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ladyloveandjustice · 4 years

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Winter 2020 Anime Overview: Magia Record and Chihayafuru

I watched a lot of anime this season! The first two I’ve decided to dish about are the end of Chihayafuru S3 and the Madoka Magica spinoff Magia Record!

Magia Record

Meguca is back! Can this mobile game spin-off adaptation live up to the hype of the beloved original anime?

Haha no, not even close. I was cool with something different; in fact I’d prefer it since Madoka’s premise has been done to death by other anime following its trend at this point. And this show is more like a magical girl mystery series with lavish aesthetics than a grand Faustian thing. Which is fine!

Unfortunately, the anime sticks too much to its gacha game roots rather than make all the changes necessary to serve a tighter storytelling structure..which means weird pacing, way too many paper-thin characters dropping in and out of the plot at random, awkward forced cameos from the original series that kind of add nothing to the plot, and oh, the penultimate episode LITERALLY INVOLVES CHARACTERS GIVING EXPOSITION MOST OF US ALREADY KNOW IN EXTENDED POWERPOINT PRESENTATION FORM.

It doesn’t help that the Madoka-substitute main character is as generic as she can be. Her motivation could have been interesting if handled right, but it really just leads to her floating around, vaguely searching for a thing she doesn’t even really remember well and we have no reason to care about.

The series does try to do a new thing with the whole witch deal, which I’d be down for if it was explored well and wasn’t presented more like a convenient game-mechanic-even-though-this-isn’t-a-game-anymore, BUT SADLY...

The most hilarious moment of the whole series is definitely when the antagonist girl who’s trying to reclaim witches or whatever gives this big speech that is, straight up: “We and our emotions have all been EXPLOITED, we will not let Kyubey treat us like MERCHANDISE”.

I’m assuming this dialogue was in the game too and I GENUINELY can’t tell what they were going for? Is it SUPPOSED to be a joke? Is it something letting players know this chick isn’t on “their” side (as if her black cloacked zombielike army she addressed from on high wasn’t clue enough)? Or is this the story’s genuine attempt at #deep commentary??? “isn’t it terrible to treat teen girls and their emotional tragedies like merchandise? anyway you can buy swimsuit Mami for a million coins if u act fast nerds”! TRULY, KYUBEY LIVES WITHIN ALL.

Anyway, could read some potentially weird thematic implications into the framing of witch-reclamation girl’s crusade, but I dunno where the show will actually go with the whole thing in the end! And I may never know, because I’m not planning to tune into season 2. The show had my curiosity initially, and certainly had a few cool visuals in the vein of the original, and there’s a lot of “oooh why did this happen, how does this work” questions it raised to try to entice viewers into the continuation... but there’s just not enough substance here to make me care what the answers are.

Chihayafuru Season 3 (episodes 13-24)

This season of Chihayafuru was quality anime still, but yeah, it’s definitely my least favorite season of the show so far. I think it’s down to both how Chihaya was more passive than usual during a much of it, and the extreme focus on Taichi’s downward spiral .

I did like the huge step Shinobu took in her journey and the way Chihaya stepped up to show she cares (she and Chihaya remain best ‘ship, RIVALGIRLFRIENDS FOREVER) and Haruka was an interesting character! The ultimate conclusion of the matches was kinda sadly predictable in maintaining the status quo for Arata and Chihaya’s presumably inevitable ~BIG SHOWDOWN~, but they were still fun matches and the exploration of characters who stay connected to their sport/hobby even as aging offers challenges was valuable.

Arata was extremely cute throughout this season too in his relentless pursuit of friendship and love. He just got shit DONE despite being a bit of a shy boy, proud of him. Unfortunately, our main character didn’t so much. I mean Chihaya did accomplish some stuff and have some good key moments of impacting others, grappling with her future and so on! But while her facing setbacks is nothing new, this season was really awkward in how it would remove her from the main action and sorta keep her in stasis. It was REALLY obviously done so the climactic karuta battles could be saved for third year, as could her being more aware of the relationship drama and giving a definitive answer to ~who she will choose~.

And speaking of that, Taichi... It’s not that I don’t understand his character or sympathize with the bottled up “I-am-a-screwed-up-teenager-from-a fam-who taught-me-not-to-communicate-emotions-and-instead-excel-at-competition-to-earn-acceptance-and-I-have-applied-that-to-my-crush-despite-knowing-it’s-hopeless” thing he has going, it is just. extremely drawn out and tiresome for me and like, please just get to to part where he realizes that friendship and the heart of the cards is important or whatever. I could care less about his weird complex with Arata, and I just want Chihaya to be able to focus on kicking ass at karuta and loving her friends and not have to expend so much energy on “WHY TAICHI WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS”.

At least she knows why now, thanks to Taichi’s Unappealing and Dire Love Confession! As much as anyone can! All’s out in the open, Chihaya’s answer is pretty clear even if she hasn’t said it idk how much more we can drag this out, I HOPE EVERYONE HAS FUN PLAYING CARDS NEXT TIME AND THAT NOW THAT TAICHI’S ANGST HAS PEAKED WE CAN FOCUS ON MORE INTERESTING STUFF.

#chihayafuru #magia record #madoka magica #my reviews #anime overview #winter 2020 anime #long ish post

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