Magia Record: Mahou Shoujo Madoka☆Magica Gaiden 2nd Season - Kakusei Zenya

...

What? What the heck happened, Shaft? You were so close... and yet you stumbled at the last stepping stone. Was it management? Budgeting? Production?

What the hell happened?

I suppose I should start at the beginning, then.

PMMM was amazing, nigh on one of the best, if not *the* best mahou shoujo shows of all time. Rebellion built onto that, and, uh... let's just say that a rebellion doesn't even give the events of the movie justice.

And I liked Magia Record S1. I never played the game (I'm not into gacha hell...), so when I heard that a PMMM spin-off was getting an anime, I was rather excited; ... I'd have preferred an anime of Oriko Magica (or, god bless, Homura Tamura), but beggars can't be choosers.

Magia Record S1 was good. It wasn't PMMM good, but it was good; in particular, the final episode shined, even where the series had fallen at times. It left on a good type of cliffhanger, with a promise of a continuation, with the cliifhanger's location in the story being naturally placed.

I cannot even remotely say the same about Season 2.

The best episodes of S2 are the first and second; the re-uniting with the Mitakihara gang, and looking at Yachiyo's quest. I shan't give details, but it's closer to PMMM than S1 ever was.

Episodes 3-6 were all... good. Not great, but not bad either. I particularly enjoyed the inner workings and explanations of Magius, and the reveal of S A L V A T I O N.

Episode 7 is where the cracks turn to quakes. It felt rushed, and the pacing was a bit off.

And then... RECAP TIME FOR NO APPARENT REASON! HAHAHA!

And Episode 8, which, SASUGA SHAFT-SAMA, is the LAST EPISODE FOR NO APPARENT REASON (seriously, WHY? The first season had 13 episodes, and one of the biggest complaints from fans was that it was too short for the subject matter - and now, we get 7 and a quarter episodes with a promise of a few more for the grand finale, or something, within a few months? What is this, EA?). Episode 8 is...

Well. Let's start with the basics - we enter right where 7 left off in the introduction, until we're suddenly sent into... a theatre? Or is it an Uwasa, or a Labyrinth? Oh, [SPOILER] is giving a monologue! Uhh... where are the subtitles?

That's right - the first half of the episode aired with either no subtitles, or subtitles out of time, depending on your release. From direct translations, it seems to be an introspective section, but I can't be sure.

Let's go back a bit. Theatre? Monologuing? What??? Like, I get it; this is Shaft, and it's Madoka Magica - theatre and monologues is part and parcel. But... it throws the pacing right out the window. Within a few minutes, I was getting serious NGE final two episodes vibes, pre-EoE.

What story can be understood from this section is also a bit jumbled; it almost feels as though they're telling us "You can have more character development for [SPOILER] if you played the game~!", which, fun fact, was never released in EU/UK, and is no longer available in NA. In fact, throughout S2, characterisation is just a bit... off; ironically, the few people who are spot on aren't the protagonists, but the original Holy Quintet.

And the second half... well. We get a jumbled action set-piece which is suddenly rushed to it's conclusion, a few characters have a moment, then plot twists abound that are kind of like... eh? Ok...? But what about...? Huh. I guess??? This review is difficult without giving spoilers, but let's just say... If the first half of the episode was reminiscient of NGE's bemusing last few episodes, then the second half of the episode gives me flashbacks to the last few episodes of Soul Eater. Like... what?? Shaft, what?????

And then, another plot twist, the villains move around a bit, the big bad of big bads isn't even seen yet despite the multiple hints throughout the series (and, uh, the last spoken line of dialogue from S1), and, woah, who knew except anyone with an inkling of a brain cell, the [SPOILER] is actually [SPOILER]! Whoop de doo!

It's just... yeah. This second season felt like that meme of a drawing of a horse, where most of the horse is drawn beautifully, and then the rest of it looks like what someone might draw in the sand at the beach with a stick. Like... the music? Spot on. Art? Absolutely breathtaking at times (again, the last few episodes kind of sucked - at one point, a few of the characters gave me the Ace Combat Dog jpeg vibes). And the world building? Well, it's Shaft - damn amazing (seriously, the well written exposition bits behind the scenes with Magius and other certain people are some of the best bits). But... it leaves a bittersweet taste now.

For this season, wait for the blu-ray release for them to fix it up. For the next, pray for no more global disasters to delay everything. And for the future? Wish upon wishes for the Rebellion Sequel to blast the socks off all of us. Much as the Meguca Suffering is fun, I don't think the fanbase could take another few blows.

If you watched the first Madoka show and then were thoroughly disappointed with Magireco's first season (and hey, I'm with you,) there are two things you should know:

1) the first episode of season 2 has basically nothing to do with Magireco. It is a beautifully animated scenario of Madoka, Sayaka, and Homura fighting a witch and all three get lots of love. Even if you are dead set on skipping Magireco, you should pick this one episode up; I guarantee you'll like it.

But 2) season 2 of Magireco is just far better than season 1.

