Mahouka - Episode 16 Discussion / Poll

[Rava]

Originally Posted by SigUp

Actually, I don't think you are correct, at least in terms of this episode. The self-restoration ability was shown in episode 3, while the basics for flash casting (the bypassing of the activation sequence) was described in episode 5. As long as the viewer pays attention and keeps them in mind he won't get all surprised by what happened in this episode. And if he didn't pay attention or forgot about it ... spelling it any clearer won't achieve any desired effect, unless it is shown that clearly that it robs much of the potential for development. Who wants to see a character that is basically finished at the start of the show?

Some of it's because people think Tatsuya is lying about how his magic works to Mizuki. I don't buy that belief because he's explaining magic fundamentals and trying to pass off his ability as if it's something anyone could do, rather than it being special circumstances for him. To me, that means his explanation has to make logical sense to another student, so he only explains the fundamentals of how it works while avoiding mentioning why he's able to do so.

[Calca]

I don't think I've seen a character who started out and remained as OP as Tatsuya in an anime. (I'm not a LN reader)

This is like starting out lvl 95 in an RPG with high end equipment and spells.

[Vocah]

Originally Posted by Calca

I don't think I've seen a character who started out and remained as OP as Tatsuya in an anime. (I'm not a LN reader)

This is like starting out lvl 95 in an RPG with high end equipment and spells.

I would love to see more such characters.

[Ickarium]

I honestly like it too, really. The series makes it clear that Tatsuya is basically Batman in high school. Having others show up often (note: often) who can coincidentally compete with him is a little contrived. The series is more 'Batman: The Drama' than 'Batman: The Action Adventure'.

They do show up (the recent ep made it clear that at least magically outside Tatsuya's specialties, his opponent in Monolith WAS better than him in magical versatility and outright blasting), but they don't show up so much it feels weird.

[HayashiTakara]

Originally Posted by SigUp

No, the term flash casting wasn't brought up. However, in his conversation with Mizuki at the beginning of episode 5 he described his ability to cast magic while bypassing activation sequences. Sound familiar? Go check it yourself if you don't believe me.

Not the same thing, he's still casting spells like a normal person. Flash casting is complete memory casting. His so called limitations is based on normal conventions, Tatsuya's abilities are not to be measured by normal conventions.

His restoration wasn't exactly flash casting, it seems to be an entirely different thing. Why else would Fujibayashi and the other guy discuss it independently from flash casting? Also, his restoration was shown in episode 3 and activated while he was unconcious. So it is more an automatic spell, rather than a conciously casted one. And where do you get the idea that Gram Demolition was flash casted? Did you not see him using his CAD all the time while using the spell? And Gram Demolition actually is a pretty straightforward spell. It is created by compressing psions and shooting it towards the target. That's like... two functions. While moving an egg requires four functions.

Prove to me that his restoration isn't Flash Casting. The officer guy even said, the speed Tatsuya casted it was impressive. On top of which it was the lead in to flash casting, You keep focusing on episode 3 and taking it as some weird gospel, stop it.

[Kakurin]

Originally Posted by HayashiTakara

Not the same thing, he's still casting spells like a normal person. Flash casting is complete memory casting. His so called limitations is based on normal conventions, Tatsuya's abilities are not to be measured by normal conventions.

And why would Tatsuya worry about Mizuki finding out his ability, when it is supposed to be "normal"? And what does it even mean "casting spells like a normal person". Normal people don't bypass activation sequences. And Mizuki specifically mentioned that he can cast very fast when in actual combat.

Prove to me that his restoration isn't Flash Casting. The officer guy even said, the speed Tatsuya casted it was impressive. On top of which it was the lead in to flash casting,

The officer said the speed of his self-restoration was fast, not the speed of the casting. That's a fine, but important difference. The indications given in this episode and episode 3 point towards the self-restoration being an ability that's not conciously casted. In episode 3 it activated while Tatsuya was unconcious. And in this episode the it was while Tatsuya was in the air in front of Masaki, the whole process taking not even one second. The officer also said, the speed of the restoration is far beyond human cognitive ability. Unless of course you want to say that Tatsuya's not human and can cast and complete such a sequence in the blink of an eye. And the sequence said something "loading the magic sequence, loading core eidos data from backup", like it was an automatic program.

You keep focusing on episode 3 and taking it as some weird gospel, stop it.

At least I'm trying to back up my statements with passages shown before, instead of inventing things and passing it as the one and only truth.

[VORTIA]

Originally Posted by SigUp

Actually, I don't think you are correct, at least in terms of this episode. The self-restoration ability was shown in episode 3, while the basics for flash casting (the bypassing of the activation sequence) was described in episode 5. As long as the viewer pays attention and keeps them in mind he won't get all surprised by what happened in this episode. And if he didn't pay attention or forgot about it ... spelling it any clearer won't achieve any desired effect, unless it is shown that clearly that it robs much of the potential for development. Who wants to see a character that is basically finished at the start of the show?

