The Stories of Girls Who Couldn't Be Magicians

Episode 8

As frustrating as seeing Kurumi completely give up on magic, this week reminds us there's a decent reason she did that. Certainly, her continued failures on the spellcasting front contributed to it; it's disheartening to keep trying the same thing without success. But it's also increasingly obvious that someone doesn't want her to succeed – ancient magic is a threat to the status quo, and when someone is in power, they're very likely to want to stay there. Kurumi bringing back ancient magic would risk destroying the base of that power, and therefore she must be…dealt with.

The first step in this process seems to have been rejecting her from the Magumi program. While that might seem counterintuitive, since the Magumi in no way teaches ancient magical practices, it makes at least a little sense. Any exposure to magic, plus the old Magumi notebook Ms. Magician gave Kurumi years ago, could risk stimulating her talent for ancient magic or her curiosity. It's easy to forget that Kurumi is really, really smart (she was the top scorer on the Rettoran exams) because she's also a teenage girl and acts like one. There's no guarantee that admission to the Magumi program would keep her focused strictly on modern magic, especially since there's an underground movement at the school about bringing back ancient magic.

At first, that seemed to be working. Yes, Ms. Suzuki teaching the standard class put a bit of a wrench in the operation, but none of her students were successfully using ancient magic, so making her leave (how we don't yet know) seemed to do the trick, and Kurumi's self-esteem took a major hit. But then the head teacher of the Magumi witnessed Kurumi and Yuzu pull off a spell, doing what Kyo could not with his modern magic, and that seems to have pushed someone (possibly that head teacher himself) into action. Now a two-pronged plan seems to be in action: Ms. Suzuki has been kidnapped and imprisoned in a magic-blocking glass cage and Kurumi has been handed an invitation to retake the Magumi test.

It's hard not to notice that Aniku was booted from that class shortly before Kurumi was handed her invitation. That might suggest that that phase of the plan was already in motion before winter break. However, whoever's in charge of it has reckoned without the fragile teenage ego, not realizing that a demoralized Kurumi isn't likely to jump at any chance of becoming a magician; her close friendship with Yuzu barely convinced her to try ancient magic again, and her success doesn't seem to have changed her mind. What's more concerning is that the powers that be have upped the stakes so drastically – it's a big leap from “failing a student” to “kidnapping.” Someone is really scared about the return of ancient magic, and they are not holding back.

That begs the question of what the underlying issue is. It's looked a lot like an artificial class system, a desire to create a haves/have-nots situation to benefit a specific ruling class. That's still my best guess for what's behind everything, and frankly, the level of desperation on display when it comes to suppressing ancient magic doesn't do anything to change my mind. It makes it even more important that Kurumi and Yuzu continue to work together, as representatives of the two classes (remembering that Kurumi was raised in what she believes was a non-magical household). It feels a bit dramatic to say that they're working towards a revolution, but with this episode's return to form after a couple of frustrating weeks, I'm willing to indulge in a bit of drama.

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