This was one of the most anticipated releases this year, the love I have for Madoka is enormous, so my expectation for this spin-off was perhaps too exaggerated for something that ultimately turned out to be nothing more than a long commercial or advertising for the game with the same name.
I'll start with the good things of Magia Record. As always, SHAFT studio work is just from another planet, beautiful shots and scenes, continuously well-kept visual work, along with beautiful OST at all times, characters have nice design, series felt really refreshing at first, as a way to expand the world of magical girls and present a different story.
However, that's the best I can say about the show, I'm not going to lie the first episode catches you completely, SHAFT knew how to sell quickly with its first episode, but the series was declining rapidly until presenting a very badly developed plot, presenting a lot of drama, but without any suspense. The narrative is very slow to the point of quickly becoming tedious, the series abuses to present characters at all times, which turn out to be mostly generic characters and with which you don't end up sympathizing or when you start to know them, they are left aside to present another new character while you still try to process who these people are. That's right, the series did not end its presentation, the plot did not feel like it was moving forward in any moment and never did it feel like something important happened, new mysteries appeared chapter after chapter, apart from references or easter eggs that would only capture the attention of people who know the game.
The series stagnated and ended up drinking from nostalgia, being that its best moments were the participation and small cameos of the protagonists of the original series, but that the series does not take off and that presents a slow rhythm is enough to bore your audience. Having potential to explore with its characters, the series chose to continue presenting more and more magical girls as if it were a Battle Royal, decided to move away from the original mystery and continued to introduce new subplots and characters that ended up feeling like a mostly boring filler.
The plot ends up being unattractive, confusing and where nothing happens that makes it interesting.
Anyone reading this poorly written review at the moment would think that I'm only a fan of Madoka Magica who detest this spin-off for being different from the original, and it's that Madoka Magica and Magia Record are incredibly different despite being from the same universe, while Madoka played deeper themes and followed a main thread, Magia Record is a more peaceful anime, more of the day to day that tries to show the ties and friendship between the characters despite their past, but sadly ends up doing it in a dry way.
For start, the story is not written by Gen Urobuchi, even the composition of the music is composed by another group, with that and the show is based on a game it was obvious to expect something very different, I'm not surprised to find a fans who enjoyed this series despite all the mistakes, even if they do not know anything about the game, for my part I'll learn to no longer feel great expectations for any adaptation that comes from a game.
In conclusion, apart from the OST, the art and the characters with “pretty” designs, there is nothing that stands out from this series, hopefully with the 2nd Season confirmed, it can improve as a whole, for now it's just another show "magical girls that fight", while they play house.
