#Welcome to Uwasa Aquarium

[muffinrecord]

I was watching Swimsuit Mami’s henshin video (link here) and I’m always struck by this part. Mami decorated the beach with large flower patterns, looks up happily at the camera and then...

She just stands there. For hours, maybe. Waiting for night to fall and the moon to come out, and the tide to come in and undo all her work.

It feels so strikingly lonely to me. She hasn’t moved from her spot, it’s not like the other Mitakihara girls are around so why is she there? And, is anyone actually around or not? Like, you have moments like this

Where she turns around to the camera with a smile, as if she’s looking at someone, and also this

Where she makes a cute little pose. But looking at the beach you don’t see any footprints and there’s not really any other kind of evidence to support that someone is with her.

The whole vibe just feels lonely to me. But at the same time, I don’t think Mami is sad here. She can put on a facade at times but she seems genuine enough in the above screenshots when she smiles, and then you have this part

where she summons all of her firecrackers. To me it feels like she was waiting for this chance.

I’m probably looking into this too much, but I wonder if Mami wanted to be alone and be creative without any sort of outside pressure. She’s posing and being dramatic for fun and it’s okay that the ocean flowed over her flowers in the sand, because those were just for her anyways. So were the firecrackers, which she launches, takes a good look at, and then turns away from. 

Yeah, I’m definitely looking into this too much. Also side note, the colors in this henshin are fucking beautiful. 

[magiamemoriareview]

Fluttering Sakura Aquarium

Effect: Magia Damage Cut [25%] (All / 1 Turn)

TLDR: “Fluttering Sakura Aquarium” is sadly not very good, even for an event reward memoria. There are narrowly specific instances where it could be helpful, so you don’t want to exactly get rid of it, but overall you’ll probably forget you even own this. This memoria is exclusive to completing the “Welcome to Uwasa Aquarium” event.

Review: Sadly, “Fluttering Sakura Aquarium” isn’t that useful, even for an event reward. Even Free-to-Play players may find that this memoria rots in the back of their memoria vault. There is a very specific kind of battle where “Fluttering Sakura Aquarium” has the possibility of helping, and for that you shouldn’t get rid of it, but it’s rare that you’ll come across that kind of encounter. Let’s take a look why, starting with defining its effect: Magia Damage Cut is a buff applied to the self that will decrease the damage Magia does to the equipped unit. You can compare and contrast this to the effect Magia Damage Down, which effects the enemy unit instead.

Magia Damage Cut isn’t inherently a bad thing. On enemies who are immune to debuffs, this allows you to still protect a character against Magia specifically, and “Fluttering Sakura Aquarium” let’s you protect an entire team! However, Magia Damage Cut is also very limiting in scope.  Right away, “Fluttering Sakura Aquarium” isn’t going to be useful for most PVE fights-- you’ll only want to use it for fights against Magical girls (or perhaps Kimochi) where an enemy Magia is possible to encounter. 

While the fact that “Fluttering Sakura Aquarium” works on your whole team is nice, it comes at a heavy cost-- 25% is stupidly low. If you’re fighting an enemy that has hard-hitting Magia, then this 25% is unlikely to save you or make enough of an impact that it makes any real difference. If you’re fighting an enemy where the 25% can help prevent damage, then that Magia probably wasn’t hitting hard in the first place. Additionally, a cooldown at 9 is just long enough that even for a battle such as the Hundred Calamities, “Fluttering Sakura Aquarium” might not even be up often enough to be useful. Lastly this memoria isn’t going to be helpful when it comes to farming-- unless the enemy uses Magia or a Doppel asap, as the equipped character will use it right away, incoming Magia or not.

Essentially it comes down to this-- why use “Fluttering Sakura Aquarium” when you could use something far more useful and powerful instead? For example, any sort of Attack Down/Damage Down:

(4*) “The Way Home After Rain (Mito)” Attack Down [50%] & Defense Down [45%] (All / 1 Turn)

(4*) “An Inhabitant from Another World” Attack Down [30%] & Chance to Charm [42.5%] (All / 1 turn)

(4*) “Reliable Negotiator” Damage Down [50%] (All / 1 Turn) & Status Ailment Resistance Up [60%] (Self / 1 Turn)

(3*) “The Way Home after the Rain (Leila)“ Attack Down [35%] (One / 1 Turn) & Chance to Darkness [100%]

(Limited 4*) “The True Gift Was the Smile” Attack Down [65%] (One / 1 Turn) & Dazzle [100%] (One / 1 Turn)

