Story: Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story Starts us out with Iroha, who is a magical girl from Takarazaki City. She goes about her life fighting witches and seems to be fine doing it, on her own. However, something feels very off to her - neither her, nor Kyuubey remember what she wished for. Not only that, but she has no memory of a little sister that she swears she used to have. That sister, Ui, seems to have had her existence completely removed. Iroha does some searching, leading her to Kamihama City, where she hears that magical girls "can be saved" there. Along the way, she meets multiple other magical girls, in part because the witches in Kamihama seem to be much more aggressive than the ones she's used to fighting back home. That's the basis as to why Iroha is going on this journey.
The ultimate failing of this series is its story structure. It constantly leads Iroha from point A, to B, to C, chasing after rumour after rumour, in order to find out as much as she can about this sister that she doesn't have any concrete memories of. It almost feels like they made it in way that she meets a few new magical girls for a few episodes, helps with their problems, and then repeats... for the entire series. It starts out on a pretty solid premise, but doesn't make any progress on it by the time we're done. It's not all for nothing because we see some pretty significant events happen to the story, but it feels like they try and show two different stories at once. Not only that, but we really don't feel any tension as the events unfold in front of us. Whenever we feel that tension meter rise, the series stops it in its tracks, which was very evident near the start of episode 10. The last two episodes reveal quite a few of details about our characters and even with those being solid, doesn't make up for the poor middle episodes. They just try and be too fancy with introducing way too many characters that mostly feel irrelevant and don't address Iroha's problem at all. (5/10)
Characters: Iroha is a fine character, reminding audiences of Madoka at multiple key points. She passionately chases after rumours, but doesn't seem to have much thought about why she's doing what she's doing. She meets Yachiyo after going to Kamihama City, and she will remind audiences of Homura when the series is done. The copying of our two main characters from the base story isn't bad in itself because they change enough that I didn't mind it, but the story structure did them no favours. The interactions between them had a lot of different feelings, between tense, fun and peaceful. It's solid!
Many of the other magical girls that Iroha meets along the way have different motivations to fight witches and on their own, they have decent backstories, but there's just so many of them that it dilutes what could have been some solid ones - specifically, Felicia, Rena and Kaede. Some of Yachiyo's past magical girl friends also make appearances and sort of make up this secondary storyline that I mentioned about. And while their stories are pretty impactful, squeezing those into Iroha's storyline feels messy at best. Fans of the previous series will see sprinkling of our main cast from the base story, with Mami making the most significant appearance. With it being an alternative storyline, I'm guessing the events from that storyline haven't really happened and the character's are mostly there for fun. They're fine inclusions, with Sayaka's fight near the end being one of my favourites.
The cast in general is fine, and the series very much wants you to be emotionally attached to all of them. However, quality over quantity would have won out here because while they have some really good moments, there's just too many of them. I hope for the sequels that they refocus their efforts on Iroha's goal, while using our characters surrounding her, to get to that goal. That sounds like a decent fix to this very problematic story and character structure. (6/10)
Art: The art mostly looked nice, though fights are so brief that you don't get to see much of that flash and flair. The last two episodes showcase some of the better scenes though so we know they're capable of doing it. It's honestly the same as the base story and should receive praise, just like them. Witches still feel menacing and the labyrinths still give us a sense of dread. The OP got some minor adjustments as Iroha meets new friends and I love when series do that. (8/10)
Sound: While not at the same level and Yuki Kajira, the OST here was really solid. Many of the tracks gave me that JRPG feel and I really enjoyed them. The OP and ED were both solid as well. The feel of the aforementioned aren't on the "creepiness" scale that the main story had, but it probably shouldn't anyway because both these series tackle different issues. The voice cast were very strong with Kira Buckland (Iroha) performing her part really well. (8/10)
OVerall Enjoyment: The messy, messy story structure makes it really difficult to recommend Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story, especially if you were a fan of the base story. It's not nearly as moving and there are way too many unnecessary characters. It leaves off on a bit of a cliffhanger, and season 2 has aired, but taking a stab to see if they address their story issues feels like a 50/50 to me. (6/10)
