Steeplechase Arc
Creative Staff
Story: Tsutomu Sato
Art: Kana Ishida
Translation: Jill Morita
What they say
July 2096. Another year means another summer, and that means a new Nine School Competition. Just to spice things up, the participants are informed only weeks before the event that there are some massive rule changes! While everyone’s running around frantically trying to figure out what they should do, Tatsuya catches wind of another plot that might be brewing behind the scenes of this year’s competition. As the shadows rise for the second year in a row… let the games begin!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Perhaps it is due to how much political intrigue and plot twists The Irregular at Magic High School has, but the beginning of volume 13 does not start with Tatsuya and his sister. It begins with Retsu Kudou—the former head of the Kudou Family of the Ten Master Clans. It seems he is hatching a plot to use Parasites—information bodies from another world that appeared in previous volumes—and place them inside of gynoids built for war. His goal is apparently to create weapons so Magicians will no longer be used as weapons of war.
An admirable goal, though as we have all seen, even the best-intentioned goals can go awry.
One of the more interesting aspects of this series as a whole—and this volume in particular—is how the intrigue and political machinations of the various powerful individuals and clans work. In most light novels, I often feel like the many factions and people are stupid. They make dumb decisions, and the only reason the protagonist doesn’t stomp on them at the beginning is that the plot demands he be dumbed down to their level to pad the word count. That isn’t the case with The Irregular at Magic High School. I have never once felt like any of the characters were dumb. In fact, all of them seem to be highly intelligent individuals doing their best to outmaneuver one another, which results in a game of cat and mouse in which each side tries to find more information on the other, create plans, and counter the plans of their enemies. This constant maneuvering is one of the highlights that make The Irregular at Magic High School different from your standard light novel.
A lot of thought went into this series.
The plot in this volume is that Retsu Kudou has used his influence to change the rules for the upcoming Nine School Competition, forcing the many magic high schools who will be participating to rework who they planned on having compete. This means, of course, that Tatsuya and Miyuki now have their work cut out for them.
The Nine School Competition this year has several new events that are more militaristic than last year. This could be seen as a result of the Yokohama Incident, where the Great Asian Union launched a surprise attack on the Yokohama Bay area. While many people think this is just the hard-liners being cautious, Tatsuya receives a warning message about the competition, which prompts him to investigate and learn about the Parasite Dolls. He soon realizes the Kudou Family and the JGDF plans to use them in the Nine School Competition. They are to be tested against the Magician students competing, which could result in injuries or the permanent dismantling of a Magician’s magic.
Of course, Tatsuya has to stop them.
There are many other players in this scheme, including Gongjin Zhou—a man who has been seen manipulating events throughout the series. Not much is done with him yet. He meets with the current head of the Kudou Family and convinces the man to house several defectors who can conveniently help with the Parasite Dolls. I’m sure there will come a point where Gongjin Zhou will be forced into a confrontation with Tatsuya, though that point is not now.
In Summary
A lot of the story involves building up the hype for the Nine Schools Competition and the various factions—along with Tatsuya—trying to outmaneuver each other. The actual competition itself is only briefly touched upon with a basic summary of events. I found this a peculiar method of storytelling. Pretty much all the events were summed up as “X-person won this event, Y-person won this event, and of course, Miyuki was amazing and everyone was mesmerized by her beauty.” It was almost like the author realized he’d spent too much time building up the competition that he realized his word count was too high for a light novel and decided to cut out the competition itself. The last chapter involves the steeplechase event, which is when the Parasite Dolls were supposed to attack the students, but they are intercepted and defeated by Tatsuya.
Content Grade: B
Art Grade: A
Packaging Grade: A
Text/Translation Grade: A
Age Rating: 13 & UP
Released By: Yen On
Release Date: November 15, 2019
MSRP: $14.00