(Limited 4*) “For This Fine Day” Attack Down [50%] & Damage Down [45%] (One / 1 Turn)

(Limited 4*) “Nagisa Will Resolve Things!“ Attack Down [20%] (One / 2 Turns) & Blast Damage Down [22.5%] (One / 2 Turns) & Chance to Stun [37.5%] (One / 1 Turn)

All of these have the benefit that they don’t just apply to maiga, but will make the enemy hit less hard on their generic attacks too. There are even three star memoria that will provide more defense than “Fluttering Sakura Aquarium.” But maybe the enemy can’t be debuffed. Well, perhaps try these memoria, which will apply a defense buff to your character instead:

(4*) “The One and Only Contradiction” Damage Cut [25%] & Chance to Critical Hit [30%] (Self / 3 Turns)

(4*) “For My Treasured Ones” Damage Cut [20%] & Regenerate HP [5%] (Self / 3 Turns)

(3*) “The Strongest, Even at Basketball” Defense Up [60%] & Status Ailment Resistance Up [50%] (Self / 1 Turn)

(3*) ”A Symbol of Acquaintance” Damage Cut [10%] & Regenerate HP [3%] (Self / 3 turns)

(Limited 4*) “Blessing to the Fighting Girls” Defense Up [52.5%] (Self / 1 Turn) & Blast Damage Down [27.5%] & Magia Damage Down [50%] (One / 1 Turn)

(Limited 4*) “How About Delicious Chocolate?“ Defense Up [30%] & Attack Up [25%] & Regenerate HP [6%] (Self / 3 turns)

(Limited 4*) “Mischievous Duo” Defense Up [30%] (Self / 3 Turns) & HP Restore [30%] (Lowest HP Ally)

(Limited 4*) “Like This Since When” Defense Up [22.5%] (Self / 3 Turns) & MP Gain Up [12.5%] (Self / 3 Turns)

Well, maybe this doesn’t help. Maybe the enemy has Ignore Damage Cut or Defense Pierce, and they’re about to hit you with a difficult Magia. Well... in that very specific case, then perhaps “Fluttering Sakura Aquarium” has some use. If you’re worried about a powerful enemy attack, then layering this memoria with another Damage Down/Attack Down memoria could prove helpful, but you might be better off just trying to prevent the Magia instead, through memoria like:

(4*) “What Flavor Is Break Time (Touka)“ MP Gain Down [50%] (All / 1 Turn)

(3*) “The One Who Waits” MP Gain Down [25%] (All / 3 turns)

(Limited 4*) “The Beginning Is Here“ MP Gain Down [40%] (One / 3 turns)

(Limited 4*) "It Seems I Wasn’t Good Enough” MP Gain Down [25%] & Attack Down [20%] (All / 1 Turn)

But overall, this stupidly long review just amounts to saying that “Fluttering Sakura Aquarium” is very limited in how it can help you and you’re better off using almost anything else. Its passive DEF stats don’t even qualify it as a Stat Stick.

[muffinrecord]

I really like matchin characters up with their event backgrounds, and one thing that guts me is that NA Refugees won’t be able to get old backgrounds ever again. 

I want Kokoro+Masara’s Happier Heights mountain trail background again

[muffinrecord]

In case you’re wondering, this is the background for the upcoming event! No new music or anything like that. 

[muffinrecord]

Also, real quick: I don’t think the game is in danger*. I feel like there are possibly a few things going on here:

Covid issues (although you’d think it’d be better by now? Maybe its lingering covid issues?)

The original company recently bought back control from a different company and maybe they’re trying to recoup the money they spent to do so? Sorry, I haven’t slept for like two days but look at Raz Anime’s video here that goes into that some.

Maybe the original company wants to run the game in a different manner?

“they have been doing a LOT of reruns and imo i think they might be considering overhauling parts of the story and redoing them or figuring out what to do with main story rn now that the writers have a little more freedom” (Source)

I’m honestly not sure. These are just guesses so it could be something completely different too.

*If the game is in danger, Akuma Homura will be released. Then we panic. I don’t think we’re at that point yet.

Who knows. This is an event with Sakurako, Ikumi, and Ryo in it, so maybe Ryo will get an uncap afterwards.

Also, I took a look, and I think we can expect another summer rerun soon. Note the list of girls who you can buy costumes for:

“Ikumi Makino, Midori Ryou, Nagisa Momoe, Kirari Hikaru, Kasane Ao, Sasame Yozuru”

See who is missing here? all the Arc One swimsuits. So it could be possible that we’ll have the arc two summer rerun event, pause, then an arc one summer event rerun event? Maybe not? I dunno. x_x

[muffinrecord]

I got Summer Mami! Who is basically who I wanted, so I’m really happy ;_;

I might not have Holy Mami but at least I have this alt of her!

