This arc has the oddest switching of overall moods I've seen in quite a while. A few episodes back I complemented Mahouka for the lighthearted nature that character interaction took, comparing it to the cerebral interaction most characters seemed to have. However, now this switch was more jarring than anything else. Most fights in these twenty plus episodes were pretty much gore free -- with the exception being when the First High students wrecked Egalite without any challenge. Now we have Tatsuya severing arm and no one is batting an eye.
If anything I would argue that Mahouka, at least the anime, suffers from the inability to focus on transitions of moods that don't feel jarring. Most of the anime tends to lean toward the seriousness of each situation; whether that be toward information giving or action, there was no hints of lightheartedness -- until the 20th episode of course. So as things in this arc ramp up, we are moving into the slaughtering of hundreds of targets that are labeled the enemy. This is rather boring, which is why I think these last two episode didn't have much to them. However, I do have a few comments on some events that happened in each.
Probably the most likely thing to happen sooner or later was information getting out that Tatsuya is a special officer working for the army. This was very controlled since Kazama was the one to relinquish such information to the supporting character group in First High.
In the scheme of things, this happening wasn't that major compared to all the destruction happening around them, but it's a bit odd that no one really made a big deal out of this information and accepted it right away. I guess the even bigger event that happened right after way the thing that was far more shocking, and was the cliffhanger for this episode.
If anyone has read one of my blog posts about Mahouka, you are probably familiar with the complaint I have about Tatsuya being too powerful. This also includes him being super humble about his abilities and down playing how powerful he really is. Well, probably the most bullshit thing happened which revealed that Tatsuya was even more powerful than his previous self.
For whatever reason, Tatsuya's real magic is sealed away from him and the only way to unlock it is with Miyuki. So at this point we have no room for Tatsuya ever really needing to downplay his magic ability as he was running sub-100% for the majority of this anime.
I wouldn't even call Tatsuya a deus ex machina since, for the more part, the students had things under control. What I find frustrating is that this anime seems to be afraid of letting there be some friction. Most events are laid out like: a bad thing happens, thing gets discussed, thing escalates, and thing gets resolved. It is that abrupt ending that feels like you hit your head on the rollercoaster, which just isn't pleasant.
So my prediction is that the conclusion to this arc will be easy mode like all the others; and because of that I continue on not enjoying these episodes.
There wasn't much to this episode as it was a continuation of the grand battle of "us versus terrorism". Tatsuya go into his super suit and became the cyborg he always wished to be and kills some drones while the other students tried to find their escape route.
One of the important events in the episode was the characters finally figuring out who were the cause of these terrorist attacks. Since Tatsuya knowns who is responsible, this confirms that it is very likely that the conclusion to the anime will be very abrupt and feel unsatisfying. I do hope that I end up being surprised, but the track record of Mahouka, I kind of doubt it.
The last thing that ended this episode was the possibility of characters dying. I know not that many people like seeing characters in anime die, but sometimes they are good for character development. Unfortunately, Mahouka was having none of that and Tatsuya came to save the day once again. With his restoration magic those two characters ended up spotless and once again there is no resistance coming from this anime.
There is one more episode to go and I haven't found myself really caring for any of the supporting characters, plus I've gradually lost any interest in Tatsuya I had from the start. I can't say I've been enjoying much of these episodes when most ally character feel like walking bags of power and all antagonist are just speed bumps in the plot to be knocked down. I'll keep my final thoughts until the last episode but I'm feeling that I will end up saying this anime is slightly above mediocre.
