Mahouka - Episode 8 Discussion / Poll

[TrueDevil]

To sum this ep. up: a little fanservice, a little soccer fun, MC showing his godlike skills.
And we got two new pairings, Erika x Miki and Moe girl x Taurus Guns ehh Silver.
The author shouldve added more amazing people or focus on the talents on secondary chars, we already know how awesome he is, please let there be someone whos equal or a little below him.
About the Infodump I really dont think this LN is really suited to be animated since it has too many infos, a game wouldve been better but I still enjoy it though mainly for the second chars though.
Hope Mahouzaku will appear next ep.

[Random Wanderer]

Azusa, during the day: “No one can figure out how to do flight magic, it’s one of the greatest mysteries of our age.”

Tatsuya, that night: “Hey sis, I invented flight magic in my spare time, wanna try it out?”

[cleo]

Originally Posted by TrueDevil

And we got two new pairings, Erika x Miki and Moe girl x Taurus Guns ehh Silver.

Are you so sure about Erika x Miki because they're childhood friends? I rather got the impression they were going for an Erika x Leo pairing.

[wontaek]

Originally Posted by Guest2

No, understanding magic theory is stated to be heavily linked to one's ability to practice it, and the greater one's ability to use the magic - the easier for it is for them to understand why and how it works.

Due to the way magic works based on magi-physics in this novel, all the best magicians are highly intelligent and have pretty good knowledge of standard sciences relating to the magic they are god at.

I mentioned before it requires advanced magic knowledge and experience. Tatsuya was found to have both. What makes Tatsuya different is his rare 'eyes' and his exceptional instant memorization that aid understanding despite his lack of ability.



Rather than sacrificed, they are extras that can be promoted and are used as replacements due to the many possible failures that can occur in magic training.

If there is such a difference in the capability and training between course 1 and course 2 student, how can any course 2 student be promoted beyond the 1st year of the school? Any difference there was in the beginning would have GREATLY magnified by the time they are in 2nd year, thus it would be almost impossible for 2nd year course 2 student to be promoted to 2nd year course 1 student.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by wontaek

If there is such a difference in the capability and training between course 1 and course 2 student, how can any course 2 student be promoted beyond the 1st year of the school? Any difference there was in the beginning would have GREATLY magnified by the time they are in 2nd year, thus it would be almost impossible for 2nd year course 2 student to be promoted to 2nd year course 1 student.

That could explain why it's never happened.

[Marcus H.]

Not to mention the backlash it would have on the student. You will still be called a Weed like you're in Course 2, and you now have to pick up the pace to compete with Course 1s.

If anything, a sudden shift to Course 1 would probably be a massive pain for any Course 2.

Unless you're Tatsuya, of course.

[wontaek]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

That could explain why it's never happened.

Well, then, any value course 2 students would have as spare or replacement for course 1 students would be gone by the time they are in 2nd year. Then what's the use of course 2 students being spare parts in 2nd and 3rd year? Wouldn't they and the whole society be better served by having them take a track totally different from course 1 students? I still find it very inefficient to have 50% of student population be spare parts for the other 50% when less than 1/3 of that 50% actually can function as spare parts, and even that be very hard by the time they are in 2nd half of the first year, given all I was told so far.

Also, if 2nd year course 2 students are in such a different track, wouldn't the school administration be better served by having different divisions and labels for such a different students? Most of the schools in Asia usually gives different designation for students headed to different career path. Also, according to what I have seen so far in the anime, how come any 2nd year course 2 students we saw seems to act as if they will go into same career path as course 1 students?

[Tormenk]

Well 9SC arc is finally here. Since the nature of a competition involves more people this opens up more opportunities for the side characters to shine, I can see more people getting to understand and enjoy the cast better.

The novel had more space to cover events and spread them out but the anime's coverage of this episode doesn't help in toning down Tatsuya's exposure. He is 'overspecced' from what we have been shown so far and it's presented truthfully enough that any flak this draws is rightfully deserved.

[CatRules]

Originally Posted by wontaek

2 questions.

1. The position of Engineer seems to be more about the device and not the actual magic use, thus seem perfect for the course 2 students. Why isn't there other course 2 students in the Engineering team? Or are they so few in number that they didn't get shown?

Missing Infodump

Spoiler for excerpt from first chapter of this Arc:

When separating Course 1 and 2 students, the difference in technical skills played a heavy role. However, the general consensus was that students that scored poorly on technical skills would also have a hard time grasping the theory as well. Because of all the complex concepts, it was very hard to understand the theory without perceiving it firsthand.

Spoiler for Answer:

Yes, the second course can also do CAD tuning but if they don't clearly understand how magic work they won't be able to accurately tune the athlete's CAD.
Also, CAD is very delicate and essential for Modern Magicians. If there is any mistake in the CAD program, it may lead to accident that may cause harm, lost of magic or even death to the user.
You get the picture now why they can't just ask anyone to be engineers.

