Mahou Shoujo Tokushusen Asuka

This is one of those animes that I can not take seriously. Because they mix an excessively realistic story about mafias, drugs and others with a theme of Mahou Shoujo full of adorable things like teddy bears and more. And it is impossible to take this seriously, but the problem is that the series does and that takes me out of the immersion because the suspension of credibility works to a certain extent.

The plot goes of magical girls dressed as whores with post-traumatic stress of a war waged against pink teddy bears and other creatures. The girls deal with problems worthy of CSI with an ... exorbitant gore.

What bothers me is that this fucking shit has that violent content uncensored and animes like Goblin Slayer / Berserk / Tokyo Ghoul (among others) who cry out to have that kind of gore and censor them.

But not content with it, they demonize men at levels bordering on the absurd, almost insulting. And yes that one of those animes Girls = Good, Men = Bad.

TL;DR: F**k the haters. This is excellent. Like a long lost Nanoha sequel updated for the modern age.

I was rather worried when I saw that this anime I had been looking forward to hadn't been able to even break 7.0 barrier. I almost didn't watch the first episode.

Boy was I wrong.

While this anime can't quite compete with my reigning favorites Madoka Magica and Raising Project, it nonetheless deserves a place among the best dark magical girl shows of recent memory.

Lots of action. Lots of heart. Lots of deliciously disturbing character moments. Excellent worldbuilding. And some excellent humor and ... fan-service to boot (but not so much that it derails the story or characters!).

The plot while deep is also quite fast paced. It moves briskly and fits a lot of character development into a small space, mixed up with plenty of action and intrigue.

It does feel like only the first half of the story though. Hopefully we'll get the rest soon enough!

Hear me out: I am a sucker for "mature" (or "seinen"?) mahou shoujo anime and stories. Thanks to Puella Magi Madoka Magica for boosting its sub-genre popularity, plenty of successors and failures after Madoka quickly or slowly show up, and a ton can be a hit and miss! For Mahou Shoujo Tokushusen Asuka: This one is a mix-tier, and you will see why for my overall opinion and recommendation call.

STORY - These 12 episodes sums up of one arc, and leave room for a potential second season. Its world takes place three years after a war against the Netherworld's Disas: the typical monster-of-the-week beasts ... that take form of stuffed animals... Only more nightmare fuel. It takes what Precure looks dotting and innocent (but girls do still get physical damage), and crank up the "edge" level to the point that death and visions of them go to the top! The heroines are working in-part of the military force, taking down terrorist after terrorist. There was a organization called the Babel Brigade that plans to wage war against the magical girls: using magical girls (and other magical sources)! The anime so-far covers most of what I skimmed in the manga, but it is till an on-going project with even more chapters and spoilers. In short: the final episode is a peaceful one, but also one to leave you more with a LOT of questions than answers! I can't say the story is all good, but I think it flowed well and paces different than the standard childhood "monster of the week" scenario, because well... Everyday is a war for these magical girls! The anime felt incomplete, in other words.

CHARACTER - I think my favorite girl is Tamara for several reasons. However, each and every girl has their own personality that reflects their civilian life and as a magical girl. While the colorful-ish and themed costumes are still visible in this world (Asuka: maid, Kurumi: nurse, Mia: Cowgirl/western, Tamara: formal military, Pei Pei: Chinese style), the uniforms they have do carry some proper military accessory like pouches, pockets and some decent armor in camo-green to reflect the gritty military-style life these girls have to fight for! The styles for each girl design is nearly different to each other, which was nice. What won the MVP of this anime was Sachuu: A mouse-like fairy that had the body and build similar to a certain electric mouse, and even says "chu" at the end of its sentence! Sachuu is actually a helpful ally to the girls and even deliver comic relief with the "Kero's Corner" type of cut scenes! I also have a low key girl-crush for Tabira, the General of the Spirit Realm. Her design shows more skin than the other girls, but I do forgive her because her character is NOT what I expect from a powerful General! Overall: their designs are a pretty strong point and handled muted yet "cute' colors pretty well for a anime about war and terrorism!

ANIMATION - I see nothing wrong in the animation department and I do enjoy the mix of comedic moments, as well handling the sensitive and gross scenes in this anime! Some moments can get meme-level, but that' snot a bad thing, of course!

OST - I get HYPED when that one song plays when Asuka or the magical girls make their move! The other bops does the job well. Otherwise I don't pay attention too much to its OST.

