The Stories of Girls Who Couldn't Be Magicians

Episode 10

Why does Rettoran have both a magical and a standard track? The better to use the Standard students to fuel Northern Harris' mad dreams of unencumbered magic, my dear. It turns out that the club most of our main cast was made to join was right all along; there's something odd about Rettoran's seven mysteries and the abundance of Element M floating around them. While we still don't know all the answers, Mr. Harris says he's using the Standard students to fuel his ambitious plans for magicians. If you still doubted that magic use was the basis of a class system in this series' world, this should be all the confirmation you need to convince you otherwise.

That makes Ms. Suzuki's plans to teach all Standard students ancient magic even more interesting. While there's an element of breaking the system, her greater goal may involve their salvation. This week we learn that Mr. Harris has some sort of energy-sucking device (as all good villains in anime do) and that he's fueling it with the Standard class. Although it hasn't been overtly stated, it looks like the ability to use magic protects people from his magic vacuum: the Magumi kids aren't affected at all, but neither are Yuzu and Kurumi, two people we've seen using ancient magic. More interestingly, the club president isn't affected either, which implies that there's more to her than she's been letting on. She may not be Hoota (we've seen them together), but she must be a relatively regular magic user in secret because she's the only other Standard class member still up and moving. Even Aniku is down for the count, and he's barely been out of the Magumi for a month. Since he flunked out, we can probably assume that he didn't use magic regularly, or at least not with any facility.

Interestingly, Mr. Harris is angry at Kurumi and Yuzu for not taking the retest. (And that three other Standard students are taking it.) I'm not sure if he's just upset that they're throwing his kindness back in his face, if he genuinely wanted them to join, or if he now feels somehow betrayed. He clearly believes that magicians are better than everyone else, so he may simply feel scorned, but it could also be that their refusal to take his side (whether or not they were aware of it) means that he now has no access to their power. He can't drain it because they're magicians, but he also can't count on them because they've turned down joining the Magumi. In his mind, this puts them firmly on Minami Suzuki's side, and he sees her as the major threat to his plans.

His gamble that locking her up would solve his little Suzuki problem certainly isn't paying off. We don't know who freed her (my guess is the dog and cat duo, but I'm not positive), she's out now, and she is not happy. Neither is Kurumi's grandmother, who now has a shield up around her home, letting us know that the Element M storm isn't a localized Rettoran problem. Did Granny teleport to Rettoran and free Ms. Suzuki? Possibly; Ms. Suzuki does have a wand again, although there's no guarantee that it's her wand. But what seems more important is that we've seen how regular magic use (or attempted use) gives someone immunity to Mr. Harris' miasma. Granny has told Kurumi from day one that people in the country use little charms all the time, and that could mean that there is a lot of people in rural areas who aren't affected by Harris' plans.

It doesn't take much to spark a resistance movement. I hope Mr. Harris is about to find that out.

Rating:

The Stories of Girls Who Couldn't Be Magicians is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.