Of cause, you don't really need to be excellent magicians to become a good CAD engineer. What was actually required for this job is knowledge. If you study enough you can still become a CAD engineer. But in normal case, weeds would have a harder time to understand the system right?

2. The main character does too many things too well. It is hard to believe why he isn't in Magic University or something higher. Why do the higher ups not place him in better research labs? There should be plenty of those, thus surely one or two might be in place that the main character might find acceptable.

The teachers wanted to but this guy declined their offer. They wanted him to study at Fourth High, the school that specializes in magic research and engineering which suits him better than a school that emphasizes on civil magic like First High(which is his weakness).

Spoiler for Missing Info: Magic High Schools:

Actually, the Anime should have mentioned since the first episode that there are nine magic high schools in Japan and each school specializes in different fields.

Third High specialized in combat magic.[If Tatsuya or Erika go there, they would be gods]
Forth High specialized in magic engineering. [Which suits Tatsuya and Mizuki better]
Eight Hight specialized in using magic in the wild(forest and mountain) [this is where Leo who want to be a mountain corp should go to]

See? It's never the system's fault. It's the students like Tatsya and co. that come to wrong school(well, they live in Tokyo).
If you go back to ep2-3, you will see that Tatsuya never said the system is wrong. He only commented to Hattori that associating First High exam to actual combat prowess is wrong which is obvious since it's First High's not the Third High's. (Military uses different test to measure combat skills........... ep3 missing info)

P.S. wow, I didn't know many people already answered these.
P.S.2

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

Erika will suddenly decide to grow out her hair.

She did let her hair grew. You didn't notice?

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[Himel_713]

Does anyone know the name of the ost that was played from 20:14 of this epi?
Gotta wait for ost album then

[zerozeronine]

Originally Posted by wontaek

If there is such a difference in the capability and training between course 1 and course 2 student, how can any course 2 student be promoted beyond the 1st year of the school? Any difference there was in the beginning would have GREATLY magnified by the time they are in 2nd year, thus it would be almost impossible for 2nd year course 2 student to be promoted to 2nd year course 1 student.

Someone did get promoted to course 1 and I'm not spoiling who,but the name doesn't start with a t

Originally Posted by My Zodiac Aries

Maybe that's the reason why the anime BD sales is very low and considered Failure compare to NGNL success.
The novel sales is also not receive significant boost compare to NGNL.

Because NGNL is easier to understand and the typical fan service ecchi anime that is popular in Japan?And I have nothing against those type of series and do enjoy some of them But I don't think NGNL will ever reach Mahouka's overall LN sales.

[Guest2]

Originally Posted by wontaek

Well, then, any value course 2 students would have as spare or replacement for course 1 students would be gone by the time they are in 2nd year. Then what's the use of course 2 students being spare parts in 2nd and 3rd year? Wouldn't they and the whole society be better served by having them take a track totally different from course 1 students? I still find it very inefficient to have 50% of student population be spare parts for the other 50% when less than 1/3 of that 50% actually can function as spare parts, and even that be very hard by the time they are in 2nd half of the first year, given all I was told so far.

Also, if 2nd year course 2 students are in such a different track, wouldn't the school administration be better served by having different divisions and labels for such a different students? Most of the schools in Asia usually gives different designation for students headed to different career path. Also, according to what I have seen so far in the anime, how come any 2nd year course 2 students we saw seems to act as if they will go into same career path as course 1 students?

Sorry, I must be confusing you. I was talking about why Tatsuya was selected as a 9SC Engineer as opposed to other course 2 students. He was known to have top scores in magic knowledge and Azusa found out he had plenty of engineering experience after interacting with Miyuki. They wanted the best of the best students for the competition and Azusa, also the best student in her year, judged he fit the bill for magic engineering. These details I gave are unrelated to the school set up that you are now commenting on.


The system is that only 200 of the brightest and most magically talented are accepted at First High each year. They are scored based on General subjects, magic subjects and Magic power. The 100 highest scoring entrants are personally guided by the very limited number of magic teachers available, while the remaining 100 do computer based learning of the exact same curriculum without personal guidance. It was mentioned in Mayumi's speech that they cover the same material.

The actual divide between the 2 courses could be only half a point to several hundred points, it doesn't matter though. The top 100, however bad or good the lowest scorers are, get into Course 1.

Due to this thoroughly talent-driven and harshly competence-oriented government magic system, accidents often occur which might cause psychological trauma that makes some lose their magic for life. This is where that course 2 student who might have originally lost out by 0.5 of a point or by 100 points, gets their chance for personal magic guidance. Eitherway, as long as the course 2 students learn as much as they can and train and hone their magic skills, they can still aim to graduate in the top. Likewise, if any course 1 student slacks off they can expect to be trampled over by those below eagerly fighting to make it to the top.


