The Fall 2022 Manga Guide

Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Another Story

What's It About? 

Mami Tomoe is a veteran magical girl when it comes to fighting the witches of Mitakihara City, but the rise of mysterious entities known as “rumors” have brought her and her allies to a new battlefield: Kamihama City. Providing new insight into the world of Madoka Magica, this manga adapts the Another Story route from the hit mobile game Magia Record!

Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Another Story adapts the Another Story route from the Magic Record game. The manga is drawn by U35, with English translation by Noboru Akimoto and lettering by Abigail Blackman, and Yen Press has released its first volume both digitally and physically for $6.99 and $13.00 respectively.

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Is It Worth Reading?

Jean-Karlo Lemus

Rating:

The sad thing about a lot of the Madoka Magica spin-offs is that rather than expanding upon the world established in the original anime, they only serve to over-complicate things. Right off the bat, it's nice to see a Madoka Magica manga that focuses on Mami Tomoe—she barely got any screentime in the original anime, after all, and it's nice to see her sleuthing down the roots of the current Witch mystery. But with all of the new Magical Girls introduced, it's a bit hard to keep track of things, especially when so little of it advances the story: Mami discovers there's a powerful new force at work called “RUMORS”, but immediately there's the possibility that a witch is disguising itself as a Magical Girl. Of course, you can't solve your mystery with just the first volume of the story, but the sudden wave of new characters added in the last chapter just feels overwhelming.

The art, of course, isn't quite as good as the original SHAFT anime. But that's okay: the character designs are maintained. Clearly, the mangaka has some issues with action sequences, as most of the fights against witches are glossed over; this, I feel, is for the best in terms of pacing, but it would have been nice to see some attempt at the visual phantasmagoria the witches could perform. As a Madoka Magica neophyte, I'm mildly interested in this spin-off. Given the Mami appeal, I'd like to think longtime fans might get a bit more out of it. Lightly recommended.

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Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

There's something odd going on with the witches – they've disappeared. That's worrying Mami and Sakura, and both of them are ready to do something about it, albeit in different ways. Mostly this means that Mami's planning to mostly go it alone, and in this franchise, that's rarely a good idea. That's doubly-true when you're the ill-starred Mami, although a fair amount of manga spinoffs have done their best to save her. This may or may not be one of them, but it's definitely setting her up to be the main heroine, so if you're still not over her demise, this could be the spinoff for you. It's also framing her as smarter than the average magical girl, as well as more determined; Madoka's one cameo in the volume is her just agreeing to let Mami do all the heavy lifting, while Sakura's also waiting to see what Mami turns up. (Sayaka's missing thus far.)

What she's found is intriguing – in a different town, not only are there more than enough witches to go around, but at least one of them also seems to still be able to access her magical girl form. Mami clearly doesn't know the true relationship between magical girls and witches, but that old rule may not be fully in place in this iteration of the story, and if it is, it's starting to look like there may be more wiggle room to the arrangement than previously assumed. It's an interesting angle for the story to take, especially since Kyubey doesn't appear to know what's going on either, which could speak to outside interference.

Alongside this interesting angle is the fact that artist U35 has some of the most pleasing renditions of the character designs that I've seen. They're instantly recognizable but also softer, and there's a bit more distinction between their regular and magical girl forms. The backgrounds are less busy than usual, but that also works nicely in the story's favor. All in all, I enjoyed this new foray into Madoka's world, and if you're not tired of the franchise, it's worth a read.

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MrAJCosplay

Rating:

Another Story is a fairly decent side story in the Madoka Magica universe. There is an interesting conversation that is brought up in the first third of the book about the symbiotic relationship between the magical girls and the witches, and it makes sense why this would be relegated to a side story, since the book doesn't need to waste time fully getting into the backgrounds of the magical girls for the twelfth time. Even though this comes at the cost of potentially alienating new fans, there are other things throughout the book that make it clear that this is specifically aimed toward established fans of the franchise anyway, which makes recommending it a lot easier than you would think. Honestly, I think the only thing that's really disappointing about this book is its style or lack thereof. Compared to some of the other works in the franchise, this side story definitely lacks a lot of the surreal imagery that has become a hallmark of Madoka Magica as a whole. But if you can look past the bland presentation, then there's just enough intrigue and world-building here to help expand the already interesting world of dark magical girls.