Review of Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story

A Blockbuster Budget to a Gacha Game Display(LR); Last years Magia Record came and went with little fanfare, as someone who recently re-visited the series I decided to watch Record for the first time this week and as my title would suggest I found it to be another brilliant showing of anime industry talent from the now infamous studio shaft but as a narrative to be ultimately held back by it's mobile game source. Lets breeze past the spoiler free section first. The Story - This is definitely the show's weaker area, though not to the extent some have implied. If you know anything of my otherwork, I judge all media by it's individual merit however if you compare Record to it's parent show you will be disappointed. This is in large point because the two shows aim for alternative methods. Where Madoka is a deliberate deconstruction of the magical girl genre, taking a more pragmatic look at each of the fields many facets, Record while having some of those elements is far more akin to a traditional magical girl show, with far less casualties and greater focus on the team work elements of the genre. This is not by itself an inherently bad thing, I spoke to a degree in my Rebellion review about appreciating the idea of spin-off media or OVA's dealing with a more light hearted story with-in the Madoka universe and this is almost that - almost. The story's biggest issue (with-out spoilers) comes from it's attempts to be more like it's older sibling, when the show strives to do it's own exploration then it comes across as a breath of fresh air and a mature understanding of what made the decade old original great (There's a YouTube video I watched with a similar opinion to this by AH Brandon Reviews if you like this line of thinking). All told the story is quite serviceable but far from the stand-out narrative that was Madoka and un-content to stick to it's own path.

The Characters - Like the story the characters are by no means bad, often times endearing but wholly too shallow. This is to be fair an issue with the original and to give credit where it's due, it's more an aspect of this style of story telling then a fault. Allow me to explain, in the original you have Mami and Kyouko whom are both used fairly sparingly, however thought great visual characterization and solid story writing, weaved into their themes and that of the show's, both of them have managed to become highly iconic and beloved characters with-in the various anime communities. Record attempts to mimic the same giving characters striking appearances and sparse backstory, however it doesn't quite work as well. While the characterization is nearly as strong as the originals, it falls flat due to the story, quite simply we don't see enough of these characters to really get a proper feel for them. The strength of Madoka's method for doing this was in it's small primary cast which is never bigger then 4 members at a time (It wasn't till rebellion that all 5 girls were ever on screen together) however while Record also has team of 5, it's got a plethora of other magical girls to give time to. Mind you this could still work but as mentioned the story leaves many of them wanting more, their by no means bad characters and simply their astatic and personalities make them likably enough in a Moe kind of way but they land far short of their OG counterparts.

The Music and Animation - With returning composer Yuki Kajiura the Ost is unsurprisingly a marvel once more, I've heard some suppose it doesn't quite reach the heights of its predecessor and that's definitely a fair reading however from the intro to the battle themes and the bonus vocal track by ReReGraphics, there's a-lot of good in here that has it standing far above almost any other soundtrack from it's respective aired season. The animation falls into much the same category, it's great to re-experience this world and its psychedelic visuals once more. Some of the witches are a little less inspired but all in all you'll get your fix of mesmerizing eye candy, my favorite sequence being that of when Sana visits home after her initial arc and appearance, I also quite appreciate the stylistic references to Revolutionary Girl Utena, espically in the 'rumour sequences'. In terms of fights, the first against the wings of the magus and the final fight in episode 13 stand out on top in terms of fight choreography, contrastingly and while I'd like to view Record separately I'd be remiss not to comment that the many of the other fights feel clunky and fail to match those of the original's flare. Non-the-less Record, while not quite to the standard of its parent is a fantastic looking and sounding anime, up their for the best of the year and these glorious production values make even the stories weakest segments an entertaining viewing experience.

To conclude our spoiler free journey, Record's first 2 thirds are a thoroughly enjoyable romp into an alternate Madoka-verse, it's got the restrain to not simply copy the original and presents intriguing character threads and stunning production values, however it loses it's way severely in it's final act and fails to leave a satisfying aftertaste as it becomes bogged down in gritty detail and poor references to the original show. Madoka fans and those of darker magical girl shows will most likely enjoy this one for the ride that it is and while it may disappoint some looking for a repeat of the first story, I think it's worth giving a watch, doubly so once the sequel comes out. A 6.5 out of 10.

