Review of Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story
This was one of the most bafflingly disappointing shows I’ve seen in a long time. The original Madoka Magica was a show well-known for its contribution to the magical girl genre. Its unique visual presentation, memorable characters, and compelling narrative are what made it as engaging as it was. When I heard there was going to be a spin-off series, I was ecstatic and had high hopes going into this. Unfortunately what I was left with was a disappointing hollow shell of what could have been something more. The more I watched, the more I came to realize that the story would not be going anywhere meaningful.Since Magia Record is based on a game, a lot of details get omitted which made this jarring to watch. Even if I had treated the anime as a standalone, it does not hold up well. Three things pop into my head that held it back the most and that would be boring exposition dumps, bland characters, and terrible pacing. Sure you could say that there were nice visuals and dark and twisted things were happening to the characters but so what? If I can’t meaningfully care about what’s happening on screen then no amount of artsy colors or dark imagery can salvage your show.
The characters are about as one dimensional as any I’ve ever seen. None of them are all that interesting or memorable which means that any time they get put in the spotlight in some scenario, I can’t find myself sympathizing with them. This is only heightened by the atrocious writing. Every episode is seemingly episodic or at least that was the impression I got from watching this with each new story arc centering around something dark and mysterious happening to the town and its people. The way in which this is presented for the most part however are characters standing around talking for half the episode discussing the plot of the story which makes it really boring and painful to watch. There is nothing I hate more than mindless exposition dumps and I found myself constantly losing focus throughout each episode. To make matters worse, there would be sudden transitions to janky fight scenes that seem so out of place. These occurred quite frequently and would be at random.
The “mystery” element of the show is not all that compelling either. Typically arcs end with a big fight scene of some kind with crazy explosions and girls running around screaming. Yeah we get it. Witches are bad, destroy them! I am honestly lost for words how massively uninteresting every episode’s progression and resolution were. This stays constant throughout. If you’ve seen one episode, you’ve seen them all.
Negatives aside I will say that this show is fairly nice to look at sometimes. The art and animation are well done in some of the fights and I am a fan of some of the character designs. This of course was meant to draw you in to get you to keep watching in hopes for something interesting to look at. If not for this reason alone, I probably wouldn’t have been able to watch all of it. I also enjoyed the soundtrack which at the very least engaged me for the few moments that it was running.
It’s truly a shame that this spin-off was so lackluster for me and possibly for many others. I was a fan of the original and really wanted to like this one too. The character designs were really interesting and the prospect of a side story was more than what I could have asked for. There was definitely some effort put into making it as dark and as mysterious as the original but the way in which it was presented was poorly done. The show doesn’t add anything that hasn’t already been established in Madoka, has a worse narrative structure, and less interesting characters. This is not to say that none of the story arcs had interesting things to say nor is it implied that they didn’t put the characters under intense scenarios. But in all honesty, do yourself a favor and avoid this entry. It can only lead to disappointment. It almost seems to me that in order to fully grasp the show, one would need to play the game that this was based on which is already a huge turn-off.