I also threw a single ticket at SwimSakurako’s banner and got Tsukuyo, whose presence I’ve been missing, so I’m really happy with that too :D Two new characters to work on!

[muffinrecord]

Also note:

Last year (I was actually around for this) they had a swimsuit unit rerun in May, and then had the actual swimsuit units out in July/August.

So I wouldn’t worry too much about swimsuit units being out right now. I do think it’s really early for it, which is kind of weird but...

One thing about swimsuit units is that they sell really well and are good bait. And considering that the game is gonna want to bait folks before anniversary, I can’t see them releasing swimsuit units too early...?

Unless they want to like, release seven million of them. In which case oh god oh no

[muffinrecord]

so EX-4-- you’re def going to want a whale support here.

The bear all the way on the left has 100% evade, so you want either a connect with anti-evade or an active/passive memoria with anti-evade. The bear on the bottom has a ton of defense, so anything with defense pierce will work (curse also helped).

The bear all the way on the right has a super chunky amount of HP, will provoke randomly, and also has status ailment resistance. Critical Hit will help here, but so will doppels, magia, charge combos, ect.

The whole thing is extremely annoying. Also, the left and middle bear will afflict you with accele mp gain down/mp gain down, and the one on the right will afflict you with defense down/attack down, so a character that can remove debuffs via connect is a good idea (Nanaka is one).

I used a support Haregi Sayaka for her defense pierce connect, my 4s Matsuri because she gives anti-evade and evade, and then my nanaka because she can remove debuffs via connect. It went into round 18, but it ended up working in the end.

[muffinrecord]

Here is the event video for “Welcome to Uwasa Aquarium”! We can say thank you to Cett from the Magia Union Translations discord for translating this! 

This isn’t my video, but as encouragement to the translators and recorders, let’s all try to leave a like plus a positive comment since everyone is doing this for free! (Sorry to be annoying, I just want to make sure folks feel the happiness from their community for their hard work).

[muffinrecord]

Thanks to Antimony (youtube channel here) for translating!

Top: |Would you like to cool down with a scary story?| 

Middle: |Let's go play in my Uwasa Aquarium.| 

Bottom: |Are you okay? Have you fallen ill from heat stroke?|

[muffinrecord]

There is nothing more satisfying in the world than approaching the last bosses of the Hundred Evils with a lineup like this:

[muffinrecord]

I want this as a new background 

[muffinrecord]

Muffin Report

Last one!

Pleased to have this doppel. If I could get Alina and Momoko, then the first few rows of the doppel book would be complete...

Also this took me long enough >.>’

[muffinrecord]

God when was the last time we had a proper unlimited event. Not an unlimited character herself (Juri) or an unlimited Mitama Training (Mikage) or a Mirrors Ranking or a Kimochi but an actual unlimited event?

I’m pretty sure that was Girls in the Hood/ Jun Kazari’s release, aka the event that started in SEPTEMBER*

game pls

*slightly exaggerated as it premiered on September 28th BUT YOU GET MY POINT

[muffinrecord]

AUGH, EX-CHALLENGE 5 WAS A MASSIVE PAIN

So, this is some advice I saw from the big discord and it ended up working well for me: Manaka, Ao, and a big damage dealer doppel.

I ended up using a support 4s Ao, my 4s Manaka, and my 4s Oriko.

You want to get everyone to doppel quickly as possible, and you also need them to survive for as long as possible. Here’s the memoria I used:

Basically stuff to increase MP gain and stuff to make them live longer. I gave Manaka the Sayaka Flower memoria because Manaka can heal others, but not herself.

Manaka and Ao’s doppels will raise the team’s attack and damage for three turns, meaning that as long as you get Oriko to doppel within those three turns, you can use them. Aka, it’s okay if they die before Oriko as long as Oriko still has the attack up/damage up effects.

This one was really frustrating before I found a good support.

Lastly, you can sub Ao for Mikage (if she’s at 4s) if you find one.

Good luck!

[muffinrecord]

Muffin Report: Swimsuit Mami

Pretty straightforward one!

Eyyy! Took a while to get all the mats this time around...

And then did her MSS battle--

and how cute! I like how festive this is, especially with the little glasses and the palm tree leaves. Her regular doppel is just a little thing on her head, so I think this must be based off of her Holy Mami doppel instead.