Eve of Awakening takes place right after the events of season one, so I'm going to try to keep spoilers to an absolute minimum. One thing to note is that it seems like the producers for Magia Record got the message about the first season's flaws, and seemed to go out of their way to rectify them in seasons 2 and 3. And frankly, I'm impressed with how much they managed to do in a short amount of time. The pacing is much faster, and the creators decided to go all out in moving the story forward, so the story no longer feels like it's just meandering along aimlessly with no direction. Important plot twists are revealed that explain pretty much everything, a lot of the side characters and villains get fleshed out more, including characters who didn't receive much time in the limelight in season one, and it completely ditches the formula of tracking down rumors. Plus, remember my complaints about Iroha being reduced to a damsel in distress in the first season even though she's the main character? Well, Eve of Awakening and Dawn of a Shallow Dream finally allowed her to get stronger and be more proactive like she was in the game, so kudos to the producers for rectifying that. Even Kuroe, an anime original character who flat-out disappeared for half of season 1, gets to come back and do stuff in these two seasons. The animation and the music are the same as ever, so I don't have much else I can add to those that hasn't been said already, except for one thing: Mad props for bringing back Credens Justitiam and using it more than the original Puella Magi Madoka Magica anime did.
So taking all these things into account, these two seasons of Magia Record should be absolutely amazing, right? Well...unfortunately, if the rating didn't clue you in, seasons 2 and 3 still have pretty glaring issues that prevent Magia Record from achieving true greatness. For one, episode one of Eve of Awakening brings back the original PMMM girls, and it absolutely expects the viewers to already have seen or be familiar with the original anime. Plus, if you haven't seen PMMM originally, that single episode is going to spoil A LOT of important plot twists for the uninitiated viewer. Furthermore, the original PMMM girls play a pretty big part in Eve of Awakening, so not only are these final two seasons impossible to watch without having seen the first season of Magia Record, you won't be able to understand much of what goes on unless you've seen PMMM. This'll especially be confusing for those who aren't familiar with the twist behind Homura in PMMM. I can easily picture someone reading about Homura's characterization in PMMM, starting to watch this, and being like "Why is Homura shy and moe here? Isn't she supposed to be some stoic badass?" So yeah, Eve of Awakening and Dawn of a Shallow Dream are absolutely not anime to show to new viewers or anyone who hasn't seen PMMM or the first season of Magia Record at least. This also has the problem of the show not being allowed to stand on its own two feet, relying solely on its parent property rather than being allowed to stand as its own entity.
But hey, all of this might be alright as long as the finale was good, right? Boy howdy, don't even dare expect Dawn of a Shallow Dream's finale to be anything good. Without spoiling anything, let's just say that it completely renders all the girls' struggles to be in vain and ending on a much bleaker note than the game does. Say what you will about PMMM's finale, it at least had some current of hope and was more bittersweet without relying too much on the bitter. No, I still haven't seen the Rebellion movie, and based on what I've heard about it, I don't think I want to. Magia Record's finale basically renders Iroha's whole quest to be completely and utterly pointless, and I'm not the only one that thinks this, either. Even Japanese fans, including people who both have and haven't played the game, hated the finale, to the point where dans who played the game straight up told anime-only watchers to play the game. And for us North American fans, that's impossible since Aniplex shut off the fucking game over here, and really, the only way for us to get even a glimpse of Magia Record's main storyline is through the manga, which is being released at a snail's pace. That, or somebody posting English translations of the Japanese version of the game on YouTube or something. So yeah, the whole thing is really frustrating, and I say this as somebody who enjoys Magia Record! The other issue I have with the finale is what it did with Alina. I'm not going to spoil what happens to her here, but I REALLY didn't like what the anime did with her in the final episode, as it just felt forced and unneeded, further adding to how utterly miserable the finale was made to be.
It's a shame, because the anime and the manga are really the only legal ways North American fans can see Magia Record in any capacity, and considering even manga adaptations of mobile games don't always cover the entire story, even that's not a guarantee! (Granblue Fantasy's manga is the best example of this) But for what it's worth, the anime did make an effort to rectify a lot of season one's flaws, even if it didn't make the landing at the very end, so I'm willing to give it some leniency in that regard, along with the other positives I mentioned above, like the animation and music, along with trying to flesh out characters that didn't receive much development before. As flawed as Magia Record's two seasons are, I still enjoyed them for what they did manage to offer, but I absolutely would not recommend using this as baby's first anime, or for anybody who hasn't seen season 1 of MR or even the original Madoka Magica anime.
