Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku (Magical Girl Raising Project)

For many girls in N-City, playing the popular social role-playing game Magical Girl Raising Project is as close as they could come to being a real magical girl. However, for some rare players, that dream can become a reality. One such girl is Koyuki Himekawa, who receives a notification one night that she has been selected to become a magical girl, her in-game avatar Snow White.

As Koyuki and other chosen players in the city begin helping those in need, they all receive yet another notification: the admins have decided that they want to reduce the number of magical girls. Whoever collects the least amount of Magical Candies—which are awarded for their magical girl activities—in their competition each week will lose their powers. But when a real-world tragedy happens to the first player that drops out, they are shown the repercussions of losing their abilities. As more participants inevitably lose the competition and more twisted rules are added, the girls soon realize that their "contest" is actually a desperate fight for survival.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Adaptation:	Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku
Sequel:	Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku: Restart

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Characters & Voice Actors

Sazanami, Kano

Main

Numakura, Manami
Japanese

Himekawa, Koyuki

Main

Touyama, Nao
Japanese

Hatoda, Ako

Supporting

Hidaka, Rina
Japanese

Sanjou, Nemu

Supporting

Hanamori, Yumiri
Japanese

Murota, Tsubame

Supporting

Uchiyama, Yumi
Japanese

Kishibe, Souta

Supporting

Sakura, Ayane
Japanese

Sakanagi, Ayana

Supporting

Minase, Inori
Japanese

Inubouzaki, Tama

Supporting

Nishi, Asuka
Japanese

Mori no Ongakuka Cranberry

Supporting

Ogata, Megumi
Japanese

Ashuu, Shizuku

Supporting

Kobayashi, Yuu
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Higa, Yuuji

Producer

WEST GROUND

Producer, Theme Song Composition, Theme Song Arrangement

Kashimura, Emi

Producer

Hashimoto, Hiroyuki

Director

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Opening Theme

"Sakebe (叫べ)" by Manami Numakura

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Ending Theme

"DREAMCATCHER" by nano

Reviews

Apr 11, 2022

PixelB

Recommended

*spoiler free

To preface: I love the survival death game genre. Was Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku enjoyable to me? Yes, since it's the type of show I like. However, even if you don't like it, you might want to give the show at shot. Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku is one of the few survival death games shows where the participants involved actually had enough characterization for the show make me care about some of the characters.

I think that this show had some potential to be as good as something like Puella Madoka. The reason why it doesn't comes down to a few factors: the pacing, art ... style, animation, and execution of a lot of the scenes in the show.

These problems kind of intertwine with each other. The main reason why I liked this show to begin with had to definitely be because of the fact that the prologue to the free-for all death battle was actually really slow paced. The first 4-5 episodes were actually just setup for the actual free-for all battle to come, and that was what made the characters not complete pieces of cardboard when they started battling each other. With the slow pacing in the beginning, it doesn't come off as edgy compared to the shows that just start off with killing each other. Oh boy, well, it does definitely become edgy as hell. However, for the beginning of the show, I think that the various alliances and relationships of all the characters are delineated quite well, and is definitely one of the main factors for the show's success. I mean, it's really hard to have 16 relevant characters, let alone in just a 4-5 episodes. Puella Madoka clearly has an easy time of having good character development because there's only like, 4 characters to worry about in 12 episodes. It's also the main reason why death game shows tend to be more shallow and have way less character depth. It's true. However, despite all odds, this show, given the cards that they were dealt with, manages to make the best use of their time to try introducing so many characters in so little time.

That said, the second half of the show is quite fast paced, and a lot of the battles don't have much impact because they occur at such fast timing. There's not much investigating into a person's powers, and nor is there any scouting out opponents. It's more like, people agree to fight in a specific location, or one party manages to track down the other party with no explanation. That's one of the main reasons why a lot of the times that people die in this show don't have as much impact as they should. Still, when people died or backstabbed one another, it was still pretty intense, and I myself had moments when a character lived or died.

