The Spring 2024 Anime Preview Guide

The Irregular At Magic High School Season 3

After a year full of turbulence, Tatsuya and Miyuki's lives were slowly changing as they became second-year students. They are now living together with Minami Sakurai, who was sent to them by the Yotsuba Family, and Tatsuya has transferred to the newly established Department of Magical Engineering. Though he planned to live a peaceful school life with Miyuki by his side, the world would, of course, not allow such a thing... And once again, the curtain opens to a series of turbulent days.

The irregular at magic high school season three is based on a light novel series written by Tsutomu Satou and illustrated by Kana Ishida. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Fridays.

That certainly was an episode of The irregular at magic high school. After a second season and a spin-off—and seven years in real-time—we've finally moved beyond the movie's events (which took place around a week before this episode in the series' timeline). While it is a new school year for Tatsuya and Miyuki, it looks like they still have to deal with a lot of the same BS.

This episode is largely a change of the guard. With all the third-year students having graduated, there are some noticeable holes in the student council and disciplinary committee—perfect for some new students to fill. Thus, we get three new characters: Shippou and the Saegusa twins.

All three seem unaware of the change in status quo—that the weeds and blooms system has had a major overhaul with the addition of the magical engineering course. Moreover, none of them understand the respect Tatsuya has earned both within the school and without. It looks like the Shiba siblings will have to work to win the hearts and minds of the new students if they want to continue the positive changes at their school.

Other than the character introductions and setting up the new school year, all we get are some vague hints about the greater threat facing our heroes in this arc. A mysterious group seems to be trying to use the media to drum up anti-magician sentiments for reasons yet unknown. This also leads to the episode's one real action scene that, while short, does look pretty darn cool.

In the end, this felt more like a random episode than a season premiere—which is often the case with long-running anime. Anyone watching is likely to already be hooked so the creators can take things slow and not have to worry about drawing new fans in. That said, the cold opening (set five months before the events of this episode) seemed interesting—and I look forward to seeing how it will tie into the events of the season to come.