Spoilers Ahoy;
-Speaking of poor references one of the shows most egregious must certainly be Sayaka, her inclusion comes with her third ever 'fire extinguisher diversionary throw' and while this might make some smile, off the back of rebellion it feels exceedingly like hollow pandering. As we're here lets talk about the use of the old magical girls for a moment. As stated above I find one of Record's weakest characteristics to be the inclusion of these classic characters, it reminds me strongly of how the second seasons of most Gundam anime end up over-shadowing their new cast members with increasingly regular cameo's from the first series cast (I'm looking at you most of all Gundam Seed Destiny). It's a method I've seldom, if ever seen pulled off in a satisfying light and that's unfortunately the case here too.

Kyouko I'm rather happy to say fairs the best in this regard as she's solely used to illustrate a similar world view between herself and Felicia (While reminding us that she's called a veteran magical girl for a reason with one of the two great fight scenes I mentioned earlier) and she acts in character for her whole time on screen. Her inclusion is fairly unneeded however it's relatively harmless and welcome fanservice that does serve some function to the story.

On the other hand we have Mami and Sayaka who fair much worse. Mami at first seems to be going the same route as Kyouko, being used to illustrate elements of Yachiyo's character, however by the show's close this quickly goes south. It's not that her joining the wings of the Magus is out of character but that her motives for doing so become rapidly clouded by the ever collapsing world building, furthermore the degree to which she's under-some form of mind control is really unclear, further mudding her role as an 'antagonist' in the story.

This cumulates in the shows final set-piece, where we also get the re-introduction of Sayaka. Her screen time is minimal but equally intrusive, what should of been the final fight of the series with the 5 girls fighting a greater foe, becomes akin to a bullet hell mission between Mami and Sayaka with some minor assistance from Yachiyo. Again I like this final fight on a technical and visual level but narratively it's a complete disaster, how can it even be possible for one thing? What series of events could occur so that Mami can live to see Sayaka and Madoka become magical girls, then spend literal weeks if not longer in a sister city before enough time passes for Sayaka to track her down and be on a high enough level to take her on in combat? To be fair power scaling isn't something Madoka tends to care too much for and I actually think that's one of it's strength, allowing for increasingly more interesting battles, additionally Sayaka does manage to sort of hold her own against Kyouko in the original Tv show however the real problem is why? Why are we seeing this here and now, what does this have to do with our story?

This is what I mean when I reference the final act falling astray, we lose the square focus we had on our hero's for a meaningless, motiveless battle where the stakes couldn't possibly be any less clear. The really sad thing is this wouldn't be that hard to rectify, allow me to armchair-author for a moment. If you simply change the battle to be between our five hero's and duple-Mami then this would serve as an actual climax to the first series story, a story about building a team/a found family. Sure it wouldn't make the show perfect, the motives of the baddies would still be too vague and personally I'd probably remove the use of our hero's using or understanding what the 'duple's' are but it would be more in line with what the story had been so far and a better use of Mami as it would show how our new cast intends to move past the old, not repeating their mistakes. The fact is, for me the biggest let down was never getting the fight scene from the Opening Song, you know the bit where the five girls of the boarding house do a sort of roll call, each displaying their signature weapon? Well that fight never happens and it really hampers the group dynamic, sure decent time is spent having them bond and that is much appreciated but when Yachiyo says she's disbanding the group, you quickly realize their isn't a group to break up. Having Ya-Chan's mini arc end with all five fighting along side one another once more would of worked to rectifie this but alas we'll never get to see it, as three members of the core-cast are literally kidnaped off our screens.

