Mahouka - Episodes 1-3 Discussion

[Pellissier]

Welcome to the discussion thread for Mahouka, Episodes 1-3.

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[Marcus H.]

Episode 1: Enrollment Part 1

The whole episode is an introduction, that's to be said. What happened way back is told in a short segment, and now we're in a school that teaches magic to "students with potential". Of course, like in traditional Japanese education, discrimination is almost an inevitable aspect of late 21st Century education. Even with hindsight, Tatsuya is clearly a soldier amongst the student body — he is well-rounded in a different way than others, and he is, for some reason, cautious about how other people act near him. Au contraire, his brocon-of-a-sister Miyuki is comfortable with Blooms and Weeds alike, but her control over her powers to lower temperatures to extremes leaves little to be desired.

Question: I assume that having a number in your name, like 1,000 for Chiba, 4 for Shiba, and 7 for Saegusa, is something important. Oh wait, Kokonoe has 9 in his surname, right?
Question: Can one use magic to record information (i.e., take notes) the way Miyuki cleaned her and Tatsuya's clothes? (Honestly, it's much better to use a keyboard. )

Episode 2: Enrollment Part 2

The "circle of friends" is formed, and they discovered that being a student in First High isn't a privilege given to just about anyone, if the previous statement of "students with potential" isn't clue enough. To add, it seems that more people are recognizing Tatsuya's other abilities, starting with his circle of friends, then with Mari and the Student Council. (I'm not sure if Mayumi has other plans for Miyuki and Tatsuya.) The soldier that tries to keep a low profile is suddenly given a duty that puts him (...or rather his skills, due to the spirit of meritocracy?) in the spotlight. Although he refuses, for the sake of Miyuki's reputation, he swiftly defeats his staunch critic, the Course 1 Student Council Hattori Gyobushoujo Hanzou.

Question: Does Mari or Miss Saegusa know of Tatsuya's background?
Question: Since Hanzo Hattori carries the name of a famous ninja, does this mean that he also has some knowledge with ninjutsu as Mr. Yakumo? Why didn't he use that?

Episode 3: Enrollment Part 3

Keeping secrets is starting to be a difficult feat to do, especially with everyone becoming curious of your exceptional skills in using magic. Even the most innocent-looking one wants to take a peek of your awesome CAD. All those eyes on Tatsuya eventually forces out Miyuki's jealous side, causing Tatsuya to go on a Blue Screen of Death. Fortunately(?), he quickly wakes up to catch on the formal introduction of the new members of the Student Council, including Shun Morisato, the guy that was pissed at him earlier. Soon enough, conflicts between students calls for Tatsuya's swift and precise actions as the newest member of the Disciplinary Committee.

Question: I haven't quite memorized every single spell used, but Episode 3 had an Oscillation-type magic. I assume that it moves psions at a certain frequency? And an Essential class of magic is a basic kind of magic spell?

[Rava]

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

Episode 1: Enrollment Part 1

Question: I assume that having a number in your name, like 1,000 for Chiba, 4 for Shiba, and 7 for Saegusa, is something important. But does one's CAD actually show that number when activating a spell, or was it a mistaken observation for me?
Question: Can one use magic to record information the way Miyuki cleaned her and Tatsuya's clothes? (Honestly, it's much better to use a keyboard. )

RE Question 1: It's supposed to be 100 for Chiba, and Shiba is not written with a number.
CADs also have nothing to do with a family name's number.

I'm not sure what you mean by the second question.

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

Episode 2: Enrollment Part 2

The "circle of friends" is formed, and they discovered that being a student in First High isn't a privilege given to just about anyone, if the previous statement of "students with potential" isn't clue enough. To add, it seems that more people are recognizing Tatsuya's other abilities, starting with his circle of friends, then with Mari and the Student Council. (I'm not sure if Miss Saegusa has other plans for Miyuki.) The soldier that tries to keep a low profile is suddenly given a duty that puts him (...or rather his skills, due to the spirit of meritocracy?) in the spotlight. Although he refuses, for the sake of Miyuki's reputation, he swiftly defeats his staunch critic, the Course 1 Student Council Hattori Gyobushoujo Hanzou.