The problem isn't just that people aren't paying attention. It's that the way the information is relayed is through the dialog of one individual (Tatsuya Shiba), who has a vested interest in hiding his abilities. Throughout the series, Tatsuya regularly claims to not have substantial abilities or downplays his abilities and then latter demonstrates that he either does have said abilities or has effective work arounds that render his previous statements dubious or even outright false.

In the absence of an objective narrative voice, the audience is left only with Tatsuya's own deliberately muddled descriptions of his own powers. This obfuscation gives the audience the impression that Tatsuya has no meaningful limitations on his powers, as he seemingly produces powers at whim to solve whatever issue crops up.

Tatsuya's explanations of his powers throughout the series vary depending on who he is talking to and what the situation is, so it's blatantly obvious that at least some of the things Tatsuya says are about his abilities are lies or half-truths. The audience is left to determine what, if anything he says is true, which means its quite easy to assume that Tatsuya is simply some unlimited magical badass who simply feigns magical incompetence to avoid unwanted attention.

Knowing Tatsuya's limitations, I felt quite a bit of tension during this episode's show down with Masaki, but if I hadn't, I might have just assumed that Tatsuya would make up some new ability to win, and then feel justified in feeling so when he healed all damage and cast a spell we'd never seen to take out Masaki. I just really don't think this show benefits from just letting people see the action without explaining what's actually going on.

[Kakurin]

Well, how would you handle it then? Info-dumps aren't exactly good either. I personally had no issues with the "new" abilities used in defeating Ichijou... because they weren't exactly new, nor were they unexpected. As I said, his self-restoration was shown very clearly in episode 3 (shown, and not told by Tatsuya). His flash cast ability was told by him and Mizuki. With the way he was acting there, the feeling was more that he short-selled his abilities. Last but not least, flash cast as a name was mentioned in the last episode. In my opinion it's handled just right for the medium. You can't just apply the LN standards here.

[VORTIA]

Originally Posted by SigUp

Well, how would you handle it then? Info-dumps aren't exactly good either. I personally had no issues with the "new" abilities used in defeating Ichijou... because they weren't exactly new, nor were they unexpected. As I said, his self-restoration was shown very clearly in episode 3 (shown, and not told by Tatsuya). His flash cast ability was told by him and Mizuki. With the way he was acting there, the feeling was more that he short-selled his abilities. Last but not least, flash cast as a name was mentioned in the last episode. In my opinion it's handled just right for the medium. You can't just apply the LN standards here.

A three minute Superman-style intro at the beginning of episode 1 explaining his abilities, limitations, and how he got them would have knocked probably 75-80% of the criticism of this series out of the park before it even began. Sure, sure, "show, don't tell" but this series already does plenty of telling already. With all the exposition this anime already contains, it fails to do it in a concise, informative way that lets us get back to enjoying the program in a natural fashion. Instead of continually giving us long vague explanations, they could simply tell us "Tatsuya can X, but not Y", and get on with the action!

[Domonkazu]

I kinda have a feeling that they deliberately leave lots of information behind to get peoples read the LN.

[Preciize]

Best episode so far imho.

A lot of people comment on how OP Tatsuya is, but I personally thought that this fight showed his vulnerability (was a bit disappointed since I like Tatsuya). I was shocked that he had doubts of whether he could win or not (not just in this school match, but on a real battlefield as well). Even with the limits set on him and him trying to hold back, I did not expect him to get injured and have to use his regeneration ability, unless he had planned it all along to get to Misaki. But otherwise, it was a even battle throughout and Tatsuya just took advantage of the one opening he saw.

I'm sure Tatsuya would win in a battle with no restrictions, but not without problems or sustaining injuries based on his doubts this episode, which surprises me considering he's been untested this far. Of course, not to mention Tatsuya has stated he has the strength to put up a fight with his aunt.

[Nerroth]

Originally Posted by Calca

I don't think I've seen a character who started out and remained as OP as Tatsuya in an anime. (I'm not a LN reader)

This is like starting out lvl 95 in an RPG with high end equipment and spells.

The closest I can think of is

Spoiler for P4GA:

Narukami Yu's "New Game Plus" approach in the P4G anime... but then, that series really assumes that you the viewer are already fairly familiar with either the game or the original P4 animation, so by definition isn't really starting off as such a high-level character.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by VORTIA

The problem isn't just that people aren't paying attention. It's that the way the information is relayed is through the dialog of one individual (Tatsuya Shiba), who has a vested interest in hiding his abilities. Throughout the series, Tatsuya regularly claims to not have substantial abilities or downplays his abilities and then latter demonstrates that he either does have said abilities or has effective work arounds that render his previous statements dubious or even outright false.