Of course, pacing is way too fast, but the other problem is the execution of all of these battles. See, what Puella Madoka beats in this show tenfold is the atmosphere. When this show has battles to the death, it doesn't feel like it. There doesn't seem to be any tension in a lot of the scenes. This is mainly due to animation costs. The fights and backgrounds, and any character facial movements are so simplistic and low-cost that it actually cheapens the scenes by a large amount. The framing, the backgrounds, the perspective changes, and the pacing of a lot of the serious scenes in Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica is one of the reasons why these dark scenes stick and are memorable. This show kind of has no such impact and has no memorable scenes. In fact, it's kind of difficult to "just" blame the poor animation, since the damn lighting is so bright. Why is every fight so bright when it's at night? I usually complain that shows use too dark of a color pallete when it comes to horror/gore, but this show has such bright lighting despite almost every single fight occurring at night. It really dampens the mood when the show should be, well, dark. Another thing is voice acting. It's not that good. A lot of the lines that are said that should have been serious turn into more of something that's reminiscent of a comedic skit just because it's so badly delivered sometimes. An example:
"She's going to kill everyone if I don't stop her."
"Seriously?"
The "seriously" line was delivered as if the other party said she was breaking up with her boyfriend or something, not one that entails a battle to the death. Of course, some of this can be due to the ridiculous naming. Calamity Mary, Swim Swim, WinterPrison, Cranberry, and a lot more cringe names are used in serious scenes, and it just makes me laugh instead of thinking that it's serious.

Other than that, there's the edginess of this show: it is high. It is sometimes cringe, but mostly, it's edgy. But, hey, it makes sense. Unlike other shows where people are edgy and stupid for no reason, this show has a really good reason. A lot of girls picked with a lot of different backgrounds were deliberately picked. No difference there, but girls were picked in various age groups, so you'll literally be having high school students fighting elementary students, and middle school students fighting mothers. Most of all, a lot of these girls were picked because they were crazy, while others were picked because they fit the role as orthodox magic girls. I enjoy the character variation. Some girls are smarter than others, while some possess different mindsets and resolutions to kill other people. Other girls are just outright insane. Actually, despite not liking the pacing or animation of a lot of the fight scenes, the actual contents of them are well made. It's usually not just a "1 on 1," and there's definitely a lot of different sorts of fights, with a lot of variations depending on which characters are present, and what powers are available to them. You definitely do not get bored from all of the different fights. Usually, most of the girls fight really inefficiently, or just plain stupid, and it's only near the end where fights become more and more between experienced players familiar with their powers. And it makes a lot of sense considering that many of the characters are different ages motivations, and powers.

Lastly, I suppose I'll talk about the main character. While other main characters in shows may piss you off because they're a super generic shounen protagonist whose only trait is that they're "kind to their friends," this show has a main character, in my mind, was deliberately made to piss you off the most. She was definitely created to be hated. While other main characters have plot armor in the form of OP powerups, our MC has powerful plot armor in that she just survives. Without spoiling anything, I can't say anymore, but of course the MC survives. In fact, there's a girl pair that I think is deliberately written to mirror the MC and even her companion, but since they're not the main characters, they die off in a pretty predictable manner. But not for Snow White! She will survive. Snow White really was such a hateable character, but since that's what I think was the point, she's a well written character. She's weak willed, powerless, and our one and only main character. When she survives instead of another character that actually had some motivation, to survive and the powers to back it up, you really wished that she survived instead of Snow White.

Overall, this show only adapts one volume of the quite long Light Novel series. I enjoyed this series so far, so I will give it a read, but I really do wonder what made the novel series rush the beginning so much. If this show was spread into maybe, 24 episodes, it probably would have worked out perfectly, pacing wise. I definitely hope that the rushing of the story gets justified in the plot that follows in volume 2.

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Mar 22, 2023

MakeItRayne

Mixed Feelings

Magical Girl Raising Project (2016) Mostly Spoiler Free Review:

I checked this out after suggestions from friends in response to looking for a new death game anime to watch. I have not read the manga or novels.

Ultimately I have mixed feelings. I went into this without high hopes as I usually am pretty eh about the magical girl genre, however this anime deconstructed the genre pretty fast (similar to Madoka in a way but less trippy).

The good: The show managed to have some pretty unpredictable moments. The premise was pretty interesting, starting off as one kind of show before quickly transforming into something very dark ...

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Jan 5, 2021

Mistrals

Not Recommended

Character deaths done right are one of my favourite things in fiction. The absolute gut punch of losing a character I cared about, the ways the story's cast will play off of it and develop, and the impactful, irreparable tone shifts.

You've already read the score I'm giving this, so I'm sure you realize none of that applies to Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku.

It isn't hard to look at Ikusei Keikaku and see exactly what will go wrong with it. It's a one-cour show trying to tell the story of sixteen different magical girls -- and if that wasn't already a difficult enough task, it's a battle ... royale where this expansive cast get butchered.