A Reminder of the Good;
Before we get too bogged down in the negatives, I'd like to reinforce the fact that I do actually enjoy this show. Once more I find the production brilliant and the characters, their designs in particular, to be very charming and mostly creative. Other things I enjoyed were the animations for both the intro and outro, the intro in particular references the original show's opening far better then much of the actual stories references and the outro is animated which is always a win in my book by itself but it's also used to give us some more of Yachiyo's frame of mind early on which is nice. To agree further with some other positive reviews I read and watched, I to love how episode 3 is not what everyone expected it to be and instead the show tries to, for the most part, stray away from repeating any of Madoka's shock value events. I also agree that the idea of explaining the process of magical girls turning into witches, through a condescending lecture is an inspired one, I epically like how they parrot a slightly paraphrased version of cubey's iconic line about how we call developing women girls, ergo we call young witches magical girls, it's a neat diversion of our expectations.

Finally I think Iroha is actually a decent protagonist. She's certainly a little blank but it's nice to see that she starts as a small town magical girl at the series onset and her motivation is the driving force of the early parts of the show. It should also be said that while her ploy to get back her lost sister Uii hasn't gone very far with-in the first series, she does develop somewhat, clearly becoming more comfortable in her own skin, more determined to find Uii and takes it upon herself to be Ya-Chan's friend of her own violation. She is by no means bad if put in a vacuum sperate of the world building, unfortunately I think it's time we address that properly.

The World-Building, or Lack There-of;
Like I mentioned with power-scaling before, world building is both one of Madoka's most enchanting factors but also one of it's loosest. The original series opted to leave many details vague like that of it's level of technology which was seemingly far beyond anything of our own real world timeline. Details such as how any of the Magical girls like Mami and Kyouko could last so long when the likes of Sayaka broke apart in a mere matter of weeks or just how old Homura actually is mentally were always left deliberately untold. This does give Record some lee-way, the mobiles and apps those phones pertain are more then acceptable in a world of this technology even if it is strange seeing a 2011 setting where everyone seems to use a modern day online chat app. However because of the increased number of magical girls, those cracks in the world from the original seem to grow existentially, you end up leaving the show with mountains of unanswered, seemingly basic and innocuous questions. For example what is a veteran? I earlier called Kyouko one however that's not actually how the show paints her, in fact it only really paints Mami and Yachiyo as vets (and Mifuyu presumably is by association to Yachiyo). The question becomes what is a veteran? Simply a strong magical girl? A Leader or one who's been going for a long time? By rights Momoko and Tsuruno should also be classified this way, yet despite how prominent a detail it is for Mami and Ya-Chan, it's never mentioned in relation to other long standing magical girls.

How exactly do the girls divide up territory? Sure there's a lot of witches but by the show's end there appears to be literally hundreds of magical girls in the city, how, where and why? What about the town Iroha was from, is the incredibly lazily named girl in monochrome Kuroe(Kuroe meaning black) still defending it alone? How long had Iroha known Kuroe? She says only a day or two but they fight like old friends(I believe she may cameo under a hood in ep 13 but that isn't much consolation). Have the witches completely vacated the rest of the world? Why does one witch kill a familiar at the end of episode one? Has Iroha actually gotten any stronger by the end of episode 13 and in what way was she that much weaker then the girls native to the city?

Then there's carry over questions from the mobile game. As many have rightfully pointed out, Madoka as a setting actually works quite well for these mechanics, the sync attacks character's can do doesn't feel out of place but the duple's are immensely immersion shattering and barely explained to us in any meaningful way despite their extreme relevance to the whole property. With the duple's in-particular I was greatly saddened as in early episodes, the idea the duple came about as a partial Witch transformation but the fact that the respective girl's soul gem was still in one piece meant they could come back from the brink, seemed like an interesting new take, very high risk high reward, but what explanation we did get just made it a boring Gacha-game power up mechanic with seemingly minimal consequences so far. The same can be said of the soul gem purification mechanic for making girl's stronger, which gets mentioned all of once and then never again as far as I could tell, in fact the whole idea of the Magical girl refuge is a great one, especially the flavor text that implies they may even get donations of grief seeds from the stronger girls to get passed down to the weaker ones but again it raises questions and doesn't really go anywhere.

