Magilumiere Magical Girls Inc.

Episode 6

Magical girls come in all shapes and sizes, and Magilumiere is branching out to show off more of them. Granted, Aoi Lily the magical lady is hardly unconventional by typical magical girl standards—she's pretty, graceful, and confident in her cosmetics-powered abilities. But all that actually makes her stand out in this world of work-woman-like magical girls. Even others who are having plenty of fun with it, like Koshigaya, are knowingly contrasted with Lily's sparkly style.

True to Magilumiere's focus on details, Lily's presentation tells viewers a lot about her and Miyakodo, the company she represents. Magical girls are no strangers to transforming and powering up with the power of cosmetics, after all, so it's a natural fit that one would be a spokeswoman for a company in a universe like the one in this show. Starting her collaboration with Kana by taking her out shopping and letting her try on a bunch of cute outfits seems like a fun distraction (with this episode's omake segment confirming this is entertainment for the mentors at Miyakodo), but it also embodies that focus on presentation and appearance for magical girls. It's not just a superficial prettiness; these girls are representing their brands and companies because of the stated appeal of the profession.

What pushes this into even more interesting territory is when it's revealed that the promotional efforts go both ways. While she is mainly representing her cosmetics company, it turns out that Lily is also acting as a spokesperson for the profession of magical-girl-ing itself. This does create a bit of a disconnect with the anime's opening backstory narration about how desirable the job is, now revealing that there's a drop-off that necessitates recruitment efforts. Maybe it's an issue with low birth rates and an aging population. But it's neat regardless because it acknowledges more of the realities that real-world magical girls might have to contend with. Yes, they get pretty transformations and anime-style fantasy action, but they're still combating monsters that are actually dangerous and pose a real threat to the magical girls and the people they're protecting. We'll put a pin in that one.

It doesn't move Magilumiere into deconstruction territory (yet) so much as it acknowledges the divide in a world where magical girls are both fictional fantasies and an actual job. It provides a clear reason for Lily to be putting up her glowing front of unblemished foundation and fashion-model confidence. And it gives Kana one more tier to aspire to: a platonic ideal of magical girls that not only embodies the role, but inspires others (as she was) to join the magical workforce.

Demonstrating the differences in how magical girls can present themselves also comes with showing differences in their abilities and how they operate. In established Magilumiere fashion, the details are understated, meant for the audience to catch onto at the same time as the characters. Shigemoto mentions during a bizarre game of Business Card Mahjong that Miyakodo's magic tech isn't on the same level as their own company's, and you can see that in details like how Lily has to kick open pipes to get access to water to attack the Kaii with. For a split-second I wondered if she could even actually use magic, compared to Kana who was capable of just blasting away. It's a sly codification of the point that for Lily, her presentation and charisma are her magic.

Is that enough when contending with the very real dangers of magical girl-ing? Let's come back to that pin. Kana getting a message relayed earlier in the episode about eating cake together with Lily made me wonder if it was possible for a character to trip a death flag while they weren't even on-screen. Then Lily went and jumped right in front of an attack for Kana, cutting to a surprisingly bloody cliffhanger. It's a thought prompted by the episode's earlier point that the job is, in fact, dangerous, making the audience wonder if this show would demonstrate magical girls dealing with those dangers in a real-world way. I can't imagine livestreaming a magical lady getting stabbed is a great way to entice girls to apply for the job, but that just makes seeing how this will shake out next week all the more compelling.

The setup and structure of all this does leave this episode of Magilumiere feeling a bit lopsided. I like seeing magical girls faffing about as much as anybody else, but the shopping trip's devolution into montage can get kind of testing, not helped by this episode's animation looking more flat and chunky than usual. When all the extra details about Kaii mutations and magical options get dropped in the fight in the last couple minutes, it feels a bit rushed in getting to that dramatic cliffhanger. But as I said, the ideas driving it are extremely compelling, and I'm still deathly curious about the resolution of said cliffhanger, so clearly it still mostly works.

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Magilumiere Magical Girls Inc. is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.