Forum - View topicMagia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story (TV).
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Stark700
 Posts: 11762 Location: Earth |
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Main Series - Puella Magi Madoka Magica (TV) (discussed here) Season 1 - Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story (TV) Season 2 - Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story (TV 2) Season 3 - Magia Record: PUella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story (TV 3) Genres: magic, mystery, psychological Themes: magical girl, witches Plot Summary: In exchange for the fulfillment of a wish, Magical Girls keep fighting, unbeknownst to the rest of the world. But Iroha Tamaki can't seem to remember her wish. There is a gaping hole in her life. Something important has been lost. But she continues to fight every day, without even knowing why. Then, a rumor begins to spread among Magical Girls. Magical Girls can be saved if they go to Kamihama City, the city where Magical Girls and Uwasa are gathering. S1-2: Crunchyroll, FUNimation S3: Apr. 3, 2022 (Sundays; Crunchyroll) |
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Nom De Plume De Fanboy
Exempt from Grammar Rules
Posts: 632 Location: inland US west, pretty rural |
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Just saw ep 1. Intriguing, and it looks very nice. I have a hard time letting my hopes get up because it's a sequel, though. It would be easier if I had never seen the original. Just have to keep watching and see.
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BSW
Posts: 116 |
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Budget Madoka.
It feels similar to the original title, but hell if I can feel the same charm. First episode left me bored and a bit embarrassed for the staff that tries too hard to sell this off as Madoka, trying to replicate elements of PMMM instead of trying to make it a series that can stand on its own merits. It sure didn't work for me, the same tricks doesn't work twice in a row, and the protag is very annoying. |
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DuskyPredator
 Posts: 15575 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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Episode 1
Alright, a new Madoka anime. I really do remember the original's run in 2011, and while not expecting the same run away success of the first season, I hope this 2020 one is going to be as in depth to have its details worthy of analysis, doing some theory crafting as it goes on. The first major plot point is going to figure out where this anime is set, with 3 major contenders we Madoka veterans are aware of. First world, it could be the same world that the original was set, this is standard Incubators turning little girls into entropy machines, granting their wishes to build up magic for them to absorb through. This seems to be the most likely, I would even say the show expects the audience to already have an idea. A conversation Tamaki is having with Kyubey has a backdrop of strange monsters putting children into sacks, holding symbolism of the Kyubey, or Incubators, are by nature stealing these children as a resource. Second possible world would be Madoka's reborn universe, this actually seems the least likely, since that world did not have witches but wraiths. It is pretty unlikely, but I think worth mentioning. The third possibility, without just being a separate continuity than we are aware, is Homura's world. In truth we don't really know if that world has witches, although it would be pretty bad of Homura to have brought it back. We do know that Homura kept Kyubey to continue to be used. The arguments against this is I think this is more of a spinoff, and possibly could have existed before the third movie, and again it could be spitting on Madoka's wishes. But I am kind of leaning towards this possibility based on some environmental things, through the episode we seem to get a bunch of strangely authoritarian elements in the environment, signs saying things like to be happy, or be proactive, not to whisper, and in general a feeling of trying to force people to be happy. Unless it is just symbolism of a different point of view not through Madoka, I think this fits "Homucifer" idea of forced happiness in a sort of lie of a world. Could be totally wrong, and I would say the original world is the most likely. But if I went off the idea of a Homura world, then the little girl, and small Kyubey, could possibly be a small aspect of goddess Madoka, trying to save the magical girls. I would maybe go step forwards that it is not just the magical girls being drawn to Kamihama City at the promise of being saved, but the witches too, in fact I would say the girls get the message of being saved in Kamihama once they start to be at risk of becoming witches, and they are going to the city in remembering that after they have turned. The dream Tamaki had could represent not just Magical girls, but witches going there in hopes of being saved, which in a Homura world could have something to do with Madoka. After all this theorizing, only now think important to break down what happened in the episode. Tamaki seems to have made a wish, which a memory she got back was to make her sister better, but seems to have instead removed the existence of her sick sister. She and her partner seem to fight the same witch, twice on a train, first they just save a cat, but the second time the witch actually carroes them to Kamihama City, after which the the train witch is killed by a sand witch (pun). I am sure will be able to find out what these witches' names were, but it was never said before that witches kill other witches. The sand witch is killed by a magical girl of Kamihama that uses spears (I am awful with names), and said magical warns them against them coming back, after handing both the grief seeds to the girls. There is also a small Kyubey that seems able to interrupt the sand witch, rather odd, and after touching Tamaki seems to start being able to return memories of her disappeared sister, Ui. Can it undo wishes? |
