The Irregular at Magic High School #02 — Budget Completely Exhausted

April 12th, 2014

 

Boy, that was fast.

Semi-Impressions:

If Dragonar’s second episode hadn’t been so trashy, I don’t think I would have given this more than a glance to see if it was going to be any more magical, interesting, or exciting. It responded to that futile hope by moving even slower than the first episode, having less magic, and being just all around utterly tedious and I barely made it to the halfway point before I had to stop, flip forward to see the atrocious 10 second unanimated predicted fight (“He casts a spell at my feet!” followed by the 3 second unanimated actual fight “I teleport behind him move!” I’ll take the creepy nippleless dragons, or even penguin dick waving, over a whole fat load of absolutely goddamned nothing, thanks all the same.

Posted in Anime | 14 Comments »

14 Shouts From the Peanut Gallery

  • FlameStrike says:
    April 12, 2014 at 9:58 am

    Ahahahaha I knew this would happen. The Mahouka exposition fest is only just beginning! It’s even worse in the manga adaptation. That one fight which in real time took less than a second in-universe time, ended up taking half a chapter to fully explain all the DETAILS OF THE MAGIC. asdfsdfasdfsda. Well I mainly enjoy Mahaouka for lol Miyuki moe and Tatsuya omfg ubermench pwn everything soz.

    • UltimaLuminaire says:
      April 12, 2014 at 2:34 pm

      lol This was not going to be an easy adaptation to begin with, least of which in the hands of animu writers. The source material is far worse than anything the manga or animu could emulate. We wouldn’t even have episodes, just narrated encyclopedias. The only reason why the source material could even get away with it (to many, not even) is because the MC is the “awesome by analysis” type, especially in the 1st and 2nd arcs. To the credit of the novels, they explain the draconian laws they have over magic because it’s now a military asset, but you can’t fking do that in an animu adaptation that refuses to move things along so supposition can take care of everything. They’re gonna repeat a lot of information, and it’ll be the fault of both the source material and the animu writer for not understanding what to do.

      • FlameStrike says:
        April 12, 2014 at 7:39 pm

        Haha that’s pretty much right. As soon as I heard Mahouka was being adapted I thought to myself “Damn that’ll be hard, the source material is hell!”. Although I had some hope since Kyo Horizon was also supposed to be a hard as hell to adapt show, and it was done very well.

        Eh to be honest I’m actually rather entertained by this anime. However I realize that it’s largely due to my enjoyment of the novels. I already care a lot about the characters so there’s a nostalgia factor into seeing them again in animated form. However, I can easily see how utterly boring it might be to someone who has no prior knowledge or investment. The anime IS very slow moving, and it has a shitton of info dump/exposition. Blargh, in the novel itself I’ve lost count of how many times I just skimmed over some long-ass explanations on the bs details of some magic spell to get to the action.

  • anise_punter says:
    April 12, 2014 at 10:08 am

    “penguin dick waving”

    You’d think I’d remember that episode of penguin girl

  • Flood says:
    April 12, 2014 at 2:05 pm

    The editing for this episode was horrible.

    Slow, poorly timed… they hung on shots forever. The editor should be fired. What junior level editor crap. If the director called the timing for this, then they should be fired. Terrible stuff. I’ve seen better Flash anime. That previous sentence is one of the saddest I’ve ever written.

  • UltimaLuminaire says:
    April 12, 2014 at 2:43 pm

    Thanks, Aroduc, for continuing the reviews. This is gonna be another exciting, action packed season and it’d be lonely without you and all the peeps commenting here.

    • kenuran says:
      April 12, 2014 at 5:19 pm

      Its probably a guarantee at this point hes not doing anymore of this show.

      • FlameStrike says:
        April 12, 2014 at 7:44 pm

        It’s defiantly not his kind of show. I’ve made a mention that this is worse than Fate Zero in the “lol stuff before action” to “actual action” ratio. It’s not even funny-bad like Tokyo Ravens.

        However I WOULD enjoy reading his reviews if he considers continuing them. That mention about Miyuki being a battered wife surprisingly fits! I viewed this episode with that in mind, and found it hilarious. The way she kept looking at Tatsuya for confirmation for every little thing she does, the way she feels so dependent on him! Hahaha, I never woulda thought of it myself since I’ve been preconditioned by the LNs.

        • anise_punter says:
          April 12, 2014 at 8:38 pm

          Is there something that’s been actually confirmed as “Aroduc’s type of show” other than Nanoha?

  • The Phantom says:
    April 12, 2014 at 8:44 pm

    What makes you think that a series is good just for its animation alone?.

  • Longing says:
    April 13, 2014 at 12:23 am

    This seems along the same vein as Maoh Yuusha. In the “terrible idea to bring it to anime format because 80% of the content is explanation” sort of way.

    • Aroduc says:
      April 13, 2014 at 9:07 am

      Vast swathes of the Lord of the Rings books are weird asides into Elven history or orc songs. Adapting something is more than just transposing words from a page to a script.

      • algorithm says:
        April 14, 2014 at 1:37 am

        What is actually pretty funny this time around is that Madhouse is mostly transposing the manga which is already an adaptation of the LN. It’s even more lazy than the usual.

  • algorithm says:
    April 14, 2014 at 1:39 am

    I guess he’s going to pet his sister at least once every episode.