Question: Does Mari or Miss Saegusa know of Tatsuya's background?
Question: Since Hanzo Hattori carries the name of a famous ninja, does this mean that he also has some knowledge with ninjutsu as Mr. Yakumo? Why didn't he use that?

Mari and Mayumi didn't pick him for meritocratic reasons, or by default they would be picking a Course 1 Student. That's why Hattori had his outburst. Having a rare ability does not mean you are the best.

RE Question 1: Episode 1 is the first time either of them met Tatsuya, there's no reason why they would know anything about his background other than what he tells them.

RE Question 2: The significance of Hattori's name is the same significance of Skyrim fans naming their kid Dohvakiin: None at all. If anything, he suffers from it in much the same way that baby is going to suffer from his name in the future...

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

Episode 3: Enrollment Part 3

Keeping secrets is starting to be a difficult feat to do, especially with everyone becoming curious of your exceptional skills in using magic. Even the most innocent-looking one wants to take a peek of your awesome CAD. All those eyes on Tatsuya eventually forces out Miyuki's jealous side, causing Tatsuya to go on a Blue Screen of Death. Fortunately(?), he quickly wakes up to catch on the formal introduction of the new members of the Student Council, including Shun Morisato, the guy that was pissed at him earlier. Soon enough, conflicts between students calls for Tatsuya's swift and precise actions as the newest member of the Disciplinary Committee.

Question: I haven't quite memorized every single spell used, but Episode 3 had an Oscillation-type magic. I assume that it moves psions at a certain frequency? And an Essential class of magic is a basic kind of magic spell?

RE Question 1: Oscillation-type magic means it uses the Psions to make something oscillate, not that the Psions are oscillating themselves. They don't specify what is being oscillated on Sonic Blade, but whatever is being oscillated is what makes the sword cut better.

RE Question 2: Essential Singularity is Crunchyroll's own translation of that phrase, it means the magic invoked is essentially only doing one basic magic action on the target. For example, Hattori's Essential Singularity-type Movement spell from Episode 2 -- all it does it move the target (violently) away because using the basic Movement type magic causes violent movement. Tatsuya's Essential Singularity-type magic in Episode 3 also only does one thing. However, it is a little different because his target is the Psions being released, so he has more flexible options available.

In contrast, Sonic Blade is not an Essential Singularity magic, so the magic is doing more than just one thing and there's more parts to it that they don't explain.

[CatRules]

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

Episode 1: Enrollment Part 1
Question: Can one use magic to record information (i.e., take notes) the way Miyuki cleaned her and Tatsuya's clothes? (Honestly, it's much better to use a keyboard. )

Spoiler for reference to Episode 5:

The answer is YES. But it's going to be very difficult. Using magic to record information should be categorized as civil applications of magics which Tatsuya has mentioned to be much more complex and difficult than combat magics.

For example, if you use pen, you need to cast move-type magic to place it on the right position on the paper and halt its movement using another move-type magic when the tip touch paper. Then you cast move-type magic to write a letter and stop the pen with another move-type magic. After the first letter was done, you cast another move-type magic to lift the pen, stop it with it's on the right position for another letter and continue the process.

Basically, taking a note by controlling pen with magic needs at least FOUR processes PER LETTER. Imagine how tiring it will be to finish a paragrahp.
So even if we disregard the fact that Eidos become more difficult to alter after magic being casted on it(might be mentioned in ep8), using magic to write is still too complicated, ineffective and unpractical.


You can also use keyboards. It might use different magics(hit each button with move/weight type magic) but that still doesn't make it any easier than typing keyboards manually.

The final alternation would be directly control electronic signal to write data in electronic devices. This might be a less tiring method but its difficulty is on an INSANE level.