OP - Will I play this in loop if I can? Yes. The song fits with Asuka's pretty well, and I like the narrative in its animation.

ED - I'll be honest: I probably forgot that it had a ED. The OP had a much stronger band arrangement and theme going on, that I forgot that the ED exist. (That, and I was just finished watching Shield Hero. That had a better ending at least.)

Would I recommend it? If you like military drama and atmosphere with a magical girl kick, then go for it! If not, then there are many other military or magical girl anime/media you can consume. I think to me Asuka will become forgotten in the next few years, but it makes get material to talk about or even role play about it! I do still want a Season 2 because S1 does not feel complete in my book, and I already spoiled myself at some scenes from said manga with Pei Pei... Plus: We need more Sachuu and their guns!

P.S. If you do plan to watch it, please be aware that there are a lot of weird and even mentally uncomfortable death scenes, including decapitation. If you can't handle that stuff, then please DO NOT watch this. Even Mami Tomoe's grave looks more "clean" than the many magical girls and victims have to face...

Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka is another grimdark magical girl anime/"Madoka Magica clone." I've watched so many "Madoka clones" lately I thought I'd give this a shot as well! This show is brought to us by studio LIDENFILMS, who also made Hanebado (epic badminton anime) and Killing Bites (National Geographic meets Gainax). "Asuka" tries to take a more realistic approach and asks what if magical girls used military weapons and actually *worked with* the government to fight monsters? Welll, the result is a mixed bag, and I'm gonna have as much trouble scoring this anime as I did with Magical Girl Site (though that one was ... WAY crazier).

Magical girls are needed to fight invading monsters (called Disas) because they are the only ones who can break their hexagonal magical shields (similar to A.T. Fields from Evangelion). The military develops magical weapons to fight back as well but those are just "peashooters" according to the enemy. The really annoying thing about this show is the most epic final battle, between the world's strongest group of magical girls and invading Disas, has ALREADY HAPPENED by the start of the series! The show picks up 3 years after this battle and we see the girls carrying on with their lives, occasionally flashing back to the magical war, but I always wondered why they couldn't show this battle? Seems like it'd be the highlight of the show? I dunno, maybe there will be a prequel series eventually.

"Asuka" proudly wears its "dark mahou shoujo" label on its sleeve, and I went back and forth from greatly respecting this anime to hating it. I'm too old for regular magical girl anime now, and it's nice to see a show that isn't afraid to depict murder and harsh violence in its action scenes, with characters even losing limbs and blood aplenty. It's a warzone after all, not all sunshine and rainbows. The show also does a good job handling mature themes such as child soldiers, PTSD, and terrorism. I'll never forget a scene in which a loli magical girl (who is working for the terrorists) is burning soldiers with her magic wand. Her wand gets broken and she immediately starts crying and asking for her mommy. She's so pitiable here, it shows these young girls are just being manipulated by political forces they don't understand.

So it sounds like I really like this show, right? Well, there are moments where "Asuka" is dark in a mature way, and then there's times where "Asuka" is DARK for the sake of BEING DARK! I understand that this show didn't want to shy away from the fact that soldiers sometimes need to torture enemies for information, BUT did there need to be THREE torture scenes!? You see this innocent girl getting her skin burned off with a pair of tongs and you're like "Ok, did you really need to show that though?" At a certain point I feel like you're trying too hard to impress. That same loli I mentioned above is beaten, stripped, and forced to act like a dog, wearing nothing but a dog collar. Why? Why'd we go there? I'll say what I always say: "dark" and "mature" aren't the same thing. "Madoka" was a dark show, but it never went into graphic violence, sexuality, or torture.

The characters were pretty average and forgettable and the story was OK, but nothing to write home about. I'm settling on an average 5/10 for this show. Give it a try for the great action scenes (if you can stomach R-rated violence), but know there is better stuff out there. Madoka Magica and Yuki Yuuna is a Hero should scratch that dark magical girl itch, without being dark for the sake of darkness.

Nothing about actually watching this show is a pleasant experience, everything about it is bad and cheap, but I bumped it up from a 1 to a 2 because I enjoyed some of the ideas

Cheap looking, ugly art, and jarring camera angles. It just looks awful, there were actually times when I had to take a break because the shot composition and art style was just too ugly to watch

Characters were extremely generic, and completely uninteresting, nothing about them made any impact on me what so ever, I barely remember them.

The story sounds fun, and by far the best part about the show ... is when they do actual spec ops stuff, but most of the time we’re just watching these ugly cheap looking characters sitting around having boring conversations.