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DuskyPredator
Posts: 15575 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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Episode 2
When a witch showed up this time I decided to just to use the runic alphabet to decipher the name. A witch with sheep like horns, her name seemed to be Rebekka, although oddly searching it up seems to come up with one that I guess is familiar through the source of this season, but her name is Rebecca. For some reasons the Cs were replaced with Ks for this adaption. I am holding to my theory about what the nature of this world may be, really weird how we got a strange maybe robotic figure standing both the hospital for perhaps information, and in the fast food join for ordering. These could just be style, but it gives this odd feeling that something strange has invaded their daily lives that they are blind to. Also tried to translate some strange words that appear while this new magical girl group were kind of fighting in the restaurant, before realizing it was just English words that were backwards, as if they were put on glass and looked at through the wrong direction. Mostly emphasising that the wish the girl made for a garden was important to her, and the other one tried to backtrack that she said something she should not have. |
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Nate148
Posts: 510 |
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Loving this so far it cut out some fat from the game. As for the world spoiler[It is both after the end of the show and not i.e the law of cycles is a thing but it can't affect this world]
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DuskyPredator
Posts: 15575 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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Episode 4
Was ready to pause in the episode to find out what the name of the bunny witch that appeared in the supermarket Labyrinth's name was. Kind of actually surprised that it was "Candy", feels a bit out of place, like just a named theme of Charlotte's style, or the name of a stripper. Guess some extra points when ther head split vertically for a mouth that for some reason had a skeletal hip. |
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DuskyPredator
Posts: 15575 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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Episode 5
One of those episodes where it maybe takes being familiar with the previous show to notice what is weird. Iroha's soul gem became corrupted and should have broken into a grief seed for her to turn into a witch, it seemed she only partially turned into a witch her eyes being covered and the would be witch appearing above her. Her soul gem did not break, and after her witch form thing was defeated by Mami, she seems to have even lost her corruption. And by the girl at the end of the episode, this does not seem to be unique to Iroha, but perhaps the magical girls as long as they are in the city. This kind of blurring of magical girl and their witch is not entirely new, the transformations themselves in Rebellion felt like it blurred the two in giving a creep factor, even more so when Sayaka and Nagisa did their thing towards the end of the movie. The duality of their two forms. If the witch like things that have taken the part of related to urban legends are not dropping seeds, I wonder if they could be connected more directly to the witch selves that sprout from them, and the mention in the episode of rumours being like a wish of the subconscious of society. |
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DuskyPredator
Posts: 15575 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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Episode 13 (season 1 finale)
Alright, before some of this episode I was going to say that I was kind of disappointed with the show, that cameos felt hollow and more of annoyance with as a long term fan. Also that the reveal that one of the old friend of Iroha sister(?) was the one behind the whole system in the city that prevents turning into a witch in the city like it was just some science invention. Ironically what turned it for me in the last episode was actually a cameo, Sayaka, who came into to try and knock some sense into Mami. The whole thing was clear that Mami is aware of the whole magical girls turn into witches, and based on Homura's timelines it has seemed to be the case that Mami takes such revelations incredibly hard and explains why she would pretty much be going berserk. But Sayaka being a magical girl at the same time as Mami, with this presumably being the old system of witches, this was not the case in the same timeline as the majority of the original show, almost like it could have been in one of the other timelines Homura was in. I especially liked a detail such as Mami assuming that Sayaka, and I think Madoka, blame her for becoming magical girls with the terrible fate ahead of them, which looks very on brand for Mami who was shown to fall to pieces if her sense of justice is shown wrong. A complaint I would have put for the previous episode was that it felt like a lot of it hinged on it being a shock what magical girls were, like the majority of the episode was this and a familiar audience would have thought a lot about what was discussed. It just felt really unnecessary for the audience unless they were new. But the reveal of things like girl who created the Doppel thing, I felt kind of better about it when the episode had the whole cult like thing, where she was shown like a fascist leader of magical girls, some of which brainwashed. It was kind of a spooky vision that it is not just some small thing, but that they are dangerous, maybe some good points about their sad fate, but also that they are hurting innocent