vito4856 - Tumblr blog

vito4856 · 6 years ago

Text

Dark Magical Girl Reviews

I’m a fan of magical girls and I thought it would be fun to do a review of the dark magical girl animes that have come out after Madoka Magica. I’m aware that there were darker magical girl shows pre Madoka (Revolutionary Girl Utena, Princess Tutu, Uta Kata, etc) but I’ll be focusing on the ones that came out post Madoka, as PMMM had a huge impact on the genre and made dark MG stories popular (though despite what some people will say, it is not the majority of magical girl shows being released, it just made this sub genre of magical girls more profitable and accessible. The vast majority of magical girl shows are still on the lighter side). I’ll be covering, Yuki Yuna is a Hero, Magical Girl Raising Project, Magical Girl Site, and Day Break Illusion as they’re (atm) the only other dark MG shows. Some spoilers will be discussed so fair warning.

Let’s get started!

Puella Magi Madoka Magica

I just wanted to give my opinion on PMMM first before we get started on the shows that often get compared to it/get called rip offs of.

I won’t go over PMMM’s story or characters, as they’re so well known at this point. It’s a surreal, psychological, and horrifying tragedy. It’s writing is superb, its use of symbolism, color, music, and sound all masterful. It’s a masterpiece of dark media that still keeps that Magical Girl flair of frilly dresses, and a message of hope. 10/10, 5/5, 100/100

Yuki Yuna is a Hero

Often called Madoka Lite, Yuki Yuna is amazing. Outside of just the basic premise of, girls get magical powers, learn it comes with huge strings attached and suffer due to the magic system of their world, there’s actually not much similar between them.

The animation is gorgeous, the music is haunting and beautiful (being done by Keiichi Okabe, aka, composer of Nier: Automata), the character designs and fights are great. The writing has a good balance of comedy and tragedy, showing a lot more highs and a lot more lows than the other shows on this list. The acting is easily some of the best I’ve heard from any anime, especially Fu’s actor during her breakdown scene; it’s on par with Sayaka’s acting during her spiral into depression. The first season, IMO, is weaker than it’s second, as it spends a large amount of time on filler esque material, which while it did a good job fleshing out the girls relationships, did feel like padding to reach the episode count. The second season, Hero Chapter and Washio Sumi is a Hero, are outstanding and the fact they were able to tell both stories, and both of them be better, expand the lore, and also be more emotional than the original series, in 6 episodes for each part, is so damn impressive. The character’s are all lovable and Yuna is a great main character.

Only real issues with the show is that magical girl system in this is kinda ableist? In the first season, when the girls use a special mode of their magical girl form, it ends up taking away one of their bodily functions (taste, vision, hearing, use of limbs, etc). I can understand why people would be off put by that but the show never really says that the characters are lesser people after that happens to them, and the character in a wheelchair, Togo, is shown being accommodated for her disability and not left out of things just because she can’t walk. Given that the second season dropped that system, I think the creators might have realized the implications and wanted to fix that. Only other issue is that while the show is pretty clean, the transformation sequences have some fanservice moments which really stand out from how non fanservicey the show itself is. The transformation sequences aren’t shown often though so that’s a saving grace at least.

TLDR: Outside of a few hiccups, this show is not only an amazing dark magical girl anime, it’s one of the best magical girl animes out there, period. It’s not a PMMM knock off, and you would be doing yourself a disservice for not watching it for that reason.

Magical Girl Raising Project

To be honest, Magical Girl Raising Project was the one I was dreading to watch as all I knew about it was that it had a reputation for slaughtering most of its cast in an extremely brutal fashion.

Had I known that MGRP was a magical girl version of say, Mirai Nikki, I wouldn’t have been so apprehensive as killing game stories naturally have a high body count. That being said though, I’m torn with this one. It is a very well made show, and kept me wanting to watch more and more of it but as a magical girl show it kinda fails.

The characters, outside of the ones you’re meant to hate, are all likeable, making their tragic deaths all the more heart wrenching. Although they’re not super fleshed out for the most part, all of the characters are given backstories and a distinct personality, and developed before they die.Snow White is everything you would want in a magical girl protagonist,and you’re rooting for her the entirety of the show (despite her taking a back seat for several other characters). I would have preferred Cranberry as the main villain as I found her much more frightening and entertaining but that’s a bit of a nitpick.

It’s animation is really good, the songs are catchy, and the fights visceral and brutal. Due to the short amount of episodes, it does make some of the death’s feel cheap as it doesn’t really have much time to let the audience grieve. If it had more than 12 episodes I think the pacing issues in the show would be fixed and there would be more time to better flesh out characters or give their deaths more impact.

My main gripe with the show is that it doesn’t really have any message of Hope like the others on this list have, or what MG shows should have. Although Ripple and Snow White are shown continuing to help the world after ending the Project, they still came out of it much more bitter and angry and their ultimately was no point to their suffering outside of Cranberry being a huge sadist.

TLDR: MGRP is an extremely well made and entertaining killing game story with a magical girl skin over top of it. If you enjoy heart ache, and cool fights then I’d recommend it. If you’re looking for a dark story with a nice message in it, then this is not the show for you.

