I Don't Know if It's LOVE or MAGIC! - Vol. 1 Ch. 2 - The Seven Sages

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Man, I sure hope I'm supposed to hate the sages and the principle, because I absolutely do.

1.) They knew his magic existed because they tested him for it, but the sages, principle, and faculty allowed him to be bullied and attacked because he couldn't manifest it.

2.) They knew his magic must be weird because it didn't manifest easily and defied their curriculum's ability to stimulate and identify magic, but they didn't care enough to stop and think if maybe it might be dangerous if strange and nonstandard magic suddenly came out in the middle of a school. ZERO precautions were taken.

3.) Even though there must be thousands upon thousands of instances of dangerous and out-of-control manifestations that happen, even though it must be fairly common, they have no plan in place to deal with it.

4.) Their reaction to his magic is to IMMEDIATELY decide, WITHOUT his input or the input of anyone else outside of the academy, to TAKE HIS MAGIC AWAY FOREVER. Please keep in mind that this is the high school principle and some gay omnipotent student council that nobody asked and nobody elected. In spite of how outrageous this is, we are told that it MUST be done, because the NATURE of his power as something that can manipulate others is just TOO DANGEROUS.

5.) They reached this decision in about ten minutes. Whatever the fuck any of them try to claim to the contrary, they didn't even have the situation under control before deciding to solve the problem with forced magical castration.

6.) We are then shown, within ten seconds of meeting the sages, that ONE OF THEM HAS THE SAME FUCKING POWER, and she KNOWINGLY USES IT on her fellow sages to get her way. This is somehow LESS OFFENSIVE than the main character being put into a duel due to criminal negligence by the school on the topic of bullying and then accidentally hitting people with a magic he knows nothing about. Knowingly manipulating someone's mind and emotions with magic to get your way, less offensive than manifesting a power you never asked for and accidentally hypnotizing someone. What excuse is given for this? A half-assed "well it's not the same thing" (it IS) and a vague assurance of "but you have a known track record" (of what, doing the SAME DAMN THING you're accusing the kid of?).

7.) And perhaps most galling of all, one of these "sages" OUTRIGHT ADMITS that he FABRICATED evidence to get the MC's magic taken away, he deliberately misconstrued events and claimed the MC was doing it all deliberately, which is a laughable claim all on it's own, there's an entire stadium full of witnesses to it's accidental manifestation. And what happens when this comes out in the midst of the council? Fucking nothing. He just shrugs and says "po-tay-to po-tah-to," AND THEY ACCEPT THAT. This mother fucker LIED to push this magical castration through, but instead of the exposure of the lie causing proceedings to immediately halt as they reevaluate the situation, they SHRUGGED and were GOING TO DO IT ANYWAY.

8.) Oh, and don't think I'm going to overlook the fact that demanding to know what his dreams for the future are is a completely irrelevant question that has nothing to do with anything that has happened. This was a kangaroo court and a farce of a trial to begin with, but what kind of half-assed help is his emotionally stunted instagram childhood friend trying to offer by asking him what his dreams are? Is that her idea of trying to help? Because it's not helping. Helping would be asking what he intends to do with the magic now that he has it, or calling for the decision to be halted until we can get more information since the decision was clearly made on at least somewhat false premises. I guess it's all wizards so that's why my mind is making the comparison (and I don't want to because way too many cringe people won't shut the fuck up about the series), but even Dumbledore, widely panned for not being nearly as helpful as he should have been, vaulted over the barrier in the courtroom when Harry Potter was on trial and started playing improvised lawyer to save his ass. You can't even help as much as DUMBLEDORE did? Mr. Hands-Off-Deal-With-It-On-Your-Own himself? This random milf we just met has literally been more friendly, more helpful, and a better person to the MC than his supposed childhood friend. SHE'S the one who actually saved his ass. He's only in this position in the first place because he was defending childhood friend, and she repays it by personally arresting him and giving halfassed autistic help during his mock trial. Get a better childhood friend, brother. This one sucks.

I sure, sure fucking hope these people are the villains of the series. Because if they aren't, I'm out, no matter how well-drawn the art is. I like the dichotomy of a main character who lies about being a pervert because they're ashamed of a childish promise they made a long time ago, I actually think that makes him interesting. But I'm not going to sit through another manga where the MC gets dumped in a trash can by everyone around him and nothing ever happens to pay them back for it. I was sick to death of that shit with mother fucking LOVE HINA, and how long ago was that? I stopped reading World's End Harem for the same reason, and I couldn't even make it through the prologue of Fantasia before dropping it. Tsunderes and shitty writing have given me a VERY finite capacity for bullying and main character abuse. If it happens, there had better be some fucking karma involved.

What a worthless childhood friend. What a worthless fucking school. These first two chapters are practically the origin story of a villain. But somehow, in spite of the fact that nearly everyone we've met deserves to be set on fire, and the story is a villain origin story, AND the MC has been given a 'villain' power, I get the distinct impression that we won't be seeing anything nearly as cool as the MC ousting all the sages and destroying the school as an institution of education. The MC deserves a better school and a better childhood friend. "Less helpful than Dumbledore" is a fucking LOW bar for wizarding schools, let alone alleged childhood friends, but every time I think we hit rock bottom, somebody grabs a stick of dynamite and we just keep going.
 
