Weekly Review: The Irregular at Magic High School

Plot/Story

This anime series has an alternate history timeline, so the first few episodes start with a little history lesson, which is quite charming. The world changed when wizards first took to the front lines of World War III. They changed the way wars were fought and changed the balance of power. One of the first scenes we see is of our main character, Tatsuya, when he was still a child. He stands fearlessly as he fires spell after spell at an approaching fleet of ships. This is also where we first meet Miyuki, Tatsuya’s sister, and learn of her deep sympathy for her brother.

The Shiba brothers are part of a clan that is based in Japan, they are one of the master clans. Every time Tatsuya was born, he was born with an ability unique even to magicians. He has the ability to break down, rebuild, and detonate matter. His clan leader saw him as a threat, and as a result, his sister, Miyuki, was genetically modified to be the perfect mage. Her role was simple, she was the successor of the clan and she also had to be there to limit Tatsuya’s incredible power. Along with her limiting him, Tatsuya’s emotions were almost all repressed, leaving only the feeling of love towards her sister, in which he was trained for the sole purpose of her, to protect her from her. Due to the power of him, even suppressed, the clan does not take him very seriously, routinely ignoring him. Miyuki sees this, feeling bad for her brother, she often speaks up, to which Tatsuya almost always makes her take back her words.

Since wizards are so valuable, they must attend a magic high school, one of nine scattered throughout Japan. Our brothers enroll in First Secondary, a school that suffers from diversion of First and Second grade students. Naturally, Miyuki makes it to First Class with ease, but she gets worried every time the test scores classify her brother as Second Class or “grass”. The school and its system are completely unaware of how dangerous and downright amazing Tatsuya is. Despite her sister’s constant worry and despair, Tatsuya has no problem with ranking, after all, all he is there for is to protect her from her. Under this classification, siblings are under pressure not to be seen together, as all First Class students feel that Second Classes are inferior to them and shouldn’t fraternize with them.

The series focuses on a variety of different events, all of which are separated into sections by the series. For example, the Enrollment section is highlighted with an unexpected attack on the school. Other sections include a kind of “Olympic” games for magicians and a research contest. Things obviously go wrong for both of them, causing Tatsuya to get involved. As for the enemies, frankly, they all regret having crossed paths with the likes of the Shiba family.

general

I am very torn with this anime series, I enjoyed it, but at the same time I didn’t quite understand what was going on half the time. They didn’t do a great job of explaining a lot of things, so you get lost in all the terminology and stuff. Also, the loud from “sibling love” (track track) gets a bit disturbing at times. Although it’s mostly just Miyuki, Tatsuya has a few scenes where he plays as a joke, which actually end up quite funny. Tatsuya himself in one scene actually says “I wonder if she’s taking it the wrong way”, implying that his sister may actually have feelings for him, which is obvious to us. Other than all that, the characters are pretty impressive. Tatsuya is an epic, overpowered main character, and I love it. Check it out, it’s worth checking out.