Again some stuff is great but poorly explored, we have the idea that the magical girls don't age, finally getting confirmed on screen and the thought that Yachiyo is somewhere in her late 20's or 30's is great, it further helps clear up theory's many of us had for the original, like how Homura still looks 14 despite all her time travel shenanigan's or why Kyouko (16) looks far younger. However it once more falls short by not actually doing anything with this information, sure it's great that Yachiyo once mentions liking shopping sales, cute even and she has a job but we never get to learn or have a proper conversation between her and Momo say, discussing the crushing reality that none of them are aging or that if they are they're doing so at a greatly reduced rate, maybe they could discuss the idea of forcefully changing their appearance like we sort of see in the McDonald's scence, or maybe actual weigth loss or height gain possibilities for the characters to grapple with. It's a terribly wasted opportunity for some really great character depth, that gets completely squandered. Another is the fact 4 of our gang fight the witch from episode one of the original anime to recover some coasters, which is a great reference to how all the witches are coming to the city and therefore never went to fight Mami elsewhere - except it's placement makes no flipping sense. I'm not to fussed about timelines but Record seems intent on pushing just how far I'll tolerate on that particular front.

Finishing Thoughts - Is Iroha a Protagonist?;
As I don't have much in the way of unique takes to say on the actual plot of the story I've mostly absented from doing so but as we near the end of our review I find myself compelled to air a final grievance. Record operates like an anthology series and while it manages not too go to over-board on the size of it's cast like so many of it's Gacha game compatriots have before it, it still has a-lot of characters and stories it wants to get through. We see these through the eyes of Iroha and while I agree that getting to see each of the Magical girl teams living their normal daily life's, like going for fast food, having petty falling outs with one another and buying colour coded mugs for their shared home, it often times feels like Iroha is a third wheel to the stories she's experiencing. I don't mind that the likes of how Momoko comes to relie on her markedly fast as it seems likely that more tolerant magical girls will take allies where-ever they can find them but for the most part, about half of the short stories could probably function with-out the inclusion of Iroha, she's superfluous. Now again I'll state that this could work and in show's like Shuffle I love how the protagonist essentially does very little to solve the problems of the people around him until later on in the story. Furthermore I really do like Iroha but it all gives the story a wavy feel, to it's credit she reminds us of her quests just the right amount that we never forget but not so much that it gets annoying, in fact it's all kind of working until the final act. Had the show reminded fairly antilogical with the vague goal of tracking down Uii and the primary focus on building a found family, then I really think this could of worked but as already mentioned and discussed, the more the plot broadens in scope into a battle against a secretive cobal of 'evil?' magical girls, the weaker and less fun it gets.

I mean why exactly are we fighting the wings of the Magus? Sure Mami goes a bit loppy but that's only at the very end. Are we fighting them because they're methods harm civilians? If that's the case surely the fact its hinted there're gonna face down Walpurgisnauch means they'll actually save more people in the grand scheme of things. In the end it's more missed potential, the wings are constantly painted as the 'bad guys' and any chance of them being a nuanced enemy with an "the ends justify the means" mentality is thrown away when they start literally brainwashing people in the final two episodes. It's once more a great shame.

To conclude I really do like Record, I enjoyed it a whole lot, it's a good show to binge over a couple of days (and I don't normally advocate much in the way of binge watching) and the dub is good enough (It's not mind blowing as they're aren't any big enough moments for the voice actors sub or dub to properly stretch their vocal cords, however all the VA's do a great job, Kyouko is once again my favorite performance even with-out any moments to show her range, like when trying to rescue Sayaka in the original, furthermore it's really great and much appreciated that they got Sayaka, Kyouko and Mami's voice actors back, just a shame they didn't get better material), however it's split focus and ending that isn't just open but is gaping wide, maars what is otherwise a gripping production that could of been the best Gacha game adaptation ever made if threated differently.

Whatever the case, I'll still look forward to more simpler moments with Iroha and Ya-Chan and the opportunity to finally get to see the five fight together as one in series 2.
I hope you enjoyed,
Thanks for reading.