I really don’t have much to say about it, it just wasn’t an enjoyable experience, it was boring, ugly, cheap looking, and there’s nothing about the show that’s actually enjoyable, which is a shame because the ideas definitely had a lot of potential and I was looking foreword to this show

Let's make this quick:

Magical girls from Sailormoon? Yes
Blood? Yes
Big titties? Yes
Magical girl nude transformations? Yes
The whole concept of magical girls taken seriously? Yes
Nearly zero male characters? Yes
middle and high school girls in provocative outfits? Yes
middle and high school girls who look like 19-year-olds? Yes
... Cringe? Extreme

This show is 10% boobs 70% cringe at how serious everyone is trying to be when talking about magical girls and 20% action/blood. Honestly, I don't know who this is aimed for.
The Story sucks.
There are not enough boobs for people who like them.
The action and blood are not the main features since in plenty of scenes where people should be bleeding out there is no blood.
The characters are archetypes pulled right out of the dictionary.
The PTSD subplot is done in the most general and obvious way(basically all the PTSD tropes you can think of they did it)
Who cares about anything happening to the world/ character when the big battles happened before the anime?
Did I mention just how fucking cringe it is when the characters talk about magical girls being the only option with a straight super serious face? BECAUSE ITS FUCKING CRINGE!!!!
Wait there was music?
Trash forgettable anime, leave it in the bin.

“Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka” is what happens when You have a pretty interesting premise but lack the writing skills to elevate it into something great.

War against the magical race called the Disas suffering from a boner for murdering humans ended. Mainly thanks to the efforts of 11 magical girls. Only five of those girls survived. After the conflict ended the squad was disbanded and the girls went their separate ways.
Now, 3 years later, a new conflict is threatening to start.

“Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka” is a show that tries (and mostly fails) to juggle different genres. I went into this show blind and oh boy, do ... I regret that. I was not prepared for the level of cringe and fuckery I was going to experience. On one side it’s a semi realistic show that uses political drama, military and pretty serious topics like PTSD, terrorism and some other delicate subjects. On the other it shoves fan service, feel good crap and borderline cute bs that comes with almost all mahou shoujo shows. Normally there wouldn't be a problem with such a mix. You need contrast and some space for the elements to breathe, to make the most out of them. This show however does a 180 on its genres to the point it sometimes feels like someone stitched two different shows together by accident.

The main heroine is the titular Asuka. The leader of the five magical girls who survived the war. She quit the military and decided to be a normal, if You can call it that, high school girl. She suffers from PTSD but does nothing to remedy the problem. She just lives day by day with no regards to her mental health. Until her PTSD disappears for some time, then re-emerges because Asuka needs to pretend she has some deep thoughts (spoiler alert, most of those are just cringe or some obvious bs). She isn’t a tragic idea, to be honest there are moments where her writing could even be called good. The problem is those moments are scarce and far between.

There are other characters but to be honest they are just one trick ponies and are there just to have an excuse for an info dump, trigger an event for Asuka to deal with or to force fan service. Honestly, most of the cast could be cut out and nothing would change in the plot.

The show uses pretty heavy subjects but it does it mostly for shock value. It handles those subjects in a very surface fashion with no real thought about the implications. Most of the time the dramatic events are just said as an excuse for some actions, or are shown and forgotten the next episode. It’s obvious no one had any actual idea how to use them properly. The most interesting thing that shows how shitty this aspect is handled is that, for some reason, only Asuka is shown to have any kind of trauma from the war. Well… that’s not entirely true but there is nothing to indicate that the others who have emotional and mental instability got them from the war and at least one of them was like that before.

Logic isn’t exactly this shows cup of tea. A lot of times the only reason why the heroines survive is plot armour. A very thick layer of plot armour. We are talking about at least 2 metres of kevlar plot armour. They should be dead in episode 5 but because of writing laziness they survive. Later in the third act all of them should be dead but, once again, they survive. It honestly annoys me how bad the writing is then it comes to a logical cause and effect.
The most infuriating thing in this whole show is the bullshit they pull with “healing” the PTSD of one of the side characters. It’s so fucking insulting to anyone who even suffered from it that it should be cut out entirely. The writers know jack shit about handling delicate subjects like that. And don’t give me that “It’s magic” bullshit. Incompetent handling of the subject is still an incompetent handling of the subject.

That said, if You don’t really care about writing and just want to watch some cute magical girls trying to fit into a semi realistic military You could find some enjoyment. I didn’t.