A nice change of pace coming from this tenth episode where Miyuki has finally gotten scenes without Tatsuya around. I find it pretty strange that it took this long for some development on Miyuki's side to happen, but I'm somewhat glad to see Miyuki becoming less of the one dimensional sister character. And from the very little time she had to developed, it was mostly interacting with her female friends; I have the idea that she is eerily similar to Tatsuya, when he isn't around, and very much all about keeping a modest image. I find that modesty characteristic bit ridiculous, especially when she commented on Mizuki's attire being too inappropriate. So I'm still not a fan of her, but she has something going for her in this episode that I didn't notice that much in the other nine.
While I'm on this Miyuki topic, there was a comment made about her keeping Tatsuya in check by having a standard she holds for him, that I found interesting. I noticed that type of behavior quite clearly when she stated that Tatsuya isn't captivated by superficial things like what a girl is wearing. It seemed to me Tatsuya had some type of reaction to Erika in a maid uniform, but Miyuki is the one who kind of interjected and stopped any further reaction from him.
I would also say that Miyuki does this type of thing to pretty much any person she respects on some level. The comment she made about Mizuki's clothes being immodest is another example I would point out, considering I didn't think there was anything that revealing, beside maybe her arms. And of course this rule seems to apply to herself as well; if notice the difference in her personality when she is with Tatsuya and when she is not. I would say that when Miyuki is with her brother she is more expressive -- almost childlike -- and when she is on her own she keeps to herself and is very conscious of her actions.
The rest of the episode was more about the party before the Nine School Competition, and that had some minor information passed out within, but with new information there are also question that follow. At the beginning there was the mention of a psion storm, which I'm guessing to be just an activation sequence that has no restriction. The biggest concern in this episode was this mentioning of an incident that happened in April. It was said that the Shiba sibling were involved and I'm wonder if that has to do with the start of this anime; either way, there isn't much information out of the conversation I could valid that claim, but there is a mention of Tatsuya having a thirst for blood -- which seems like quite the opposite currently.
Right on the first scene between Mikihiko and Tatsuya, the irony of Tatsuya saying that Mikihiko shouldn't underestimate himself was pretty blatant. Even though Mahouka tried to explain away that Tatsuya isn't as doubtful of his abilities as he was in the past, Tatsuya still shows his doubtful nature quite frequently. And despite all the concerns he seems to bring up he ends up shining like it wasn't something he needed to bother hesitating on.
When Tatsuya met up with his military buddies, there was a mention of his full alias name and that was the first I heard of it; the alias being, "Special Officer Ooguro Ryuuya, Strategic-class Magician". It's pretty obvious that Ooguro Ryuuya was a false name, but I wonder how Tatsuya ends up getting his fingers in all these organizations with fake names -- first was "Mr. Silver" now this.
As the competition actually begin to roll out, there really isn't much else to write about them, leaving the episode feeling not as important. The start of any contest always doesn't feel that meaningful and all the matches displayed that had a student of First High, ended up winning. Really, at this point in the competition, it is more to show how powerful their school is compared to the others and that is given. There is also Third High which will probably be a school to pay attention to if only because of the character the Crimson Prince himself, Masaki.
The last thing that does have me curious is this weaponized integrated CAD that Tatsuya said was a "toy". Looks like a sword but we probably won't get any detail about it until the next episode, and most likely right when it is being used in a competition of some sort.