Being better than season 1 is, of course, an extremely low ... bar, but I gotta give credit where its due: it seems the team took a lot of feedback about what wasn't liked about season 1 - namely, being a character-focused show where the characters just weren't all that good - and instead focused on the storyline season 1 started as well as the unique additions to Magireco in the form of Uwasas and Doppels. The characters are (sadly) still there, but the focus is far more on the antagonists' plans and what the heroes collectively are going to do about it. A lot of those additions and focuses are interesting. And, don't worry - in true Madoka fashion it gets very dark at times.

If anything the team almost seems to have taken complaints about the characters to the extreme, because season 2 introduces a new focus character: Kuroe. Kuroe appeared as a generic friend to Iroha in season 1's first episode 1 and then literally never again, so her getting the focus as a new main character was jarring to me, especially since Kuroe is a conspicuously weak fighter and has a subdued personality. It's not really clear to me why Kuroe's even in the show - the story could have been told without her, clearly, and nothing that happened to her made me endeared to her or rooting for her success. Frankly it almost seems like giving up on Iroha and Yachiyo somewhat. My dislike of those characters aside, a truly odd design choice.

By the season's middle, a single new character starts to not matter as much because there begins to be just so much going on. If you thought season 1 had too many characters just imagine how messy things get when Madoka'sc ast join the story along with seeing things from the antagonists' eyes. There's something like 20 characters in motion - Madoka's 5, Magireco's 5, 5 or 6 antagonists, and more or less all of season 1's support characters like Mitama, Momoko, and Rena. We bop back and forth between four or five concurrent storylines for a good number of episodes, checking in on how people are doing here and there. The visual design of the characters makes them easy to keep track of, but it's just a lot going on.

"A lot going on" describes a lot of the show, and also pinpoints season 2's two biggest weaknesses.

First, it's only 8 episodes, and the pacing is just brutally fast. With so many characters, fights, and revelations jammed into that space there is little time to understand what's going. Things that happen are rarely explained in detail and even the fight scenes feel like they're sped up to 2x speed. Some action scenes have multiple cuts a second, with some elements being on screen for a few frames. I found myself thinking "Wow, that was cool, too bad I couldn't see it" during many of the battles in the first half over my frustration of how fast they were...

... and more literally in the second half, as clearly the animation budget and development time just simply ran out. The first couple episodes are movie-quality gorgeous and a fair bit of the show is fine enough but in the second half the corner-cutting gets conspicuous. I'm not one to complain about the occasional funny derpface in the background, but when entire fight scenes are not shown and merely implied from who seems to have won or lost, or when the camera transitions to a still frame or a symbol during large parts of the dialogue, it becomes pretty obvious that something's gone horribly wrong at the studio.

I'm complaining about this type of thing in season 2 and not season 1 because unlike 1 I found 2 not a complete waste of time. Despite its flaws, following crazy scheme of the antagonists was compelling and entering the weird, surreal world of Madoka is always a treat when I can get a bit invested. It almost feels like the dev team listened to my complaints about over-reliance on boring characters and not leveraging what made Magireco unique and tried to give me a product that would satisfy me. I respect it.

But this brings me to the hardest part of the review: the recommendation.

Easy part out of the way first: if you watched season 1, watch season 2. You put in your time to be introduced to the characters and start the story, so season 2 is basically a reward for that punishment. But if you haven't seen season 1? That's the tough one. I honestly don't think I can recommend season 2 highly enough to justify having to watch season 1: 2's pretty good, but 1's pretty awful, and that's just a lot of hours for a middling payoff.

And season 2 completely does not stand alone. You can't simply get a summary of season 1 and be good to go. There's just too many characters and too many plotlines. Season 2 expects you to remember who is friends with who, who is mad at who, who was friends with who but had a falling out, who was friends with who but had a falling out but sort of regrets it and wishes they were friends again, and who the hell Kuroe even is. It's not just the middle part of a trilogy - it's the middle chapter of a book that hasn't ended yet. Despite the first episode sort of being an introduction to Madoka's lore, the events of season 2 are so heavily tied into season 1's that even as someone who actually watched season 1 I was pretty lost a lot of the time. I just can't expect a total newcomer to the IP to have any fun if they choose to start here.

So, you know, you can do what you want on this one. I got nothin'.

For some reason there's going to be a season 3 pretty soon, rumored to be a mere 4 episodes. lol. I don't know what to say anymore with the development and pacing of this show. I'll watch that too _ gotta see how it all ends, I guess. I already know I'm not in a master-class classic here, but let's all hope it will be an enjoyable end to the ride.

Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story Season 2 - The Eve of Awakening (which I'll refer to Magia Record Season 2) continues our story when Touka, the leader of the Wings of Magius, basically gathers up all the magical girls in the area, and unveils her grand plan. When we notice not just Iroha's group, but also Madoka's group get mixed into this mess, audiences should be intrigued. The original characters from Puella Magi Modaka brings much hope, after what was a pretty mediocre showing in the first season of this alternative world.

