Tatsuya Wins Again!
- Episodes : 13
- Genre : Action, Magic, Romance, School, Sci-Fi, Supernatural
- Airing Date : 8bit
- Producers : October 2020 – December 2020
Many people will remember the Shiba Tatsuya craze that briefly took over the anime community back in 2014, when the first season of Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei (The Irregular at Magic High School) aired. The protagonist’s overwhelming overpowered nature was a point of immense entertainment, particularly because the story seemed to follow the zero-becomes-hero route, but perhaps the series’ penchant for the implied incestuous relationship between Tatsuya and his sister, Miyuki.
Tatsuya being deemed unfit for magic in a world where magic was more than just commonplace, but a technology upon which the world is built and operates made Shiba Tatsuya’s overpowered adventures even more entertaining to watch, not to mention the character’s enigmatic and cool demeanor making him quite popular! In 2020, we got a follow up to The Irregular at Magic High School in the form of the series’ Visitor Arc, in which, as the name suggests, First High hosts a transfer student from the United States. Angelina Kudou Shields makes her debut in the second season under the alias and visage of the USNA’s most powerful agent, Angie Sirius. She attends First High in Japan while the aloof Kitayama Shizuku spends the season in America, where she acts as a source of information for Tatsuya and the rest of her classmates.
The Irregular at Magic High School: Visitor Arc follows a strange series of murders in which the victims are found completely drained of blood. This prompts the characters to dub these “vampire” murders. It is soon revealed that some kind of parasitic mass of information is responsible. Tatsuya and his friends get involved when a fellow classmate is attacked and left to recover in the hospital. These parasites siphon the vitality of their hosts, taking on their host’s innermost desires as the core of the personality they exhibit. Due to the blood-draining nature of the attacks, witnesses in both Japan and the US dubbed it the work of a “vampire”. The antagonists of the Visitor Arc are former USNA officers, as well as the parasites.
Magic in this season of The Irregular at Magic High School is flashier and more complex than ever before, with in-universe theories about the nature of magic bringing it closer to a less technological and a more traditional understanding, especially when it comes to the parasite attacks and the magical abilities of some of the people around Tatsuya.
Yoshida Mikihiko is a character who has magical abilities that are reminiscent of traditional magic and supernatural prowess. Divination, barriers and medical-type magic enables Mikihiko to make the groundbreaking discovery that the parasites siphon not blood, but life force – vitality, in a manner familiar to us through stories of spectres, demons, djinns and the like. It is for this reason that the parasites themselves, due to having no name, make use of the term “demon” when they head out to retrieve one of their own who ends up in the care of Shiba Tatsuya when it inhabits the body of Pixie the robot.
While the concept is interesting, it makes the scope of the world of The Irregular at Magic High School highly unintelligible – magic is first introduced as a type of technology or science, and this remains a fact of the universe even after the parasites introduce an interdimensional aspect to the story. The magic system in The Irregular at Magic High School is quite hard to follow even for the brainiest of viewers because of how much technical information gets packed into any of the explanations behind the magic. Now with “supernatural” entities joining the mix, it’s even more complicated and perhaps the series would be much more enjoyable from a lore aspect if it wasn’t so convoluted – it can almost feel like you’d have to be a student at First High to truly get it!
Unlike in season 1 of The Irregular at Magic High School, Tatsuya’s overpowered nature is relied upon a lot less in the progression of events. What this means is that the other characters like Miyuki, Chiba Erika, the previously mentioned Mikihiko, Mitsui Honoka, and Shizuku all have their moments to dazzle us on screen. Characters like Erika and Mikihiko are MVPs this season, especially Erika with her police connections enabling Tatsuya to execute brilliant plans to counteract both the parasites and the USNA, who are using their agent, Angie, to rein in the parasites.
Lina, as Tatsuya calls her, comes to Japan believing herself to be one of the world’s top magicians; however, upon going head-to-head with Tatsuya and his friends, her confidence is shot, and she loses faith in her ability to uphold the name of Sirius. After Miyuki completely dominates Lina in combat, she becomes even more unsure of herself and when faced with the main parasitic body, her magic is completely useless. Tatsuya and Miyuki combine their powers to max out Miyuki’s ice magic, an ability Lina refers to as “Lunar Magic”, a supposedly high-level technique that leaves her totally shook. Tatsuya relates with Lina based on his experience as a soldier, and offers her a way out, saying that he has friends who can help.
The team-based approach to solving the problem at hand was one of The Irregular at Magic High School: Visitor Arc’s best parts, and we got to truly meet some of the characters who were otherwise faceless nobodies in the first season. As mentioned before, Chiba Erika had an incredibly pivotal role this season, but all this talk about teamwork is not to say the series forgot about its main man. In fact, Tatsuya’s growth this season as mentioned by his sister Miyuki lies in the care he has for his friends, his ability to empathise with Angelina despite her having to engage them as an enemy, as well as his consistent and kind reliance on his friends to help him at various parts of the journey. At no point was any one character truly useless and that made Visitor Arc a good watch, but we still managed to get the same old overpowered Tatsuya, which is always a good time. The near-incestuous relationship between Tatsuya and Miyuki was a bit unsettling at times; however.
The best part of Tatsuya growth this season was seeing his work lead to the establishment of a Magic Engineering faculty at First High, which in turn led to his promotion from “Weed” to “Bloom”, perhaps making this season the arc in which “The Irregular” is truly appreciated for his abilities. An overpowered protagonist making his way from zero-to-hero is truly the content we signed up for here!
The Irregular at Magic High School: Visitor Arc hit the ground running and got to the point, wasting no episodes on fluff, which was highly appreciated. Given that it has been 6 years since the previous season, it would have been great to have a recap; however, this arc had very few events actually happen at school, and most of it was self-contained. This was both a pro and a con, given that the magic system could have done with more of a refresher than we got at the beginning of the very first episode. Be that as it may; however, The Irregular at Magic High School: Visitor Arc was a great progression from the first season and we simply cannot wait for the next part of this story!
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