And so we continue to get more introductory material.
What They Say:
Episode 04: “Enrollment Part IV”
Mibu meets with Tatsuya at a cafe. She thanks him for defusing the brawl between her and Kirihara peacefully. She asks Tatsuya to join their kendo team. He suspects she has an ulterior motive…
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With this episode, there is at last the beginnings of a story as it appears that not everyone is happy with the world as it is, especially the fact that one’s magic abilities determine one’s social and economic status. But the episode take such a long time to get this small and important piece of information across, one could hardly be blamed for shutting the episode off halfway through before coming to the consequential infodump that occurs at the end. That this is an important episode is marked out for us by the dispensing of the usual opening and ending animations.
We have a cold open that leaves out the opening theme entirely, merely running credits while we are introduced to another important player in this little school universe: Katsuto Jyumonji, the chairman of the committee that oversees all extracurricular clubs. He’s of interest to Tatsuya since he’s another one of these Numbers surname people who appear to have special connections to magic. He appears alongside Mayumi and Mari as part of a hearing board regarding the incident between the kendo and kenjutsu clubs that Tatsuya handled last episode. This scene is so important, the framing and ponderous dialogue tell us.
This scene is so boring, I’m already half-asleep.
I wish I had been fully asleep, because I could then have missed the sickening little game of Tatsuya and Miyuki playing lovers that this show trots out every episode. This time, it’s before an audience of their first-year friends. It’s so blatant, Leo calls them on it. Again (since he did this once before), Tatsuya (more likely the writing team) feel it necessary to remind everyone present (we in the audience too) that it’s only a joke, as Erika and Leo realize…but Mizuki seems to take the lovey-dovey talk for real and I can’t exactly blame her. This is a major problem I have with the show: it’s both blatantly pandering to the whole incest fetish that obviously must have some sick fandom among the otaku in Japan, while at the same time trying to distance itself from it by constantly saying out open “we’re only joking!” They think they’re having their cake and eating it too. Maybe, but it’s a cake made of excrement.
This must be the perfect time to show us yet again that Tatsuya is Super Cool and Better Than Anyone Else. This time, we learn that he has developed a method of blocking magical attacks that does not require a special rare and expensive element, antinite. Normally, you need this rare material in order to block magic from being cast, but Tatsuya has pioneered his own method that involves using two CADs simultaneously (which we saw at work last episode). While this would seem to be a revolutionary development that could change (and completely disrupt) the world, Tatsuya plans to keep quite about it, because of its disruptive potential. Of course, this also means that he alone has this super-special ability, which further marks him out as The Chosen One and a Gary Stu almost fully formed by now.
Is there any meat to this episode? More little vignettes to introduce us to the world occur as Tatsuya is attacked by a mysterious assailant while out on patrol the next day. The attacker gets away, though we see a tricolor bracelet, which will be the clue to identifying him. Later on, Tatsuya is approached by Mibu, the kendo club member. Tatsuya assumes that she wants to ask him to join the kendo team, which she does, though he declines. He asks Mibu why she thinks he should be on the kendo team. It appears that the kendo team and all of the other clubs that involve non-magical matters (and are largely populated with Course 2 students) want to break away from the official Extra Curricular Affairs Committee and form their own separate organization for non-magical groups that won’t be discriminated against the way everything is in this school. To that end, Mibu would like Tatsuya on their side, since he’s become the most prominent Course 2 student in the school.
Lunch the next day. Time for pleasantries? No, time for more Miyuki being a jealous girlfriend…even though it’s her brother and then even more exposition as we now learn about Blanche, an anti-magic organization that is supposed to be top secret, yet Tatsuya knows all about them. Funny, that. And then later he is called into a private meeting with Ms. Ono, one of the school staff, who asks him to join a counseling project the school runs on a regular basis. Ms. Ono is provocatively dressed and the camera cannot help but focus on her chest and thighs as much as her face. So, this is our fanservice allotment for the episode.
We finally get some substance at the end of the episode with two major reveals. First, Tatsuya, tells us about Blanche, how it aims at equality and the end of discrimination, but in reality its goal is to weaken the nation by ending the use of magic. Because, of course, oppressing people who are born with lesser abilities and giving all of the society’s material benefits to those who were already born with a leg up is the proper way of the world. One might think that Tatsuya, who doesn’t on the surface appear to have great magical power, would sympathize with Blanche and its ideals and he even notes this himself, only to say further that he knows that he is the Chosen One, the Gary Stu, so he’s not a powerless nobody like the people involved in Blanche. Alright, he doesn’t call himself a chosen one, but he lets us know that his whole modesty thing is a facade he maintains for others. When it’s just him and Miyuki, he can openly admit just how awesome he is.
The other major revelation is that Tatsuya and Miyuki aren’t Shibas. They come from one of the Ten Number families, the powerful magical houses, specifically from the Yotsuba family. If an open war were to erupt in the country between Blanche (whom Tatsuya labels terrorists) and the magicians, the siblings would be forced to become Yotsubas again, something they don’t seem all that keen on if they can help it.
Important things there at the end, but there is just so much bland content it would be surprising if you didn’t feel the need for a nap or some caffeine in order to keep going.
In Summary:
We continue to delve into the world and learn that not everyone likes the current status quo. Blanche, an alleged terrorist organization knowledge of which has been kept suppressed by the government, is out to remove the use of magic as the means of discrimination in this society. But…apparently equal treatment is all just a plot in order to weaken the nation and leave it open to its enemies, so our Gary Stu tells us. The story has begun to move but…I’m not sure it’s all that interesting.
Grade: C
Streamed by: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Apple iMac with 4GB RAM, Mac OS 10.6 Snow Leopard