In other words, the show rides or dies on one specific thing: making me care about these characters and the tragedy that befalls them. It has far less than an episode to do that per character (even before I consider the focus on major characters, the world-building, the set-up, etc.).

The end result is a bunch of meaningless edge and gore as the show introduces characters, develops them for /maybe/ three minutes, and throws them into a blender. Any punch the initial chaos or 'twist' has gets sucked out after episode beyond episode of the exact same formula repeated ad nauseum. It quickly loses any feeling of genuineness when it only exposition dumps a character's backstory right before they're killed in the most underwhelming, blink-and-you-might-miss-it ways. Any impact most of these deaths would have is quickly erased as the show moves onto the next one, and any lingering callback or development it tries to make feels half-baked and hackneyed. Even the fights are often pretty lackluster and can feel rushed through, which is rather problematic when they're one of the core attractions of the show.

That all being said, the most frustrating thing about Ikusei Keikaku is that I care /just/ enough to get frustrated by it. Most of the character concepts and designs are compelling, and there's a fair bit of creativity put into the designs, personalities, and backstories behind them. A trans magical girl, a pair of lesbian lovers, even a buddy cop dynamic -- any one of these could be taken and fleshed out so much more. There's all sorts of differing motivations behind them, and in hindsight I've only grown to appreciate them.

Unfortunately, the show also decides to kill most of the interesting characters quickly and focus primarily on the least likeable and unique of the bunch. This only serves to aggravate the aforementioned issues.

Mild spoilers ahead (though I'll try to avoid the specifics). Our protagonist Snow White is yet another Madoka clone. She's a goody-two-shoes who just wants to help everyone and be friends with everyone and... dear god does this character not have a place in this story. I get what they were trying to go for -- a contrast between the incredibly dark storyline and the cliche heroine. However, what we end up with is a character who doesn't want to participate in the death game because she's too much of a good person... and she indeed doesn't. She continues to survive purely off other characters protecting her/dying for her, or just the blind luck of not being targeted. All the while she wallows in misery about her friends dying and how terrible the world is and just... exists. She's never really directly plot relevant so much as just observing, but even then, the show spends more time away from her than not. Whenever her struggles show up, they're simply not very interesting and a distraction from any meat in the show.

The other main character Ripple is among the least memorable characters in the show. I don't really have anything against her, but her only real personality and charm revolves around her relationship with Top Speed -- beyond that she's a cliche sullen teenager that the show doesn't really do anything special with.

Finally, the third significant character is a major antagonist, Swim Swim. Her power is interesting, but beyond that she's 7 years old and acts like it almost the entire time. Unsurprisingly, an antagonist with the mental capacities of a toddler isn't compelling in the slightest. There's not really much more to say about her, either.

There's a few other things I could pick at (Fav is an embarrassingly blatant attempt at ripping off Kyubey, the initial tone of the show doesn't shift gracefully into the dark 'twist' [which isn't even a twist because it's the entire point of the show], and the ending's character arc resolution feels strange and unimpactful [albeit the source material continues from that point, so it may play off it in more interesting ways]), but there's not much to say about them. The production quality of the show is fine but unremarkable, and the opening and ending songs are both solid but nothing too special.

For closing thoughts, I will at least say that I can't bring myself to really hate this show because I was almost interested in it. I can't say I'd ever recommend watching it, but if you really want to see some mediocre kill-em-all action, you'll find it here.

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An anime adaptation of the second and third volumes of Asari Endou's Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku (Magical Girl Raising Project) light novel, subtitled Restart, ...read more

Jan 29, 2023 10:45 PM by Vindstot | Discuss (25 comments)

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Poll: Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku Episode 12 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ... Last Page ) Stark700 - Dec 17, 2016	341 replies	by Fn76 »» Jan 28, 1:54 PM
Poll: Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku Episode 6 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ... Last Page ) Stark700 - Nov 5, 2016	254 replies	by minimiau »» Apr 11, 2023 5:11 PM
Restart is getting an anime!! mahoushaojiu - Jan 29, 2023	12 replies	by Timcampy »» Jan 30, 2023 1:22 AM
Poll: Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku Episode 11 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ) Stark700 - Dec 10, 2016	233 replies	by KillMeDaddyUwU »» Jan 8, 2023 9:19 AM
Poll: Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku Episode 10 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ) Stark700 - Dec 3, 2016	204 replies	by KillMeDaddyUwU »» Jan 8, 2023 8:47 AM

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