Magical Girl Site

Magical Girl Site is a hard one to cover. It’s the hardest to recommend out of all of them due to the content (abuse, self harm, bullying, rape) in it. It’s the one that gets lauded the most for being ‘edgy’ and dismissed right out of the gate as nothing more than torture porn due to the graphic nature of the first episode. Having watched the entire thing, and started reading the manga, I’m really torn on how to actually grade it.

Although MGRP has the more traditional outfits, MGS actually felt more like a more traditional MG anime than it did. Instead of brutally killing each other, the girls all work together to try and stop the end of the world. Instead of slowly over the course of the show having the characters get into worse and worse scenarios and slowly broken, like in Yuki Yuna is a Hero, the characters are shown being put through hell once they’re introduced. All of the main girls are suffering in some capacity, and its due to how shitty their lives are that they are given the chance to become a magical girl, instead of suffering for becoming a magical girl.

MGS has an extremely rough beginning that is not for the faint of heart, but this is done to establish that the characters are at their lowest; that they have nothing else to lose. And its from there that the girls are able improve their lives; becoming friends with one another on their quest to stop the Tempest and the Admins. To help each other heal, and recover from their traumas and find new purposes in life. Over the course of the story Aya is shown going from wanting to fling herself in front of a train and being viciously bullied and abused, to having a loving girlfriend and a circle of friends, and being able to stand up for herself. It has an incredibly fucked up introduction but it still plays out like a typical magical girl story; and I found its message of hope for the characters (those who are bullied, suicidal, self harming, lgbt, etc) to be very relatable. I also very much enjoyed what it did with idol culture, showcasing how creepy/stalkerish idol otaku can be to their underage idols, and how sexualized idols are, which isn’t something I’ve never seen done before.

That said though, it’s so ham fisted in its execution for so many parts that some parts are unintentionally hilarious or not nearly as horrifying/serious as they should be. Although I loved the cast of characters, none of them outside of Aya and Tsuyuno feel very fleshed out. There are several sexual situations (Nijimi and her wand, Mikari and her butler) that are shown that made me uncomfortable, as instead of being presented in a frightening light they were played off in a joking manner.

TLDR: This series is very much love it or hate it. It’s execution of its ideas leaves a lot to be desired but its still an enjoyable if flawed ride. If you think you can handle the rough material in it, and are okay with some cheese, then I highly recommend it.

Day Break Illusion

Daybreak Illusion was one I wasn’t aware of when I initially started this post as I wasn’t aware it was part of the dark mg sub-genre (I had it in my Crunchyroll que for a while and decided to watch it). I don’t see anyone talking about this show and I think that’s a bit disappointing as it’s a really, really cool show.

Daybreak Illusion has some really good character designs and it’s art is so stylized, especially with Akira and her magical girl form, that it’s hard to look away (although I will admit there are some parts where the art just looks….off, and I can’t place why). It’s music is really good and always fits the scenes that they play in.

The fight scenes drift between really awesome and “where did the budget go“ so when we get actual fight segments they’re really hype but there are others that are painfully slow. This also applies to the animation in general as there are parts where, like in the gif, the show is just gorgeous, and others where it looks really stiff and choppy.

It’s writing is extremely strong, and one of it’s best selling points outside of the unique art style. Events that happen in the early episodes that would ordinarily be dropped or forgotten about in other shows play an important part in Akira’s character and play an important role in the resolution of the show. Akira is just as idealistic and all loving as the other protagonists in these shows but actually exploring how that affects the people around her and the negative aspects to having an all loving hero was something I hadn’t seen done by the others and one I really liked. It does something that I extremely love and is what I think more dark magical girl shows should do: instead of the ‘dark’ material being the magical girls suffering due to their being large strings attached to being a magical girl, it’s taking normal magical girls and putting them in morally gray situations with no clear right answer and dealing with the consequences of their actions. The ending gets a little cheesy but I didn’t mind and found the entire ending very hype and enjoyable. The entire show revolves around Tarot and fortune telling and as a fan of Persona I absolutely loved that.

Something that it has in common with Site/Puella Magi that the other shows don’t do is it actually shows and has LGBT themes/characters. One of the people who raised Akira is a transwoman and she’s shown pre-transition in old photos when she was a friend of Akira’s mother. She’s not very feminine and the fact that she’s never once belittled or misgendered or her gender identity made a joke of, was not only very surprising but also very welcome. Akira’s friend, Luna, also has a crush on Akira and instead of that just being teased and hinted at it iis actually addressed and called a romantic love by the cast, with Luna confessing to Akira.

TLDR: This show is really good. It’s not a trend setter like Madoka Magica but it is a very solid and enjoyable magical girl show. If you’re looking for a dark show that explores gray morality in a highly stylized manner, this is the show for you.

So with this all done, here’s how I would rank the show’s:

From an objective standpoint (how well it’s made) it’s 1) Puella Magi Madoka Magica 2) Yuki Yuna is a Hero 3) Magical Girl Raising Project 4) Day Break Illusion 5) Magical Girl Site

From a subjective standpoint (how much I enjoyed it) it’s 1) Puella Magi Madoka Magica 2) Yuki Yuna is a Hero 3) Magical Girl Site 4) Day Break Illusion 5) Magical Girl Raising Project

That being said, I think they’re all good shows and would still recommend all of them if you want to watch a dark magical girl show. Light hearted power of friendship stories are always great, but sometimes you just want that bit of sadness and angst in them, and these all deliver.

516 notes · View notes