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The Honor Student at Magic High School
Episode 6

by Richard Eisenbeis,

How would you rate episode 6 of
The Honor Student at Magic High School ?
Community score: 2.9

“In which domestic violence is referred to as 'a prank.'”

More than any other episode so far, this feels like little more than a paint-by-numbers recap designed to get us from point A to point B. This is largely because, unlike the previous episodes which have covered about two episodes of The Irregular at Magic High School each, this one covers the better part of four. (It goes from episode 9 to about halfway through episode 12.) Moreover, about half the scenes of the episode are ones we have seen before, though with altered/expanded dialogue and different viewpoint characters.

Among the new content are a few moments exploring how the competition highlights Honoka's inferiority complex with regards to Miyuki and how Mari's injury has put additional pressure on her. However, the majority of what's new in this episode is about giving us a better understanding of our antagonists for this arc of the story.

Now while in the main story, the antagonists are organized criminals attempting to fix the tournament matches, Miyuki, Honoka, and Shizuku are not directly involved in those events. Rather, they are left to focus on the tournament itself. Our antagonists in this series, on the other hand, are the female students of Third High School: Airi, Shiori, and Toko.

For the most part, Airi is your stereotypical otome game villainess—right down to the drill-curl hairstyle. Rich, powerful, and elite, she is prim and proper. She demands excellence from herself at all times. However, what sets her a bit apart from the mold is that, while winning is important to her, it's secondary to how she wins. She wants to face her opponent at their strongest and beat them fairly—unquestionably proving to everyone that she is superior. This means that while she is haughty enough that we want to see her knocked down a peg or two, we can still respect her for her code of honor.

The other two girls are relegated to being little more than Airi's lackeys in this episode, but we still get a bit of personality from each. Shiori is serious and soft-spoken while Toko is boisterous with little in the way of tact. Together, it is obvious that the three girls act as a mirror to our main trio: Airi is Miyuki without her humility, Toko is Honoka without her empathy, and Shiori is... well, Shiori bucks the trend by being pretty much a carbon copy of Shizuku personality-wise—right down to the big boob envy.

Apart from our new characters, the most interesting part of the episode is revisiting one of the most infamous scenes from the original series: Miyuki all but killing Tatsuya in a fit of jealousy. This scene is meant to introduce us to Tatsuya's recovery ability so that when it is used to save the terrorists from Miyuki's ice and, later, to save Tatsuya's life in the tournament, we have a general idea of what is going on.

However, this series introduces two major changes to this scene: its place in the timeline and the inciting topic. The original scene takes place in episode three of The Irregular at Magic High School (just after he's joined the disciplinary committee), and Miyuki's jealousy is sparked by the possibility that Tatsuya is romantically interested in the more mature upperclassmen at their school. In The Honor Student at Magic High School, the scene happens just before the tournament begins and is caused by Miyuki's fears that Tatsuya is interested in her fellow team members.

This implies one of two things: a retcon, or a second instance of Miyuki losing her cool and almost killing her brother. Her internal monologue seems to suggest the latter, as she is quick to justify her actions rather than be shocked about what she just did to him.

The idea that Miyuki is regularly bringing her brother to the edge of death—and referring to it as “rough housing” or “a prank”—is a troubling one. After all, just because he can recover from it doesn't mean she didn't physically abuse him. It shows some serious mental instability caused by her inability to accept her taboo feelings for her brother. Furthermore, if her way of dealing with her repressed emotions is to take them out on her brother, what happens if he is not around? Does she take it out on the girls she is jealous of instead? It's an incredibly unhealthy coping mechanism and one that has the potential to spiral into something even worse.

Rating:

Random Thoughts:

• Hah! They gave Emi's line in the original about not wanting a boy to be their technician to someone else.

• It makes me a bit disappointed that the series chooses to use its limited runtime to repeat largely meaningless fanservice scenes instead of doing something new (even if it's a new fanservice scene).

• The characters often say that Miyuki is a perfect beauty and react as such, but we're never really shown that she is—which is odd in a visual medium. Honestly, I think she is far less physically attractive than several other members of the main and supporting cast, at least based on how she is drawn.

The Honor Student at Magic High School is currently streaming on Funimation.

Richard is an anime and video game journalist with over a decade of experience living and working in Japan. For more of his writings, check out his Twitter and blog.


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