After a six-year wait and a further four-month pandemic delay, The Irregular at Magic High School Season 2 finally premieres October 3, available for streaming on Funimation. Based on Tsutomu Satō's popular light novel series, the story of Tatsuya and Miyuki Shiba is as dense and complex as it is suspenseful and thrilling. Before the new season begins, here's a full overview of the magical world they inhabit, the most important details to remember from Season 1 and a preview for the "Visitor Arc" of Season 2.
The year is 2095. The entire planet's makeup has shifted drastically, with a devastating World War Three greatly reducing the human race's population and causing new national alliances to form. With the birth and subsequent growth of magic in the world, magicians are often raised as weapons with most students going into either the tech or military fields after college. Magicians remain a limited and valuable resource, however, and are largely governed by the Ten Master Clans, who also have a fair amount of influence within the Japanese government.
Who are Tatsuya and Miyuki Shiba?
Protagonist Tatsuya Shiba and his sister Miyuki enroll in First High School, one of nine specialized magic high schools in Japan. Students are separated into either Course 1 or Course 2 based on their ability as magicians. Gifted Course 1 students are the most likely to blossom into powerful adult magicians and are known as "Blooms," while the seemingly less talented Course 2 students are derided as "Weeds." Miyuki is placed in Course 1 and Tatsuya in Course 2, though there is far more to both siblings' stories -- and powers -- than meets the eye.
Rivalries and confrontations abound as Tatsuya quickly makes a name for himself despite being a Course 2 student, but plenty of friendships are also formed as a huge cast of characters come together for increasingly dangerous and consequential adventures. Season 1 saw the cast fight off a band of international criminals, an anti-magician brigade that had infiltrated the school, and a full military attack from the Great Asian Alliance, all while competing against the other magic high schools in athletic and intellectual competitions.
Despite the siblings' public last name being Shiba, it's eventually revealed that they're actually members of the mysterious and feared Yotsuba clan, one of the Ten Master Clans. The Yotsuba is currently led by the siblings' Aunt Maya, with Miyuki the current favorite to one day succeed her as the head of the family. Maya operates from the shadows and is cunning and dangerous, prioritizing power and influence over all else. Her ultimate goal is unclear but she views everyone, including Tatsuya and Miyuki, as pawns to be used to her advantage.
The Science of Magic In Irregular
In The Irregular at Magic High School, magic is a complex, scientific art with many different specialties: there's convergence magic, dispersion magic and spirit magic, just to name a few. Many magical families become experts in a specific type and pass their knowledge and skills down to each new generation. Magicians' special weapons and their schools' private documents are all valuable commodities, making First High School a prime target for other nations to try and steal critical information about Japan's technological and military progress.
Though Tatsuya is in some ways overpowered and highly gifted on the engineering side of magic, standardized testing deems him inept in other areas and he is therefore labeled an irregular. He is often aloof and unemotional despite being surrounded by a host of friends and comrades, but there's a good reason for it. When Tatsuya was a boy, the siblings' mother Miya performed an experimental magic spell that resulted in Tatsuya losing all of his emotions and desires except one -- the desire and duty to protect Miyuki from harm. This lack of emotion, combined with his unnatural power, turned him into an ideal weapon. After warding off an international invasion as a boy, he joined an Independent Magic Battalion where he takes on highly dangerous missions -- all in addition to going to school and protecting Miyuki.
What to Expect From Season 2
Season 2 will cover the "Visitor Arc," comprised of Volumes 9-11 from the novel series. Miyuki's friend Shizuku Kitayama heads to the United States to study abroad for a semester, with a blonde-haired American magician named Angelina Kudou Shields coming to Japan in return. Foreign exchange programs between magic high schools are normally impossible as all nations are highly protective of their strongest magicians and loathe to let any national secrets leak out. Of course, there is far more to this new cast member than meets the eye.
Around the same time that Angelina, or Lina, arrives in Japan, a group of mysterious parasites known as "vampires" begin attacking magicians. The lines between friend and foe become blurred as Tatsuya and many of his comrades break off into different factions, each investigating the parasites with their own motivations and goals. But who's controlling them? Why do they want to attack magicians? And what is Lina's true purpose in Japan? Mysteries grow and many lives are on the line as friendships are tested to breaking point, but fear not -- amidst all the danger and drama, Tatsuya and Miyuki remain just a little bit closer than two siblings should be.