Still, it's difficult but like I said earlier it's not impossible. You will soon meet one magician who can do this feat in episode 8-10.

P.S. Marcus is right. Chiba has number 1000.

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P.S.2 being able to use civil magics easily (as you mentioned) is another prove of Miyuki's superior magical talent.

[Marcus H.]

RE Question 1: It's supposed to be 100 for Chiba, and Shiba is not written with a number.
CADs also have nothing to do with a family name's number.

100 for Chiba? Isn't Chiba written as 千葉 and 千 is 1,000?
As for Shiba... I see. "It was a mistake on my part."

RE Question 1: Episode 1 is the first time either of them met Tatsuya, there's no reason why they would know anything about his background other than what he tells them.

Eh? It seems that both Mayumi and Mari were "lovestruck" by his show of skill during the small confrontation between the Course 1s and Course 2s.

RE Question 2: The significance of Hattori's name is the same significance of Skyrim fans naming their kid Dohvakiin: None at all. If anything, he suffers from it in much the same way that baby is going to suffer from his name in the future...

OUCH.

RE Question 1: Oscillation-type magic means it uses the Psions to make something oscillate, not that the Psions are oscillating themselves. They don't specify what is being oscillated on Sonic Blade, but whatever is being oscillated is what makes the sword cut better.

I guess it's the air particles that get oscillated when using Sonic Blade. That's the only thing that makes sense, since making the weapon itself oscillate wouldn't really make for a decent strike, especially if we're talking about a bamboo sword, which doesn't have a good edge to begin with. (Honestly, I was surprised that this isn't explained well.)

[Kakurin]

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

As for Shiba... I see. "It was a mistake on my part."

Well, Shiba doesn't have a number (司波), but Yotsuba does.

Eh? It seems that both Mayumi and Mari were "lovestruck" by his show of skill during the small confrontation between the Course 1s and Course 2s.

Don't think they know about his background. Otherwise they wouldn't have been that surprised to see him taking down Hattori.

[karice67]

I'm surprised that the English Mahouka site still hasn't translated the information about the 10 Master Clans and the Numbers that is available on the Japanese site...

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

Eh? It seems that both Mayumi and Mari were "lovestruck" by his show of skill during the small confrontation between the Course 1s and Course 2s.

I'd say that Mayumi was also impressed by his entrance test scores (at their first meeting, it's suggested that this isn't the first time she's come across his name, she expresses further interest in him after the matriculation ceremony, and none of the senior students made any comments to the contrary when Miyuki raised the issue in episode 2).

[Ickarium]

Not to mention that he can read activation sequences, yeah. That is something that is REMARKABLY useful for someone like the PMC. People can't lie and say 'Yeah, I wasn't doing that, I was doing this, see, it's not so bad'. Which I'm sure happens quite a bit when they catch someone.

[Marcus H.]

Is Mari also capable of similar magic or she using something else? I feel that she's more towards "polygraphing" people, though. She was so confident that her skill works that she suspected Tatsuya of being capable in subterfuge.

[Rava]

Originally Posted by CatRules

P.S. Marcus is right. Chiba has number 1000.

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

100 for Chiba? Isn't Chiba written as 千葉 and 千 is 1,000?

My bad. I plead insanity from staying up so late, since it was almost 4 AM when I posted that. Edit: Giving it some thought, I think the 100 came up because it's 100 Families. So Chiba really shouldn't count.

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

Is Mari also capable of similar magic or she using something else? I feel that she's more towards "polygraphing" people, though. She was so confident that her skill works that she suspected Tatsuya of being capable in subterfuge.

Mari has strong anti-personnel magic. They really don't elaborate how at this point though.

[Echizen777]

Hey, shouldn't you ask these questions here or here instead of the episode discussion thread?

[Rava]

Originally Posted by Echizen777

Hey, shouldn't you ask these questions here or here instead of the episode discussion thread?

I assumed he wanted to know if there was something in the episode he didn't catch, that's why I didn't respond with information that wasn't past the point of this episode.