Battle at Yokohama!
Creative Staff
Story: Mitsuki Mihara
Art: MonRin
Translation: Jill Morita
What they say
The time has come for the All-High Magic Thesis Competition to take Yokohama by storm. But what was supposed to be a grand event for the participants has turned into a battlefield! A band of heavily armoed magicians has taken control of large swathes of the city and are clearly up to no good. With so many dignitaries and students in attendance, Tatsuya is going to have his hands full just getting his friends home safely!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The Irregular at Magic High School volume 7, titled the Yokohama Disturbance Arc II, is easily the densest volume I’ve read so far. What I mean by this is that the volume spans very little time. Where other stories from this series have spanned the course of several days or even weeks per volume, this one literally spans about 24 hour period.
It begins with the All-High Magic Thesis Competition. This competition is, unlike the Nine Schools Competition, an academic event where magic high schools compete by presenting a thesis on one specific subject of magic. In many ways, it feels almost like students are presenting their latest experiment at a science fair, especially given the scientific structure of this world’s magic system. Tatsuya and his group are presenting their thesis on the creation of a gravity-controlled thermonuclear fusion reactor, which is considered one of the Three Great Practical Problems of Weighting Magic.
To be honest, I really didn’t understand a lot of the magic that was being explained during the thesis presentation, which really is like a science with all of its very scientific terminology and jargon. That said, it does feel very well thought-out unlike a number of other magic systems I’ve read about in light novels. The explanation might be confusing because I have no idea what some of these terms mean, but I can at least appreciate how much thought went into the creation of this magic system and its many rules.
While the competition is underway, the Thesis Hall where it is taking place in is attacked. The attackers come in and try to hold all of them hostage. Their intent is seemingly to ransom them off, or so Tatsuya and the others believe, but they are defeated by Tatsuya, who is forced to display one of his more powerful skills. After defeating the attackers, everyone learns that it isn’t just their Thesis Hall that’s under attack. All of Yokohama has been attacked by a surprise force from a foreign nation.
There are a lot of plot reveals during this volume. Tatsuya’s friends learn that he is a member of the Japanese Defense Force’s 101st Independent Magic Battalion. We don’t get to see the reactions of everyone for long because the situation is moving along quickly and they don’t have time to be surprised, but I’m pretty sure it was a great shock when Major Harunobu Kazama called Tatsuya Specialist and ordered him to take part in the defense of Yokohama.
A great portion of this volume is dedicated entirely to the battle in Yokohama, and since there is so much ground to cover, the story splits itself into several different POVs: Tatsuya’s, Juumonji’s, Masaki’s, Miyuki’s, Mayumi’s, Azusa’s, etc. This volume constantly splits its attention between these many POVs, resulting in the series leaping from scene to scene in order to properly tell you what is happening during the numerous battles. Fortunately, this story makes proper use of scene breaks, so they never do any serious head hopping.
If there is one great failing of this particular volume, it is how slow the pace is during these battles. Fights are supposed to be fast-paced and frantic. The swift speed of combat increases the tension of battle, leaving you, the reader, on the edge of your seat as you flip the pages without conscious thought in an effort to find out what happens next. However, the pace during these battles was so slow that all of the tension evaporated. I couldn’t feel excited about these battles at all.
The reason for this is because Tsutomu Sato likes going into great detail about the magic his characters are using during the battle. Not only will he explain the effects of the magic, he will tell you how it works, what it does, why the characters are using this particular spell, and what its benefits are in combat. He has so many information dumps in this volume that what should have taken 3 or 4 paragraphs at most to detail are now 8 to 12 instead.
I actually do enjoy learning about the different types of magic in this world. It’s a lot of fun to learn how this magic works, what it does, what its effects are, and so on. At the same time, I don’t want those info dumps being placed in the middle of combat. That will only slow down the pace, making it harder to get into the fight because it’s consistently being broken up by several paragraphs worth of information that, while relevant, isn’t really necessary to the story.
In Summary
I thought this volume was overall entertaining. While I do have some issues with how slow the combat felt because of the excessive amounts of information we’re given, I do think reading about all the different things happening during these moments was interesting. I also liked how Tatsuya’s power and status within the military was finally revealed to his friends. This will change the entire dynamics of the series as his friends realize that Tatsuya is far more than just an irregular high school student.
Content Grade: B-
Art Grade: B
Packaging Grade: B
Text/Translation Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Yen Press
Release Date: March 27th, 2018
MSRP: $14.00
