Naturally, MagiReco was walking in the footsteps of a giant.
And to be honest? I didn't ever expect it to live up to the original. Side story is right there in the name - this isn't more of the original, it's an addendum, something extra for the fans. And there's a lot to like here - there are still plenty of amazing visuals, if anything more magical girl action than the original, and the soundtrack - though not quite up to the original's standard (Kajiura is a hard act to follow) - is pretty solid. There were genuine moments when the magic of the original was rekindled for me. There are moments that powerfully evoke that sense of the uncanny that is a hallmark of the original's aesthetic.
But these were mere moments.
The plotting is far looser than the original and gets fairly tangled at times. It never seems like the writing really knows what it wants to focus on and quite what the stakes are. Plenty happens, but it happens with rather thin motivation and a casual chain of causality.
The characters are fine and a genuine attempt is made to give them all depth, but still I never found myself deeply invested in the way I was in the original. This being a spin-off, there is also little opportunity to deliver the kind of novelty and shock that made the original such an overnight hit.
There is definitely also a number of attempts at nostalgia fan service - shoehorning characters from the original into episodes where they add little, but a fleeting pang of recognition. This really just adds to the overall uncertainty of the show's direction and its rambling feel. Furthermore, these original character cameos are only part of the problem. While the sprawling character roster does include many cool new designs (I particularly enjoyed the design for Alina Gray), there are many characters here to pop up with little explanation and seemingly are only included for the pleasure of players of the mobile game.
Having had three major iterations of this property in anime form now - the original series, Rebellion, and now this - I have noticed a pattern forming where there seems to be a determination to expand the lore each time, rather than consolidate what exists. Sure, Rebellion had fairly solid in-universe reasons for introducing Nightmares in place of Witches, but the reasons for the introduction of Uwasa ('rumours') seem on less solid ground.
All in all, if you like original, you could probably do worse than to watch this series, but try to go in with your expectations set at an appropriately forgiving level. I did, and whilst this won't go down as one of my favourite series as the original did, I did get enjoyment out of the experience overall.
