Mashle: Magic and Muscles Season 2

Episode 22

While I won't absolve Mashle of its excessive use of narration in the last episode, I will concede that it all led to a pretty funny joke at the beginning of this week's entry. If this was all there to build up to a bit about hot stuff Ryoh being aware of the narrator and structuring his behavior around one-upping the disembodied voice, then it was almost worth it. It somewhat ironically makes for an entertaining intro to what would otherwise be a stock-structured segment—Ryoh doesn't do much except arrive at the Colosseum and get apprised of the current situation. There isn't much happening there since all the fights have wrapped and everyone's just wondering where Wahlberg is so they can cut to his big battle with Innocent Zero. Throwing a bit of irreverent explication on top of this fits right in with Mashle's offbeat charm.

It's also a bit of levity needed since the rest of this episode is dedicated to the battle between Headmaster Marky Mark and Innocent Zero. It's that classic clash of time versus space, and those already high-level concepts are cranked up by the sheer story-propelling power of these old guys. Even as I appreciate Mashle regularly riffing on this kind of pure power-level shonen experience, I can't deny the sheer spectacle of everything going on. In the second half of the episode, Wahlberg has deployed a "Thirds" level of his space magic, and that wizarding Super Saiyan 3 summons what appears to be a giant Star Fox level of floating panels that combine into a massive robot. For a series that was all about taking the piss at the beginning, Mashle is now confidently doing its best to show how magical combat can be cool.

This is still Mashle though, so even as it swings to purely positive presentations of magic and its use in battle, it's all backed by a critical assessment of the kind of world built on that power. The series has largely taken the not-unjustified stance that societies seen in certain other magic school settings would be faux-meritocratic hellscapes, dominated by inborn elites who used their powers to oppress those designated as their lessers. One of the hardest adherents to this order, Orter Madl, is designed to look just like the title character from Harry Potter, they ain't subtle. On the other hand, you have Wahlberg, himself a Dumbledore dead-ringer, who has always been a curious exception to this elitist approach.

Previous episodes have couched Wahlberg's principles in the concept of Noblesse Oblige—the obligation of those rich or powerful to take care of the people beneath them. It's a fair enough assessment of the kind of principle that would drive the principal, but this episode digs deeper into the "why" with Wahlberg's backstory. He came to understand that isolation borne of weakness could be just as limiting as that which came out of power, and Adam Jobs sharing that space with him opened young Wahlberg's eyes to the value of associating with others. It's not just about the strong protecting the weak, it's about accepting and respecting others and using your power for them.

It's a very neat idea for this odd genre mash-up to arrive at, and it pretty well endears the audience to Wahlberg as he's on the verge of sacrificing himself for all this. Spectacle, as they put on, even his super-busted magic powers don't seem to be able to make a dent in Innocent Zero. That's one issue I could take with this fight: that for all the show Wahlberg's putting on, Innocent Zero's contribution is mostly to just stand there tanking the hits and casting a few debuffs on the Headmaster. It sells how high-level the clash is, and sets up for a very interesting follow-up phase for next week, with Mash jumping in to take him on. Compared to all the complexities of Wahlberg's multi-layered magical madness, Mash's strategy seems like it, expectedly, will be to just beat the stuffing out of Innocent Zero. I can't wait to see how that throwdown goes down.

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Mashle: Magic and Muscles Season 2 is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Chris is still the reviewer for Mashle, and wizards are still nerds. Get some reps in with him over on his Twitter, or peruse the magical back catalog of his blog.