Ui Tamaki, a wish to save her from her illness. Is that the whole story though? Kyuubey says it would take a magical girl level wish to completely erase the presence of someone. That it would be far easier to make-up or implant the false memory of a sister instead. Is that the case? Iroha doesn’t seem to think so.
She was real.
That’s the insistence and she was in a hospital in Kamihama. So of course, it’s time to investigate. Upon entering Kamihama, she almost immediately gets caught up in a Witches labyrinth almost immediately. Inside of the labyrinth, she runs into three magical girls working as a group.
Kaede, Rena, and Momoko. Holy crap Kaede is so cute and meek and adorable and sweet and I want to adopt her and protect her from the many horrible things that I know await her in a series that is a spin-off to kill a beloved character in episode 3 the series.
Rena and Momoko do a combo attack to take down the monster but not before Iroha is knocked out and brought back to their base, the ‘coordinators’ place, though the ‘coordinator’ isn’t in right now. She tells her story to them and they agree to help, or, more Momoko and Kaede agree to help her. Rena isn’t so keen on it.
A fight erupts during a meeting and the group splits up, saying they are ending their friendship. Once again, it’s not the whole group, just mostly Kaede and Rena.
A rumor, a chain witch, a chain monster. The friendship ending staircase.
A name on the sixth step and another on the seventh and your friendship will be ended forever. If you try to makeup, you’ll be punished. Three people have already vanished in relation to their rumor. Rena writes her own and Kaede’s names on the stairs.
It’s no monster, it’s a witch for sure.
As we see Kaede who is entirely unaware of what is going on attempting to make up from the fight. Whispering voices, chains, clear signs of a witches labyrinth forming wraps around the two of them and I can’t help but wonder if Iroha and Momoko can even see it.
This episode opens up a lot of questions.
Who/What is the Chain witch? How long has it been operating in Kamiyama? Who is Ui Tamaki? Why doesn’t she exist in this world anymore? Is it Ui that is fabricated or the wish? ‘Heal her disease.’ there is no way it was that simple.
Who and what is the young Kyuubey we saw in the first episode? Nobody seems to know anything about it, not even the Kyuubey that took the wish that Iroha made. Then again, that Kyuubey doesn’t seem to know much or it’s pretending not to know anything. Which is honestly the more likely explanation.
My opinions on the group of magical girls that Iroha ran in to are as follows.
Momoko is kind of bland, she kind of reminds me of Mami in more than the fact she has blonde hair. She didn’t do anything to really stand out in this episode and seemed to be the responsible almost mother or leader type of the group.
Rena has the coolest power, illusion powers are just my thing in this series. Kyoko has similar powers and I adore her, but even Kyoko can’t just make herself look like someone else. Rena’s personality though, well she has a lot of room to grow. I think this chain witch experience will be important for her if she doesn’t perish during it.
Kaede is the best girl, end of story. I want to protect. I outlined her personality above, but she’s just super cute. Not usually my kind of character but there is something about her I adore.
Overall a solid second episode. I’m excited to see what is going to happen with the chain witch and where things will go from here.
I think the biggest problem is that in the source material is that you meet momoko (and Kaede but in passing) in the first chapter and spend a a lot of time with her because her personality is the most subtle of the three and to give a reason to care about her and her friends by extension. Here we get introduced to all three in one fell swoop so they don’t have much time to breath. Ultimately I feel like the drastic changes they’re making to the story is going to back fire so hard latter on