I’m more into manga and books than anime these days, but since I did name this site Animefangirl.com, I suppose I should watch some anime once in a while. Come to think of it, I should have picked a more manga-like name, but it’s too late now. Anyway I don’t have anything against anime. They just don’t fit my busy lifestyle so it takes me quite a while to get through even a short one these days.
I picked The Irregular at Magic High School because I usually enjoy high-school based series. I was also promised an overpowered main character who has all the side characters standing around going “Wow, he’s so powerful!” in every episode. That kind of premise sounds boring to many people, but I thoroughly enjoyed series like Akagi and One Outs, so I know this could be awesome if the writers tried hard enough.
Summary: In 2095, Tatsuya Shiba and his sister Miyuki Shiba are new students enrolling at the Private Magic University Affiliated High School (First High School). Miyuki topped the entrance exams and is selected to be the first years’ representative, while Tatsuya is placed in Course 2 due to his low practical test scores, despite scoring highest in the written/theoretical portion of the exams.
So I started watching Irregular about two weeks ago, but I only got up to episode 6 because of aforesaid busyness. That, and the show is pretty boring. The opening animation and the first episode fooled me into thinking this would be an action-y kind of show with Tatsuya kicking all kinds of butt with his awesome analytical and ninja-fu skills. Uhh… no. Maybe that part comes later. Like, way later.
All his fights have lasted about 5 seconds so far and then the next 15 minutes of the show is devoted to breaking down the fight like we care. If you like technobabble and world-building and that kind of thing then I suppose you won’t be too bored by all the talking that goes on instead of action, otherwise The Irregular is just a massive snoozefest.
Still there’s more to anime than just action and talking. What about the characters? Uhh… yeah. They exist, vaguely. I think the problem comes from the fact that the show is a light novel adaptation so the director feels compelled to shovel in all the light novel characters even when the show would be better served by taking them out. It’s only episode 6 I know but a lot of characters barely register on the scale. Hattori, for example, pops up again and it’s like “Who?” And I haven’t seen the loli Student Council member in a while so why not just take her out? Erika hadn’t shown up in ages then suddenly she’s the star of episode 6 and it’s like… whaaa?
Which is not to say the main characters are so interesting that I’d like the show to focus on them, though. Tatsuya has all the charm and personality of a brick wall and his sister Miyuki just exists to bring the show down with her forced yandere reactions. Their ‘loving’ pseudo-incest interactions are not cute, not funny, not original and not anything I care to keep watching.
So having said all that will I continue watching The Irregular at Magic High School? Probably not. I have a pretty severe bandwidth limit so I don’t know if I want to waste it on stuff I’m not really enjoying. I’d like to check some forums and see if the series picks up a little later, but discussions tend to be clogged with light novel spoilers, which I’d really rather avoid. I’m going to put this show on the shelf and try some other stuff for now. Maybe I’ll be back later, maybe I won’t.