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@Lord-Raine
Lets not ignore how the 7 Sages, the most powerful of all magicians in the world, are all somehow twenty somethings (or younger) acting as some ill defined student council at some magic school? The least sagacious sages I have ever seen. Especially the delinquent looking one who instead of covering his eyes with say a hand, which we know works or maybe setting up a partition with a one way mirror or something, thinks the best plan is to slam him face first into the ground? I mean they knew he was coming and did zero preparation? I mean just how low is the bar to become a sage here?

Additionally mind control magic appears to be a known quantity in this world and nobody decided to test for it? Especially if it is as dangerous as they say. If they are so wise, how come nobody decided to help him out sooner? Is there no protocol for this? I mean they are either incompetent, negligent, or despotic. More likely some combination of the the three.

Lets be real though. These characters are just flimsy plot devices forced into existence so the plot can happen. If anyone put any real thought into these characters backstory and motivation, this would be a completely different story. I mean I feel stupid for even putting this level of analysis in for what boils down to a manga looking for an excuse to show gratuitous amounts of T&A.
 
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@Lord-Raine

This. It's also weird that not even the 7 sages can resist his magic. You would think the 7 strongest mages would figure out a magic defense but apparently ain't nobody got time for that.
 
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@Lord-Raine
With a word count that high I was expecting autistic nonsense, but you're actually preaching the truth!
 
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@Lord-Raine
All valid points. You got me thinking about it. This world is a very shitty dystopia where the most powerful rule with basically no repercussions as we were shown. Snap decisions, unruly brats that are supposed to be some council, but only follow their own agenda. It's a wonder how they didn't burn the world to the ground if this in modus operandi so far. In a way, it feels like a sect and cultivation where the top dogs can do whatever they want with the lower tiers.

Bullying? Who cares.

Undesirable ability? Let's just cripple him, it's super dangerous (especially to me).

No way of defending his ability? Let's just push him into a corner and see what happens.

No planning, no discussion, the council already preplanned everything in no time at all, all the while they act super surprised that he has something like this despite being almost sure that his ability can't be something common as wind or wire bending... Similar ability as MC has is proven to exist and there apparently wasn't a problem with it, we could see she even used it on the other council member. The whole thing feels like a joke handled by 13-15y old kids with no sense of anything other than 'All world is only about me, look at my power, I'm da king!'. And these unmatured beings rule the world, from my perspective if this world doesn't get some decent dictator to thumb them down to the ground, it would be doomed soon.

Not really sure if this is worth reading if my wish is to clobber that fictional government to its head and 'reform' to the slightly less horrible form of it.

It kind of reminded me of that experiment in the 90-00s or so, it was where they put about 10years old kids unsupervised into a villa for weeks with everything handled (full fridges, plenty of stuff, and games to do and so). They had to clean themselves > made a mess everywhere. They had to cook > well maybe some eggs at best, they ate mostly chips and chocolate. It ended up being a trash dump site at the end for the boys, some were even traumatized, I think the girl's group gave up prematurely, even if they didn't trash the place as bad physically, it was kind of worse than watching Big Brother stuff. That's how I felt this manga was going with the people in command of their school.
 
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dumb plot someone obviously invested a fuck ton of influence and work into convicting the mc before the first trial so why and how would they retreat so easily, when they were but one step away from success
 
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although this has a harem tag, it's probably gonna be one of those fake-harem manga again since the author previous work ended with 1 girl as well.
still kinda bullshit on those masters tho lol
 
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Is it just me, or does this feel like a retread of Chapters 1 and 2? Everyone’s shitting on the MC but the childhood friend sort of sticks up for him and that inspires him to not give up. Boom, next trial. There’s a lot of questions I have, mainly involving why the author seems to like having everyone shit on the male MC like this is Love Hina, but... one thing.

You know what this chapter sorely lacked? Genuinely heart-filled interaction from Mai and the MC. Like, no social standing bullshit. If the chapter ended with them meeting in secret and having an honest conversation as friends and Mai genuinely admiring and/or encouraging him, then that would’ve been fine by me. It shows how, despite everything, their bond and shared goal wasn’t wavered. It opens up a heartwarming angle that makes the BS worth it. Page 17 is really nice, but not enough, IMO.
 
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Clearly it's not really a harem, dude has said "MAI" more than anything in the series so far
 
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Hijiri sounds suspicious as hell, I can't help but think he might have some kind of ability to steal, and wants it for himself.
 
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I don't trust random thots! And that snake eyed bastard is clearly acting on discriminatory selfish biased bullshit! Y'all are bitches acting out of fear.
 
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Of I was him my dream would be the strongest and then kick ALL their a$$ for how they treated me
 
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holy fuck are the 7 so dumb, well, I guess not all of them, since one of them actually has a brain and decided to train him. I just found this manga but I'm so on the edge whether to drop it or not.
 
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I really can't think of any useful situation where Charm Magic can be applied, except when defusing a situation or just wanting to feel some stimulation. Him with the Seven Sages seems a bit unrealistic, especially when someone with that Lust Magic is already there.
 

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