In the absence of an objective narrative voice, the audience is left only with Tatsuya's own deliberately muddled descriptions of his own powers. This obfuscation gives the audience the impression that Tatsuya has no meaningful limitations on his powers, as he seemingly produces powers at whim to solve whatever issue crops up.

I agree, but I'd say magic in general, rather than just Tatsuya's, has no meaningful limitation. I mean, yes, people have limits, but why? What is the "meaning" of those limits?

George's invisible bullet is a line of sight spell. Why?

Why is Miyuki's Nifflheim so impressively difficult, while other spells (like, I don't know, Hattori's gas ball) aren't?

Why is Mine Genesis a family magic, and what does it mean for other people who want to imitate it?

All we have are ad hoc pronouncements that ultimately mean very little. Info dumps are just a lot of minutia that doesn't do much to paint the big picture of how magic works beyond the role of CADs.

[LKK]

/preemptive modding on

Before anyone jumps in with a 50 page essay on proposed answers to Anh Minh's questions, let me remind everyone that any answers posted in this thread must not use any novel information. Anime-provided answers are all that are permitted here. Any answer that uses novel information must be posted in the novel forum. A link to any such post is permitted here.

/preemptive modding off

[tsukimori]

i feel mayumi getting more and more annoying =.= seriously over-exaggerating bi@#$ anyways after seeing the preview for next ep looks like it'll slow down again can't wait to see Miyuki's mirage bat performance

[n120cky]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

I agree, but I'd say magic in general, rather than just Tatsuya's, has no meaningful limitation. I mean, yes, people have limits, but why? What is the "meaning" of those limits?

George's invisible bullet is a line of sight spell. Why?

Why is Miyuki's Nifflheim so impressively difficult, while other spells (like, I don't know, Hattori's gas ball) aren't?

Why is Mine Genesis a family magic, and what does it mean for other people who want to imitate it?

All we have are ad hoc pronouncements that ultimately mean very little. Info dumps are just a lot of minutia that doesn't do much to paint the big picture of how magic works beyond the role of CADs.

This is my answer:

About Limit: With the reference to flight ability using magic, it's save to assume that every person has different ability to perform how many spell activation that he/she can use and also the speed of it, as performing spell activation somewhat drain stamina if not mind. Miyuki can easily use flight magic but a test subject from facility exhaust from it (CMIIW even Taurus mention they shouldn't be playing as they not as good as Miyuki)

About nifflheim: I'm also using flight magic as reference, we all already know that flight magic is composition of three activation spell (CMIIW jump, accelerate, decelerate), and Tatsuya also explain that the user must be able to control the spell activation timing or the flight magic will fail causing accident, that's why Tatsuya creating a device for assisting those activation. Nifflheim on this context should have many spell activation that the user must handle with accuracy.

George's invisible bullet & Mine genesis : I don't know about this, because this mechanic can be plot specific.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by n120cky

This is my answer:

About Limit: With the reference to flight ability using magic, it's save to assume that every person has different ability to perform how many spell activation that he/she can use and also the speed of it, as performing spell activation somewhat drain stamina if not mind. Miyuki can easily use flight magic but a test subject from facility exhaust from it (CMIIW even Taurus mention they shouldn't be playing as they not as good as Miyuki)

We know magic drains stamina. We don't know what makes a spell more tiring than another.

About nifflheim: I'm also using flight magic as reference, we all already know that flight magic is composition of three activation spell (CMIIW jump, accelerate, decelerate), and Tatsuya also explain that the user must be able to control the spell activation timing or the flight magic will fail causing accident, that's why Tatsuya creating a device for assisting those activation. Nifflheim on this context should have many spell activation that the user must handle with accuracy.

But that's an a posteriori explanation. We're told it's a difficult spell, you conclude it's because it has many spell activations. (Which isn't actually the only source of difficulty for a spell, so your reasoning is flawed.)

It's not like we can guess a spell is difficult just by hearing about its effects. Or even, for the most part, like we can decompose it into its basic elements.

[Fellen]

I always thought that more tiring spells use more psions and since nifflheim is a powerful spell it uses a lot of psions which is why it's considered so difficult and tiring.

[Rava]

Questions like yours Anh Minh are what makes me wish the non-Japanese speaking audience knew what the Cram school episodes actually said.

[larethian]

Originally Posted by Rava

Questions like yours Anh Minh are what makes me wish the non-Japanese speaking audience knew what the Cram school episodes actually said.

Nothing more nor more complicated than the novels. The episodes are just simplifications.