The system is stated to be set this way to focus on nurturing the most talented using the very limited teaching resources they have. They only care about results and want the best professional magic technicians(magicians) ASAP. The school heads don't care about blooms and weeds.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by Guest2

Sorry, I must be confusing you. I was talking about why Tatsuya was selected as a 9SC Engineer as opposed to other course 2 students. He was known to have top scores in magic knowledge and Azusa found out he had plenty of engineering experience after interacting with Miyuki. They wanted the best of the best students for the competition and Azusa, also the best student in her year, judged he fit the bill for magic engineering. These details I gave are unrelated to the school set up that you are now commenting on.


The system is that only 200 of the brightest and most magically talented are accepted at First High each year. They are scored based on General subjects, magic subjects and Magic power. The 100 highest scoring entrants are personally guided by the very limited number of magic teachers available, while the remaining 100 do computer based learning of the exact same curriculum without personal guidance. It was mentioned in Mayumi's speech that they cover the same material.

The actual divide between the 2 courses could be only half a point to several hundred points, it doesn't matter though. The top 100, however bad or good the lowest scorers are, get into Course 1.

Due to this thoroughly talent-driven and harshly competence-oriented government magic system, accidents often occur which might cause psychological trauma that makes some lose their magic for life. This is where that course 2 student who might have originally lost out by 0.5 of a point or by 100 points, gets their chance for personal magic guidance. Eitherway, as long as the course 2 students learn as much as they can and train and hone their magic skills, they can still aim to graduate in the top. Likewise, if any course 1 student slacks off they can expect to be trampled over by those below eagerly fighting to make it to the top.


The system is stated to be set this way to focus on nurturing the most talented using the very limited teaching resources they have. They only care about results and want the best professional magic technicians(magicians) ASAP. The school heads don't care about blooms and weeds.

Except that, as of the time of ep8, no Course 2 student has ever been promoted to Course 1. And wontaek's remarks on the difference of nurturing hold. So, even with a tiny difference at the time of the exam, you ought to get a huge one at graduation.

[wontaek]

Originally Posted by Guest2

Sorry, I must be confusing you. I was talking about why Tatsuya was selected as a 9SC Engineer as opposed to other course 2 students. He was known to have top scores in magic knowledge and Azusa found out he had plenty of engineering experience after interacting with Miyuki. They wanted the best of the best students for the competition and Azusa, also the best student in her year, judged he fit the bill for magic engineering. These details I gave are unrelated to the school set up that you are now commenting on.


The system is that only 200 of the brightest and most magically talented are accepted at First High each year. They are scored based on General subjects, magic subjects and Magic power. The 100 highest scoring entrants are personally guided by the very limited number of magic teachers available, while the remaining 100 do computer based learning of the exact same curriculum without personal guidance. It was mentioned in Mayumi's speech that they cover the same material.

The actual divide between the 2 courses could be only half a point to several hundred points, it doesn't matter though. The top 100, however bad or good the lowest scorers are, get into Course 1.

Due to this thoroughly talent-driven and harshly competence-oriented government magic system, accidents often occur which might cause psychological trauma that makes some lose their magic for life. This is where that course 2 student who might have originally lost out by 0.5 of a point or by 100 points, gets their chance for personal magic guidance. Eitherway, as long as the course 2 students learn as much as they can and train and hone their magic skills, they can still aim to graduate in the top. Likewise, if any course 1 student slacks off they can expect to be trampled over by those below eagerly fighting to make it to the top.


The system is stated to be set this way to focus on nurturing the most talented using the very limited teaching resources they have. They only care about results and want the best professional magic technicians(magicians) ASAP. The school heads don't care about blooms and weeds.

OK. I feel like being fed contradicting informations.

1. If they they study the same material and their gap isn't big, AND does not GROW bigger as they advance in years, then I still don't see how some of the course 2 student can't be good enough in certain limited disciplines like CAD engineer, since engineering was not a measure used in differentiating course 1 and 2. In the series, course 2 students are also doing magic, often, and in many forms, so I have trouble accepting that they don't know magic good enough to do well in theoretical aspects. After all, in real world, NASA engineers usually are not astronauts.

2. If the magic ability difference is such that it will impede them in related fields like theory and engineering, then I don't see how course 2 students can keep up with course 1 students thus be able to handle the same material and able to step in as replacements by the time they are at 2nd year or beyond. I have been to not so famous universities AND very prestigious universities, and there are many noticeable difference in materials covered by the senior ( = 4th ) year, to the degree I expect 4th year from not so famous university to take at least 1 year to catch up to what 4th year students are doing in famous universities.

