Magia Record: Mahou Shoujo Madoka☆Magica Gaiden Final Season - Asaki Yume no Akatsuki

This whole series was so good! I rated all of them a 10/10 by how good it was. But these 4 episodes really did the series justice! It's perfect. I cried so much though. I love this series since I was a kid. So good! I was mad for a second at the end but I'm so glad I just let it happen. The more I thought about it the more I realized it all made sense. I loved the last part of episode 4. It was so wonderful. When I first watched 2 episodes when this series first came out I didn't care and ... couldn't get into it. But now that it's over I'm so so happy with it. I'll definitely rewatch it sometime in the future. Since I do that with the original. I love magical girl shows.

"I'm sorry Ui. Your big sister... let you down."

Story: Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story Final Season continues, and finishes, our journey with Iroha Tamaki and friends, as they look to stop Touka and Nemu from finishing their plan to launch Embryo Eve at Walpurgisnacht. Based on my opening quotation by Iroha, you can likely tell the mood that this finale seeks to invoke upon its audience.

To start off, there is a lot to unpack here, and that's kind of the final season's biggest problem. There are still a bunch of loose ends to tie up with regards to what ... we saw in the previous two seasons and while Season 2 answers some questions, it didn't touch on them all. They clearly know how they wanted to answer everything, but with only four episodes to address this, it really feels rushed. The pacing is unfortunately too quick to really dig deep into what we see on the screen, including some pretty major fights that occur during the course of the series that really don't go our Magical Girls' way. There are snippets of our characters feeling like there's no real hope here and I thought it was well executed.

The obvious storyline is what happened to Ui, and they do a fantastic job at showing her storyline from her point of view. Simply put, I loved it. There's a very good season Magic Record had all the conflict with the magical girls that it does, and linking it back to Ui's storyline was one thing that I felt was done really well. I really liked the obstacles that get in our girls' way, and if only there was more time to stretch out that last episode, it could have ended on a much higher note. You get to the end and notice that one of the main plot points has not changed even in the slightest. (7/10)

Characters: Iroha is the obvious lead here, and even though she didn't have as much screen time as we were likely expecting, it was done so at the expense of Ui and her crew which was the right call. Iroha unfortunately doesn't screen leader to me, and the decisions that she makes along the way don't come even close to Madoka and her crew. She just wants it to end well, and I wasn't a fan of the script that was used with her. Ui, on the other hand, doesn't have a lot to her until her storyline wraps up. Then you see what her and her friends are feeling when all is said in done. I liked what they did here because it presents us with a bit of a Catch-22, all because Iroha wanted to be the responsible sister.

Yachiyo was the star of the first season and even though you can tell that her principles held constant here, she really doesn't have a ton of screen time, along with Sana, Felicia, Tsuruno, Kaede and Rena. They kind of just fill the spots of "another magical girl". This is a shame because of how much screen time they collectively had in the first season - this kind of makes it feel like a waste because it reduces them to much less than what we believed they'd be. To see not even Yachiyo get meaningful screen time after a big deal was made of her in the first season is rather disappointing. Kuroe, Momoko and Mifuyu were a little more involved here than the others. Alina Gray is someone we don't know what to feel about when we first see her, but she was one that probably needed some more explanation, based on the decisions she makes at the end. I wasn't impressed.

You're probably wondering if any of this connects to Madoka and her crew, but they were mostly absent in the final season. What really impressed me was how they were implemented into the end of the first season and the entirety of the second, and to see them not even involved here will disappoint plenty of audiences. The ending kind of takes a hint at them, but that's about it. (6/10)

Art: The animation here is fine, but it's definitely a step down from the second season, for whatever reason. The second season had a lot of fantastic animations and even though this season has a lot of spots for flashy art, there were a lot of instances of characters not looking right and fights looking straight up flat. So while the fights had a ton of colour and witches still looked amazing, the dip in quality is pretty disappointing. (6/10)

Sound: This was probably the aspect that kept constant throughout the series. TrySail's Lapis is a fantastic song that has the tune that mirrors the pessimistic plotlines that follow around our crew into the finale. The OST was also a fantastic addition here. Voice work was equally up to the task, with Kira Buckland (Iroha), Mela Lee (Nemu) and Cassandra Lee Morris (Kyuubey) likely being my favourites. (9/10)

Overall: To see Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story Final Season finish on such a low note of not addressing one of Magia Record's plotlines is really disappointing. The overall story and animation take a dip from the, mostly strong, season 2 and makes for a questionable way to finish. There are some strong elements for sure, and yes, it's still a magical girl storyline but an incomplete one. Which is why I'm excited for whenever Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie - Walpurgisnacht: Rising is coming. The main Madoka storyline is simply better. (7/10)

How can four episodes make me so pissed off? Istg, thank god it was only four episodes so that I was able to binge watch them and be annoyed that I wasted my time to this "ending" thingy or whatever. I could give a lower score, however the music/some of the pretty art mainly keep the score a bit higher.

I was disappointed. I still am disappointed at this hot mess. I'm glad that its over so that I can go back with the OG timeline and believe that its the only plot line that exists. Do not turn mobile games into anime, if you ... cannot create a decent storyline.

Skip the whole magia record, watch something else.