Story: Magia Record Season 2 actually starts us off ... with Madoka's crew, off on a journey to find Mami, after we, as the audience, realize something's very off with her after what we saw of her from the end of the first season of Magia Record. What's causing her to relentlessly attack other magical girls and how are our original crew linked to all this? This are questions that are asked, especially after someone from Iroha's group starts succumbing to similar symptoms.

Magia Record Season 2 answers are a lot of unanswered questions from season 1, many of which in a pretty interesting way. It's very clear that the objective of this season is to shore up what's going out with the two magical girls that our group is now trying to save, and this season does that very well. With season 1 basically being all about setup, I'm actually pretty happy with what they did with much of those in this season. There are some pretty long-winded explanations going on that could bore audiences, but most of the series is just action, action and more action. One of the explanations that I appreciated was regarding the girls' doppels, which felt almost necessary because of how important to the girls' actions they are. Also included in this season was a brand new way for the magical girls' to use their abilities, and I really enjoyed watching the interesting combinations that arose from those.

There are still some holes here though. For starters, Iroha's sister's plotline is still barely touched. It's actually pretty obvious that they're planning to address that in the next season - or it better anyway - so leaving that entire plotline to the side seems like a bit of an unusual choice. Another problem, that's consistent with the previous season, is that many of the characters introduced in the first season are still kind of pointless. Giving us long character backstories in the first season makes us care more about them, but it still feels like they added way too many of them. The final point I'll make here is that while it's absolutely amazing that they integrated Madoka's group here, it's pretty obvious that it's just for added fan-service. Cool? Yes. Central to the plot? Probably not. (6/10)

Characters: Our same characters are still present, and still rocking together like glue. They're in this thing together, and when questions are asked about certain characters, it is often addressed. One character near the end clearly has doubts about her role, but this gives us a nice teaser about what could become of her next season. Iroha is much less central to this season than before, but rather the spotlight is shared among the rest of the magical girls. Yachiyo does get a bit more of the spotlight here because of her connection to another girl, but for the most part, no one character is risen above the rest. Madoka's crew is indeed back, and still amazing. Using this incarnation of Homura makes a lot of sense, seeing as how the one we saw in the original is pretty unique to her timeline.

I'm on the fence about our antagonists here, as it doesn't feel like they do much more than observe. Touka simply watches and makes comments as the series plays out, the Amane sisters and Alina barely make an appearance, and Nemu mostly tries to encourage Touka one way or the other. It's clear the latter will have a bigger role when the next season roles around, but I'm a little disappointed that we didn't see these magical girls do much, even if we know their grander plan now. (7/10)

Art: I don't recall Magia Record having this level of polish in the previous season, but I could be wrong. Regardless, this is a really nice series from an animation standpoint. Fights just look much more crisp, and it is nice that they gave us way more action than the previous season to capitalize on that. Much of this season takes place in one spot, but I enjoyed the entire setup and thought it felt pretty appropriate. (9/10)

Sound: I really enjoyed the OST here once again, and I'm pleased to say that it fits so well here. Both OP and ED are fantastic fits here, especially with how the ED starts - it just sounds so ominous when you hear it. VO cast remains a strong point for the series, with Erika Harlacher-Stone (Yachiyo) and Michelle Marie (Touka) leading the way here. Kira Buckland (Iroha) and Christine Marie Cabanos (Madoka) are still fantastic and are still the cheerful leaders that we know and love. (9/10)

Overall: This is a decent step up for Magia Record Season 2, answering many questions that were left unanswered from the first season, while also leaving us breadcrumbs about what could come in the next season. I'm a little worried because it feels like there's a lot left to go over with only four episodes in the final season, but only time will tell. This is a strong effort for the middle season and I hope the final four episodes shores that up. (7/10)

I want to like this series so bad. After the meh-fest that was the first season I was hoping this season would fix all the issues. Didn't. The story still feels really bland and is too often straight explained to us by the characters. The art, while it has its moments (especially in episode 1), was definitely a downgrade from the first season. Some sections of smooth, gorgeous animation don't make up for 75% janky animation for the rest of the show. I don't really like how they used music, especially near the end of the season. The tracks they used had so much significance ... in the original series and they feel out of place here. The character development this season was pretty good but I still feel as if there are too many characters. This season's pacing also disappointed me, I feel like this would have been better as a movie rather than 8 episodes.
Overall I surprisingly found myself enjoying this season LESS than the first, which I never thought would happen. At this point I'm in too deep and I just want to see how it ends (if the ending is even going to be understandable). I just hope to God the 4th movie has zero influence from this series.

WHAT THE HELL HAVE THEY DONE WITH THE ANIMATION?

The story is fine, but totally different from the game, which is not necessarily a problem, it's ok to have different version. But it feels kind of rushed and don't give time to the audience think about it, I am not sure how someone who didn't played the game would sympathize with the characters.

However my biggest concern is the techinical quality of the anime, the animation feels weird, the audio is a mess, and the flow is completely random, in one scne they are in the truck, than, without any trasition they start showing inside the enemy ... base. I just felt confused watching it.

It is sad that a story that i love so much had this poor adaptation, if you didn't liked the anime, please don't let it keep you from playing the game, I'm sure that anyone would love this story if they read it from the sourse.