©Mahonare” Production Committee
Despite getting some really good answers, it was still a frustrating episode. It’s hard to see Walnut, a ray of unwavering sunshine, continuing to destroy itself. She realizes every chance she gets that her dream of becoming a magician is not far away, but her new fear of failure transforms her. For whatever reason, she was unable to make the ancient magic work during the competition, which was a final blow to her pride. Now she sees every opportunity not as a chance to prove she can do it, but as an inevitable disaster where she won’t be able to activate the spell, only to let herself down again.
So far, Kurumi hasn’t been able to successfully cast a spell in a low-stakes situation, so it feels natural to assume that she won’t be able to successfully cast a spell in a desperate high-stakes situation. People tend to react to life-or-death moments (or those moments where they just feel that way) by either shutting themselves down or miraculously putting aside their fears and stepping forward, as Walnut and Yuzu saw. Although Walnut drew her magic circle perfectly, she froze twice. Yuzu desperately works on ancient magic, even though she’s never truly believed in it or had the ability to use it before. Even if she successfully casts it, Yuzu isn’t sure it’s real, and instead of being upset that the second spell failed, she accepts that the first one was just a fluke. Kurumi believes that Yuzu’s initial success shows that she really has no talent or affinity for ancient magic. After all, Yuzu is Letolan’s legacy and is only one step away from entering the Magumi. obviously She will be more successful than Kurumi, a nobody from the middle of nowhere.
The greatest irony is that Kurumi is also revealed to be a legacy and inherently powerful. The “her” Ms. Suzuki is about to meet is not Hurigi, but her grandmother, a Magumi student of her time, which means that ancient magic was taught when she was there. (This makes sense if we assume that modern magic is a replacement for our technology, while ancient magic represents an analog way of doing things.) This makes Kurumi more Ms. Suzuki tried to level the playing field by teaching everyone ancient magic, as this meant that Kurumi’s entry into the Rettoran was a major factor. But Walnut still isn’t anyone’s idea of a magician in the layered world of Rttoran, and that alone should push Ms. Suzuki’s goals.
Still, it’s frustrating that already halfway through the series, our heroine is in a slump that threatens to derail the plot, or at least what we assume is the plot. Learning that the cat/school nurse is an actual human seemingly trapped in a feline form is neat, and seeing Kyo’s modern magic fail in the face of Element M is also important, but Kurumi is drowning in despair and sucking Gone is the fun of the series. Hopefully this will be resolved next week, I do think her newfound friendship with Yuzu will help, even if I don’t believe “Yuzie” is a way of expressing intimacy by omitting honorifics. (I also don’t like “Ms. Suzuki” in the subtitles because that’s clearly not what the students said.) When Kurumi finally regains her happiness and spirit, it should be spectacular. Hopefully we won’t have to wait too long for this to happen.
grade:
The story of the girl who couldn’t become a magician Currently streaming on Crunchyroll.