people and just don't register it as important. Added onto how it finished by the mention that they are looking forward to Walpurgis Night coming, and a flash of what looks like bits from the next season which bring attention to details that have not been answered yet but must have the answers coming. So the number 13 being a magical number, I think it saved the first season of this spinoff. But I also don't want to forget that I think the series kind of had a slump where it was losing my interest, as bad as that is as someone who loves this series and really wants to see another movie. I kind of did not care that much for a number of the other girls, they were not a Madoka, Sayaka, Mami, Homura and Kyoko. The whole Iroha looking for her sister just felt like an obvious her checking down wrong leads. But Iroha but I do think going on it is probably the incorrect assumption that Iroha's wish made Ui disappear, and more likely that it was Ui making a wish. At the end of the season, I give a rating of Good (7/10), which admittedly is largely on the promise of how this season of the spinoff ended, that it was building for something and I hope that it would deliver on it. After this episode I also had a couple thoughts, like Yachiyo's wish to survive, even if it was not literally not die, was kind of what Mami's wish was. If Iroha's wish was indeed something like wishing that her sister's illness would be cured, that is what Sayaka's wish was. I remember a reading of Mami suffering from big survivor's guilt, which maybe could be read into Yachio too, and if Sayaka sticks around for a bit after the end of this season if there is anything there. |
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DuskyPredator
Posts: 15575 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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Season 2, Episode 8 ( season finale)
Looks like the season ends here, without really any closure. I guess a couple characters were broken out of mind control, and unless I am confused this somehow stopped Walpurgisnacht from actually entering the story, rather the Madoka gang exiting the spinoff to meet Madoka's fate. And Nemu was some kind of master mind, although she already was among the higher ups, or at least she has information on the mysterious sister Ui, next season. I kind of liked the crossover characters from the original series, but it pretty much felt like I forgot a number of the spinoff specific characters. which the wait between, probably could have helped by easing back into the story, or at least reminding of characters better. This last episode pretty much did the best in reminding us of the character quirks of a character, which really was to reveal more about the character, but still I practically forgot some parts. The last episode also seemed to be a blot more on the SHAFT creativity angle, at least appearing that way to me, almost feeling out of place. And on that it suddenly turned into a theatre styled monologue thing, explaining us the character, which in ways is not too out of place, but then kind of revealed that Iroha was perceiving it just like we the audience were, which was a bit weird. Anyway, rating this season. I give a Decent (6/10). It might have been higher quality than that, but still it didn't do enough to refresh itself from the previous season, and so just watching as coming out I kind of felt a bit lost. And ,while elements of the original series popping in is cool, I can't in good concious rate it just cool to see an in action Madoka, the gang, and a Homura in a character journey that I understand from the main series. I would have liked some answers, although the inside of Iroha's mind was maybe one of the better bits. |
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DuskyPredator
Posts: 15575 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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Season 3, Episodes 1 - 4 (Series finale)
The released these last four episodes all at once, and it took me a bit of time to find a time that I could watch them all. I would say that it felt much tighter than the other seasons, although perhaps it would have been better as just a movie rather than technically broken up into four episodes. We found out the truth about Ui, what the motivations started out as, and as a befitting of this franchise it was a slow tumble of a number of tragedies, as the girls try to prevent whatever the worst could be. On particular tragedy was Kuroe's eventual turn into a witch and subsequent death, that she could no longer handle being in the situation she was in. And the girls all having to continue on despite things they lost. The series always has had one glaring weakness within the franchise, that being that we all know it is going to be overwritten, any last effect would have to likely go to Homura, but in the grand scheme Homura was a pretty small part. That was until the end, where the characters were all saying that no one would know their story, just as we saw goddess Madoka holding a book, a record of these events. It showed that yeah, as Madoka said her power reached well across timelines, so she would indeed know what was experienced in different times, and within the sanctuary Iroah would probably know too. This does bring some interest for the next Madoka movie, that maybe we could see a couple of these characters pop up. My rating for this season composed of these four episodes, would be Very good (8/10), probably the strongest episodes of Magia Record. To a point I would almost point people to mostly watch these four episodes, with either extra info on characters, or watch a couple of specific episodes, and a couple more for just fanservice cameos. |
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MaritLage
 Posts: 140 |
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just finished S01E13
it·s clear that the producers have no idea who is who and why as usual |
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