2020: I want to be a magical girl to save my dear sister who basically doesn't provide empathy for the viewer to care.
In fact I recognize all the merit that Madoka has for his original production, ideas and characters, even though some are plot devices, but he was still daring and ventured in his narrative to surprise, it is something that few shows that want to work on a dark theme of a genre can do it. I admit I don't like Urobuchi's writing, but I still recognized his potential in Madoka's first anime in 2011, he really influenced a lot in this culture of the dark mahou shoujo genre that he often has, a genre that I personally consider disposable as a dark isekai.
Now I ask everyone, what is the reason for this anime to exist? Maybe you will answer that it may be a new beginning for Shaft in its new phase, but I say that this is not relevant, because they could easily start another series of Monogatari that the profit would be greater, or start adapting Zaregoto again, which is quite popular, the question remains without a definitive answer. If this is an intention to bring more people to this gacha, I say with all the strength that this anime has failed miserably, and manages to insult the entire universe already completed in a franchise.
Magia Record wants to tell a story about someone who lost her sister, and then she wants to tell a story about two lesbians fighting among themselves, then she wants to return to her theme of losing loved ones and now she wants to tell a story about a random character and your conflict with witches, can you see how messed up this story is with so many characters introduced? It seems that every time they want to advance to a new arc but there is no backbone that interconnects things, there are a lot of characters who are honestly a lot of nothing, and will probably be forgotten because their functions are so shallow in the work that they do not benefit at all a completely predictable story.
Why should I care about Tamaki's sister? There isn’t enough construction to make all this drama believable, it’s exactly that kind of drama that wants you to care about characters that don’t even exist, let me clear your mind with: Bunny girl the movie, Osomatsu the movie, Haruhi and Ano Hana, I don't know how they haven't created a genre called '' please care about nothing'', which lives up to this kind of lazy and dishonest story with a viewer. Then we have a shit drama of two friends who fight all the time and stop being friends, and again, why should I care? The anime introduces them in an episode and already wants to make a conflict on top of that, that's not how characters are built and much less make the viewer care.
Is it an act of cowardice to appeal to dramas you don't even know, I admit it's one of the things I hate the most in fiction, and guess what this drama was for? Nothing at all, you already understand that they fight every moment and then return to friendship, it's a cycle. But this is not the worst part, it is when he introduces a story / element in the same episode to justify this drama, yes, I am talking about the stairs, elements completely played when it suits, the only character that showed interest to me was Nanami for that at least, she has an introduction and then it takes time to build it, which at least I value here.
While the other characters are only placed because they want them to be there to cover a minor conflict, I think that only one character has become relevant to introduce a plot consequence that still this character is totally poorly constructed, I'm talking about Kaede here, we will only have a cycle of meeting characters and then bringing them into a great arc and then discarding them as if they were nothing. Not even the narrative collaborates to guarantee a good experience, I can't believe that a story we experience, that before defied a whole genre to end up being something absolutely generic, there is no clear difference in this series for a low quality manga that calls itself '' dark mahou shoujo. ''
This anime manages to be anything but Madoka magica, it does not risk anything, it does not show a certain danger in the world, or in intentions that could show the purpose of this story to exist in order to take the viewer along, it seems that something totally without the soul of its original. I don’t know why they need to hold on so much and limit this material, there’s even a scene where it could result in sacrifice caused by Tamaki’s weakness, but again the anime ignores what could be important and still be a bridge to build between selfish desires. Not even the fights are good, they have a horrible choreography, the storyboard is even more messy, just take a look between episodes 4 and 5 to be able to see them, even if the story was flawed and totally predictable, I wanted to take advantage of the fights, but they fucked it up, I think that only the art and soundtrack is really pleasant, the direction kept going at the beginning, and then it lost its identity, it seems like an attempt to imitate Shinbou's steps, but it totally fails in that, everything that he tried to give meaning ends up being.
I would not recommend this series to a madoka fan who is looking for something interesting in the franchise, this is just a bait to get money for a gacha and put bad fanservices in the series, like Mami becoming a Deus X machina for the second time, no it's not even rewarding to see a remarkable character becoming a cheap script artifice, if you want to see something that resembles Madoka, just watch Granbelm, although you may hate the recommendation, I tell you it's better to be a bad original story than a story that only serves to get more milk from a cow that is already dead, and that dead cow is called Madoka Magica.
