fifth show yet. This is because I’m moving across the county next week. I have a ton of packing to do, probably won’t have Internet access this weekend, will be spending the next week in Canada, and then will be settling in in a new town and a new job. So basically I’m probably going to fall behind blogging. Sorry about that, this has been a hectic summer, but in a few weeks I’ll hopefully settle back into a routine.

And for those wondering, I’m planning to pick up Zankyou no Terror. Eventually…

Anyway, Mahouka. I can’t wait to start this episode.

• Great, we’re already into the main meat of this show: explaining magical gibberish.

Continue reading Mahouka 16 — Something Finally Happens →