Not even going to lie, with the new season upon us it is getting a bit more difficult to continue to watch Mahouka simply because of this arc. I've said it a couple times at the beginning of the Nine School Competition and last post as well. Well, this is no different as the fourteenth episode was a bigger struggle for me to get through than normal; however, near the end it did setup for some interesting things to come. Luckily, it seems like this arc is coming to an end with the final battle between First and Third School in Monolith Code, but first I need to talk about the fourteenth episode itself.
The only match in this episode that seem to have any significance was the one between Shizuku and Miyuki. Since First High won first through third, there was no reason to actually participate in the Ice Pillar Break finals because their school would get the same amount of point no matter who won; so when Shizuku actually wanted to compete against Miyuki, it seemed to me that Shizuku was trying to prove something to herself. It might have been to how much she improved using Tatsuya's finely tune CADs, or just something more personal. And based on the scene after her lose, it seemed like she did take it more seriously and ended up pretty upset.
As if one attack from the "Bookmakers" wasn't enough, there was another one that happened on the male side of the competition for First High. It ended up hospitalizing the team for Monolith Code. Bookmakers intent were to make First High withdraw from Monolith Code entirely, but the thing that would eventually happen happened; this being Tatsuya actually participating in the Nine School Competition. It took pretty much the entire staff of First High, mostly apart of the student council, to convince Tatsuya to actually accept their request. Coincidently, this is another time we see Tatsuya become flustered after Juumonji called Tatsuya out for his bullshit excuses. Funny enough, I actually thought this scene was going to be them asking if Tatsuya had any relation to Taurus Silver, since this was right after Azusa was pointed in that direction from one of the watcher of Mirage Bat.
Like I said in the beginning, this episode wasn't that entertaining until the ending bits. We will be seeing Tatsuya in action next episode, and he will most like kick ass and take names no problem, even after all that opposition he had initially.
The majority of this episode really was just one Monolith Code match after another where Tatsuya's team wrecked house without much trouble. The strange thing about this is that this episode was far more entertaining than that last, it just didn't have as much to really write about since it really is a build up to the finals of Monolith Code.
Up to this point, there wasn't any real threat facing Tatsuya, but with the next match being between First and Third High, we might see some struggle from our perfect main character.
