You may have stumbled upon this review wanting to check if anyone would have given the likes of Mahou Shoujo Site a perfect score of 10 and whether a review like this was written on the premise of satire. This will be my first review, so satire is completely unintended.
The grim-dark magical girl genre is nothing new, but for as copy-paste as most people normally give it Mahou Shoujo Site is the much needed exception that would be highly praised if it were any other anime.
I can sum up this genre easily, the main character is a cute morally-good girl who becomes a magical girl, becoming a magical girl comes at a sinister price, beloved characters die pitiful deaths, the once happy-go-lucky world turns into death and despair, cue nitty-gritty to the teeth style climax that resolves in borderline happy/unhappy resolution. This is the culture-shock style formula that propelled the likes of Madoka Magica to be a major hit along with the typical wave of criticism of proposed copy-cat titles that try to ride the same "hype train." This isn't the case here, because Mahou Shoujo Site itself makes its own spin-off of the spin-off genre by playing around the formula and putting its own stake in the medium.
Before watching Mahou Shoujo Site my prior experience with Dark Magical Girl anime consisted of Madoka Magica, Magical Girl Raising Project, and Yuuki Yuuna is a Hero, and while I can admit each one has it's strengths the genre itself isn't something I could ever call myself a fan of, rather I'd prefer my magical girls to be on the bright and happy side of the spectrum. If you're like me you may find this anime much more pleasant than the first few episodes may have you believe from the start. For myself I started Mahou Shoujo Site thinking I was about to be put on another distressful roller-coaster ride only for it to end with me feeling like I had fallen in love, because despite how edgy, obnoxious, and cliché this anime wants to appear on the outside the inside carried a lot of the same passion and love I'd find elsewhere.
I can understand why most other people would review this anime negatively, but I can't really agree with them either. To me saying the edginess of this anime is what ruins it would be the equivalent of saying the fact Madoka Magica has cute magical girls in it is what ruins it. Yes, both factors are equally prevalent in both anime, but those aspects aren't the key features of either anime, rather their only purpose is to specifically lure the audience into a false sense of the true nature of that anime's setting, plot, and characters. It's just in Mahou Shoujo Site's case instead of using cute magical girl designs along with a cute anime style as way to deceive the audience in believing the anime is cute and happy before turning dark and morbid it does the opposite by first painting a world that's so morally dark and volatile that the viewer can't help but doubt any kind of positive outcome to come out of any conflict or personal motive of the anime's characters. That's not to say Mahou Shoujo Site is a bunch of fluffy bunnies and rainbows under the surface, but it puts a lot more care and faith into it's characters and conflicts much more than you'd find in any other dark magical girl anime that carelessly kills off and tosses away its characters as if they were last week's garbage for shock value. That's the point most viewers have failed to noticed here, that the edginess is a deliberate factor meant to hijack their expectations from the reality of the anime's actual content.
Despite comparing Mahou Shoujo Site to Madoka Magica I wouldn't say it should rival it in greatness as it's own classic, rather I used it as a reference like all other reviews that try to compare it to any other dark magical girl anime. That said my review score reflects my personal enjoyment of this anime and I'd recommend it to anyone who is able to stomach gore and blood and can keep an open enough mind to look past the edgy exterior as a design choice rather than a reflection of it's core. If you're looking for something similar to a small bright candle that refuses to be snuffed out in a big dark and damp cave, something that can be happy or positive despite the odds and circumstances trying to suffocate it, something that's 𝐧𝐨𝐭 meant to be taken as a serious train-wreck that tears at your heart-strings screaming tragedy over your dead waifu then this might be the anime for you if and only if you can keep an open enough mind for the first few episodes that paint a picture of anything but.
Lastly Aya Asagari and Tsuyuno Yatsumura will forever be one of my favorite character pairings of all time.
