Mahouka 26 + Good Riddance
"If you want to do something evil, put it inside something boring." - John Oliver
My tolerance for anime is pretty high. There's plenty of things the fandom reacts to that I don't mind, and some I even enjoy. So for me to actually dislike an anime, it has to really get under my skin. This is the first time where, if this show gets a second season, I'm fighting against my completionist tendencies because I'd rather not watch it.
All the elements of it are things I thought I wouldn't mind. A brother and sister duo, NGNL just employed that, and did it better. A magical school where it's more like technology. Nanoha's done that, and still been enjoyable to watch. Even the world of complex explanations shouldn't be a problem. The Fate/ universe employs it strictly when it needs to, and Horizon is even thicker but actually made it fun.
But this series made magic so damn boring. I don't care how well constructed your world is if I don't care about the people in it, and the side characters barely got to do anything until the final arc - and all these arcs were too long. Too long, and if the magic stuff was shown instead of told - or at least told as much as necessary - it could be much more tolerable. Just shove all of it off into a guidebook and focus on the freaking characters.
I've been told that the novel does delve into Tatsuya's inner mind, but the anime didn't do a great job at selling me on the franchise. Even from what he projected on his exterior, I'm not sure I'd want to know that mind. The world isn't perfect because it doesn't recognize him. This series was so sleep-inducing I didn't even notice the sketchy politics and military-industrial complex because it was buried beneath layers of boring exposition. How do you make a tournament arc into something so agonizingly dull? I mean, my god. All the hyped up moments during that arc were so underwhelming. Angry Tatsuya is barely distinct from regular Tatsuya, and his "battle" looked more like he was flailing around with his light gun shooting at things that weren't there.
And by the end, in costume and in deed, can he even be considered an anti-hero? That may be the point, but he's quickly reaching the point where he and Akatsuki from Hagure are both detestable to me for similar reasons, even if their emotional expression is vastly different. Miyuki could be an okay character if they gave her time away from Tatsuya, and while I love bath scenes as much as the next guy, a bath scene should not be the only time I feel like I'm understanding the Miyuki that exists beneath all the layers of blind worship.
The show looked pretty and got the Aniplex all-star treatment, but my god. Index was better than this. NGNL was better than this. Oreimo had more to say that I'm willing to listen to. The far-conservative politics is just another layer of bad on top of something that failed to hook me on even a basic level. I kept wondering during the first arc when the exposition was going to end and the show was going to get better. It never did. This is a passion I usually reserve for Megaforce, which I consider my baseline for bad, and this got close to that even though the people behind it care more than T-Zach. They just have the priorities for a gripping story so wrong.
My least favorite show of the past two seasons. If you make someone overpowered, give me a reason to care about them. Magic shouldn't feel like I'm reading from a textbook. That's something I pursue on my own time, the story should live through its characters, and these people barely feel human. Not in a blank slate way, but in their motivations. The whole series feels so sterile.
It's extremely rare for me to dislike any sort of anime, but Mahouka may have just shown where my limits lie.
