There is this pattern that anime set in a school setting have, and sadly Mahouka seems to be following that pattern I have a distaste for. For me, the most boring part in a school anime is the school events like culture festivals and school wide competitions. In the case of Mahouka, we are entering a new arc and that arc so happens to be the Nine School Competition, which might actually be just fine, but my skepticism is pretty much turned on full blast for the rest of this arc. Regardless, there were some clearing up on characters, as well as Tatsuya showing how easily he can solve some problem that was thought to be impractical.
My suspicions of Ono in previous episodes have now been justified now that I know she is a shinobi. Plus you can consider her someone that is working undercover in the school -- which was sort of hinted at on the episode before this one. I don't clearly remember what sparked the suspicion toward Ono, but at the very least I feel like I wasn't being paranoid over some characters in this series.
Moving on to the more related things for this arc, that being the Nine School Competition; most of the First Course students seem to be participated and Tatsuya would seemingly be the one left out -- which is highly unlikely considering he is the main character. Well, he ended up not being excluded by getting nominated for the role of engineer in these competitions. And without much surprise, some people doubted his skill and Tatsuya pretty much showed them up like he usually does. However, the one this that topped this display of "Mr. Perfect" for Tatsuya is the last scene in the episode.
After the whole back a forth between the student council and Tatsuya, within what seems like an overnight project, he was able to nail down the concept needed and actually implement a CAD that can actualize fly. Maybe Tatsuya has been working on the problem for a while, but the completion of something that hasn't been actualized in such a convenient time is just too good to be true.
So Tatsuya continues to have any problem around him obliterated with ease and remains as humble as he normally is. Right now, for the start of a new arc, it had some interest new revels that haven't been delved into yet, that I'm curious to see what comes of them. For example, the mention of the International Crime Syndicate, it was said that some people working for them were located near where the Nine School Competition is being held; we probably won't hear anything about them until they get closer to the place where the competition is being held.
The other is the importance of this new CAD that facilities flight. The emphasis on such a technology seems to be significant enough to indicate that it will play some importance in competition sooner or later. Like many introduction to anything, this was a lot of setup for what to come, but it is peaking my interest and I do want to see what is in store.
A few moments before all that discussion of flying magic, there was a short conversation of Taurus Silver because Tatsuya was trying on some new holsters and Azusa noticed. I did notice that there was a couple of hint given out that pointed toward Tatsuya could possible be the "Taurus Silver" Azusa admire so much. The big one was the way that Miyuki reacted when Azusa brandished her affection for this genius engineer; and the second is the interest that Tatsuya had when he was questioning why Azusa was enamoured by this guy. So when the first scene started at the FLT R&D Center, it wasn't too much of a surprise that Tatsuya was in fact one half of the duo that is named "Taurus Silver".
The first half of the duo is Ushiyama, code name "Mr. Taurus", he is the one that does the hardware side of things. And the other is non-other than Shiba Tatsuya, code name "Mr. Silver", who is responsible for the software side of things. If anything, it's good to see that Tatsuya can't do everything flawlessly and actually requires assistance in at least one aspect of his life. And now we fully know who is this Taurus Silver fellow as he continues to innovate in this magic space.
The other interesting reveal was something that I've been wonder since the first episode, that being why does most of Tatsuya's family hate him -- with Miyuki being the one exception. Well with Tatsuya and Miyuki bumping into their fatherm and the family butler, we find out the issue has more to do with their mother considering his father doesn't seem to hate Tatsuya at all. From what I can guess, the animosity is either from Tatsuya refusing to become the family successor or his the lack of magical prowess was something that was an problem. I would say the former is more likely than the latter, but most of these are speculation on my part and I can't really conclude anything at this moment.
Even though Miyuki continues to be the least interesting character in this series, I'm coming to the conclusion that she does serve more or less like an extension of Tatsuya. Considering that Tatsuya always keeps his cool and barely shows any signs of outward emotions, Miyuki is the person that actually ends up expressing those emotions. Unfortunately it does get to the point of annoyance when Miyuki becomes overprotective of her brother when girls show interest in Tatsuya. Most of these efforts are deemed pointless considering that Tatsuya never seems all that interested either way, but maybe he is and he doesn't express it -- which would further validate this hypothesis I have about Miyuki.
And the cliffhanger for the episode was the big fiery car coming at the bus of students. With the comment about the International Crime Syndicate last episode, I'm pretty confident that is their doing, but I wonder why a car, considering it is so easily spotted. Maybe it's just acting as a simple distraction to hit them with something else, or it might just be a way to shake them up slightly so later they will be at a cautious state of mind during the competition. Questions continue to stack up as we continue to head right into this new arc, but it seems that the competition is going to be the least of our worries -- which is good for me.
