The Irregular at Magic High School: Visitor Arc

Episode 5

“In which we get to listen to a healthy helping of drunk Japanese.”

This week's episode begins with a cold opening showing Erika, Jumonji, Saegusa, and Mikihiko tracking down the white-masked parasite. While there's some cute banter about Saegusa thinking she is somehow being used by Tatsuya—and how she'll give him bitter dark chocolate on Valentine's Day to get revenge—this scene's true purpose is to reaffirm that Tatsuya has kept Lina's involvement in the case to himself. This in turn explains why, in the back half of the episode, only Tatsuya and Miyuki treat Lina like an ally while the others treat her as an enemy. It's a good set up that subtly reminds us of where each party stands so we don't get confused with the somewhat chaotic battle to come.

Before the fighting starts, however, we get our big exposition scene for the arc. After her night of partying in America last episode, a drunk Shizuku calls up Tatsuya and Miyuki to let them in on what she's discovered. Now, this framework is actually rather genius. The problem with big expository dialogue is that you need someone to ask the dumb questions that people in the fictional world shouldn't need to ask. Often, an outsider character who is clueless about the world—i.e., an audience proxy—will often fill this role. However, there is no such character in The Irregular at Magic High School, so making a usually-intelligent character drunk while trying to explain things allows everyone to ask dumb questions to figure out what she's trying to say.

Sadly, though, the results are mixed at best. While Shizuku's drunk explanation is exactly as it should be, Tatsuya translates it to technobabble instead of simple, understandable language. This undermines the purpose of expository dialogue in the first place, which is to make everything easy to understand for the audience. I mean, hell, even Shizuku and Miyuki don't understand Tatsuya's technobabble so I'm not sure how the viewers are supposed to—not without rewatching the scene once or twice anyway. So here's the TL;DR for what they spent half the episode failing to explain: Magic particles are from another dimension. A gravity barrier separates the dimensions. A black hole can weaken the barrier allowing spirits from this other dimension—i.e., the parasites—to freely come through. That's it.

So now that we know what we're facing, we're ready for our next big fight of the series. The following day, Lina's fellow spy Mia shows up to visit the school (an event which had been set up last episode). However, the moment she steps onto campus, certain students can feel that a parasite is near—namely Miyuki, Mizuki, and Lina.

It's in the following battle that we get the big reveal: Mia is the white-masked parasite we've been encountering throughout the series. This is a great twist and one that shows the parasites are as intelligent as they are powerful. After all, who better to possess than one of the people tracking your kind? At worst, you can learn the enemy's tactics and just how much they know about you; at best, you can actively pass along false information—or cover up things you don't want your enemy to know.

On the storytelling front, this is one of those well-built twists that, when you look back, you can see that there were hints all along. Even in her first scene, Mia was nervous meeting Lina—likely fearing that having killed a parasite in America, she might be able to sense the presence of another. In episode two, Lina's Chaser Squad was unable to track the White Mask's magical energy—meaning that either Mia knew how to hide from their techniques or was altering the information they received from the inside. Finally, in episode four, Lina mentions not seeing Mia for a while, which makes sense as the two had fought several times at this point and she obviously wouldn't want Lina to be able to identify her parasite-nature due to the feel of her magic.

And even as the battle concludes with Mia dead and the parasite escaped, there is an interesting mystery left in its wake. Why did Mia come to the school in the first place? Perhaps there is something in the truck she was “delivering”? Or maybe she was hoping to lure Lina to a place where her guard would be down and she could be possessed? There are lots of possibilities to mull over while waiting for next week's episode.

Rating:

Random Thoughts:

• I think the drunk Shizuku exposition could have been handled much better if, near the end, Shizuka admits to having no idea what Tatsuya is talking about (due to her being drunk off her ass) so he has to explain it very succinctly like he's talking to a grade-schooler.

• Mia's possession means that the parasites have known Lina's true face (and home base location) all along.

• The origin of Mia's parasite is a bit of a mystery. We're told the parasites need a host to survive. However, we also see that most people are not suitable hosts—hence the serial killings. So how did Mia become a host? Was she in America when the black holes were made? Or did the parasite travel to Japan via another host to possess her? Or perhaps the parasites have figured out a way to bypass the gravity barrier and Mia's parasite is actually not one from America.

• I'm thankful that we have at least one girl in the series who is interested in someone other than Tatsuya (and let's be real, Mikihiko and Mizuki make a cute couple).

• For the first time in season 2 that I can remember, we get a lot of Tatsuya's internal monologue. Honestly, we could use more of this (even though I know some may find it hokey).

• Why didn't Tatsuya use Gram Demolition (his anti-magic ability)? He simply states that he didn't use it without giving any reason. Besides Lina, all those around him have seen the spell before—hell, he used it in the tournament arc and it was broadcast publically. So I get he regrets not using it, but don't get why he didn't in the first place.

• So parasites don't actually need a living body? A magical doll works just as well? In that case, the parasites could just go deep underground, hide out across the planet and focus on making magical doll bodies for all their friends, right?

The Irregular at Magic High School: Visitor Arc is currently streaming on Funimation.

Richard is an anime and video game journalist with over a decade of experience living and working in Japan. For more of his writings, check out his Twitter and blog.