3. If their are schools that have different specializations, I really wonder why the higher ups who seem to control so many things didn't assign them to school system that suits them better.

[Ickarium]

The thing to remember about Mahouka is the application process is not perfect; it's not meant to be in story. It measures very specific things that ... are important, yes, but cannot measure everything. Example I can use now that the anime's gotten past this point in the LN: in the past, they measured you based on your psion count, because CADs were rough and you used a lot more psions. Now, they don't, and they instead measure you based on your speed with a CAD. Not everything is measured properly, like Tatsuya's ability to use 'multiple variables' he mentions after his fight with Hattori. It won't measure Ancient Magic users well either, to a degree. It's like any standardized testing: it only tests what the test actually measures, not total value. There are LOT of people who will be in Course 2 who are actually pretty badass in their own way, but not in the way the tests measure. See: Erika, who is a total kenjutsu badass as we saw earlier. Or Leo, who can do pretty buff spells of his own (Note: when they crashed into the building, and Leo yelled PANZER? He was /fortifying the whole vehicle/ so it wouldn't break.)

The tests are there to measure people the school system sees as the most broadly useful and competent - basically talented generalists rather than highly specialized sorts like Erika and Leo.

As for other Course 2 students, it is true that they are often hampered, but this isn't an absolute rule, no. It's more like ... if you are having trouble with practicals, you likely don't understand the theory due to various reasons. This isn't an overriding thing. The thing to note is those students were marked by a combination of 'This isn't how it's done' traditionalism and lingering discontent over Tatsuya's place. 'The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.' is an actual Japanese proverb for a reason. Disagree with it if you want (I do) but it makes sense considering their culture. That's the REAL reason for their arguing.

As for why they don't make them attend another, each school is a private school basically, it's a very Japanese system. They can't make you attend another. You apply for a school, you're judged. You can apply for multiple schools if you want. But they can't say 'No, you can't go here' if your marks qualify.

[itisjustme]

Originally Posted by wontaek

OK. I feel like being fed contradicting informations.

Tbh this whole situation has been brought up by a lot of people already. Fans here will try to tell you stuff like, "it's in the future so you shouldn't bring up NASA" "it makes sense even Tatsuya says so" "it makes sense for Japanese culture" (even if there's no such actual Japanese example to be found) etc. My personal advice is, a lot of stuff in Mahouka doesn't really make sense, it's more enjoyable if you take it as shiny magic/sci-fi that takes itself too seriously rather than something that's actually as smart as it pretends to be.

[Ickarium]

So 'The nail that sticks out is hammered down.' isn't a Japanese proverb. Got it. I'll remember that in the future. And tell the Japanese they can't use the proverb anymore.

(I'm not sure what NASA has to do with it, and I've never said 'It makes sense because Tatsuya says so. You're basically dismissing folks who disagree with you, and that's poor argument technique.)

[itisjustme]

Originally Posted by Ickarium

So 'The nail that sticks out is hammered down.' isn't a Japanese proverb. Got it. I'll remember that in the future. And tell the Japanese they can't use the proverb anymore.

(I'm not sure what NASA has to do with it, and I've never said 'It makes sense because Tatsuya says so. You're basically dismissing folks who disagree with you, and that's poor argument technique.)

Huh? I wasn't referencing your post, actually I didn't even see it when I posted. By no Japanese example I meant there's no current japanese school where students have no teachers and act as reserve etc. I think we're talking about different things here.

[Ickarium]

Ah, I see. I should probably be less snarky, I'm simply a little annoyed at this topic rearing its head in -every- thread. I apologize.

As for the schooling, it's an established fact in setting that it works the way it works. Not just the magic schools work that way, but most students learn through self study. It kind of fits a lot of old scifi where the same thing happened, students learning from 'terminal screens'. One can certainly argue it wouldn't work real life, but. And as for reserve, there's a lot of schools not just in Japan with different levels of students.

[bakato]

Originally Posted by Xacual

So why did Kanon go from brunette to purple hair then. Her face changed a bit too. I think so far she's the only character that has gotten changed.

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I knew something was wrong. Who ever heard of purple hair?

Originally Posted by wontaek

2 questions.

1. The position of Engineer seems to be more about the device and not the actual magic use, thus seem perfect for the course 2 students. Why isn't there other course 2 students in the Engineering team? Or are they so few in number that they didn't get shown?

2. The main character does too many things too well. It is hard to believe why he isn't in Magic University or something higher. Why do the higher ups not place him in better research labs? There should be plenty of those, thus surely one or two might be in place that the main character might find acceptable.

He's a high school student with no notable achievements besides getting a perfect score on the technical portion of the entrance exam.