After a handful of pretty much introductory episodes to Mahouka, we finally begin to see the direction that this series is taking. Fortunately, the focus is in fact on societal discrimination of the Course 2 student inside the school. And the way that it has shifted is on the people who are being treated like the "other" and them reacting to such treatment. Most of it seems like it is very reactionary based on the logic and answers that are given to question asked by Tatsuya.
I find it interesting that it is very easy to manipulate people that feel disenfranchised because they are just laying and waiting from something they can hold on to. So when things like terrorism was first introduced in episode four, I was all in because it seems like Mahouka could be more about the influence that powerful people have over the weak, who preserve themselves are powerless, even when it is the powerful who are draining that power away in the first place. However before that, the interesting thing that Tatsuya mentioned in the fourth episode was the way magic nullification works.
Unlike the "normal" way of cancelling magic, that being with antinite, Tatsuya's method has to do with wave interference. Simple put, wave interference is when two similar wave frequencies meet on the lower and higher peeks of the amplitude, turning what is basically a -1 and 1 respectively to 0. So with psions being known as a "thought particle", that probably act like particles themselves, plus actually knowing they act like waves, I can pretty much assume magic act a lot like light. Seem as light behave like both a wave and a particle, it is easy to make that distinction -- which is fascinating that Mahouka continues to explain some of what happened in previous episodes.
Getting back to the terrorist activities that are happening at the school; around the tail end of the episode there was mentioning of Blanche, an anti-magic organization, and it's connection with Egalite, the coalition who has infiltrated the school and even some student are involved. The main influence of Egalite's action are equality between students, which doesn't seem like something that can be accomplished through force considering the brunt end of where the discrimination is coming from is the students and not the people in control of the school. Mix that in with that reactionary personality that most member have, we have a dangerous mix of people gaining some footing and high emotions with not much thought going into it -- at least for the people doing the grunt work.
So it will be interesting to see if Blanche itself is working for a third-party country who want to influence the culture in Japan to turn in favor of a non-magically based one in order to have some power over them. That will not only lift Mahouka from being about simple discrimination, or the organization of disgruntled individuals, to a bit more international politics. And that can have some highlighting affects of how much other countries value magical dominance and how far they are willing to go to get there way.
Of course, the least relevant part, that I will continue to complain about, is Miyuki and her utter uselessness as a character; not only that but, the annoyance she brings with anything concerning Tatsuya. Other than that, more fanservice via the lovely general counselor -- who I am very suspicious of, but that might be my paranoia.
With all that happened in this fifth episode, the frequent meeting that Mibu and Tatsuya would have are probably going to be coming to a close. However, the thing that I did extrapolate from the conversations they have had is the fact that when it comes to specifics, the people in Egalite don't know what they want. Easily digested words like "equality" and "discrimination" work just fine for the people that have experience such things first hand and are already a bit riled up. The emotions are what make it so easy to go for pathos, but logos is far more tricky.
And pretty much one scene afterwards, the actually moves were by the Egalite people; they barricaded themselves in the Broadcasting Room trying to make demands for the student council to hear them out in an open forum. Unsurprising, that open forum was more or less a place for that coalition to shout and point the blame at the student council without actually laying out anything that would be helpful for the Student Council President, Mayumi, to work with.
The thing about the "open discussion" was the fact that it was more of a decoy than anything else. It allowed for the real people in Blanche or Egalite to step in and bring in the forces to rush the school, but most of their plans were foiled by magic users. There is still more action to come in the next episode as it cliffhangers with Tatsuya and Miyuki volunteering to investigate the explosion which is bound to be an upcoming fighting.
So this episode demonstrates the power and organization something like Blanche has. There is also the connect that Kinoe Tsukasa, the captain of the kendo team, has with the actual leader of Blanche who is his older brother. More than likely we will see what those rings will do and how much destruction this not-so-perfect school will suffer from after all the intrusions have subsided.
