Mahou Shoujo Site- Episode 1 [First Impressions]

At least Madoka Magica gave us three episodes of fluff before dumping the depression on us. Mahou Shoujo Site on the other hand has no intention of holding back on us, it wants us to be aware in the first five minutes of the show just how horrible our main characters life really is.
This episode is in no way, shape, or form suitable for anyone who is faint of heart. Topics include bullying, suicide, abuse, implied rape, animal murder and straight up murder.  I was prepared for this to be dark, the PV and summery weren’t exactly promising us flowers and rainbows but this was pretty intense for only the first episode.

The main character, Aya Asagiri feels like there is nowhere she belongs. At school she is bullied badly, her shoes filled with tacks and razors, her desk defiled and nobody does anything to help her. At home, she is abused by her brother who is trying to vent his stress from the high expectations placed on him by their father. Her only solace in life in the form of a stray cat she is taking care of by the river.
The cat is killed by one of her bullies from school.

After almost being choked to death by her brother, she awakens to find a mysterious website up on her computer called ‘Magical Girl Site’ that promises her magic powers and a way to fight back. When she shows up at school, she finds a gun with a heart shaped barrel waiting for her in her locker.
The girls who are bullying her call in an older classmen, a boy named Shota to ‘pop Aya’s cherry’.
After fleeing from him, she is found by him and one of her tormentors who admits to taking her cat and throwing it in front of a moving subway. She takes the heart barreled gun and shoots the two of her tormentors and suddenly, they are the ones who were hit by a train.

Well, how do you respond to that? You panic of course, you killed them. Or did you kill them? Is it your fault or what? Well, another one of Aya’s tormenters seems to think it’s her fault despite knowing nothing about the gun and takes her and goes to slice her mouth with a box cutter.
This is when time freezes and we see another girl, named Tsuyuno Yatsumura  with magical powers, the power to stop time. She comes in and says that people like Aya’s tormentors are trash and takes the box cutter and cuts the throat of the girl who was going to cut Aya.

They leave and she says she is going to explain about magical girl site and that they need Aya and this is where the episode ends.

This was one hell of an episode, as I mentioned, it is by no means for the weak of heart. I’ve watched a lot of horror anime in my time and this was borderline uncomfortable for me. Yet somehow, not off-putting enough that I want to drop it.

One of the listed theme’s in this series is ‘survival game’ and I am desperately interested to see where and how that comes in. I like Tsuyuno from the little i’ve seen of her so far, she seems like she has the potential to be a genuinely interesting character.

While I am not entirely sold on Aya as a protag yet, it is only the first episode and we mostly get a view of her as someone who has resigned herself to the abuse in her life and the idea that all she really wants is death. So with those kinds of resignations it only makes sense that she would come off as a little bland, you aren’t exactly the most interesting person when you are depressed all the time. I am interested to see how her interactions with Aya, magic and whatever else is going to happen in the series change her as a character.

Aya and Tsuyuno aside, the only characters introduced in this episode I can stand within an inch of my life are Aya’s parents. Who seem to be genuinely unaware of how their son abuses their daughter. Even Aya’s teacher seems to be a horrible person, doing nothing to put a stop to the bullying and making Aya sit down even when her desk is clearly defiled.

We’ll just have to see where this series goes, i’m strapped in and ready for a ride.

Possibility of watching: Super high
Possibility of blogging: Guaranteed