If I were to describe this first episode in two words they would boil down to cute and fun, which are somethings that I think Machikado Mazoku really excels at with the premier episode. With a great deal of the magical girl anime that have come out in recent years being dark and somewhat soul crushing, it was really refreshing to see something more lighthearted and less serious. If you’re interested in watching cute girls do things and have a good smile or a laugh, I would recommend giving this anime a chance!
I really enjoy the characters of focus and I like how they take the typical tropes surrounding the “demon child” and “magical girl” and spin them in interesting ways. We have Yuuko, a surprisingly relatable character who is clumsy, weak, and generally has more focus on how hungry she is rather than achieving the demon clan’s ultimate goal. She’s certain not and evil mistress of the night for who people should quiver in fear, rather she seems more like a lost puppy than a true demon. Then we have Chiyoda, our seemingly apathetic powerful magical girl who has a really kind heart and was probably the one who gave me the most laughs throughout the episode. She’s calm, cool, and collected and not only that, she wears crocs to school so she’s also fashionable. While I’m not sure if it was intentional, I found it funny that our magical girl’s color scheme was pink. We see so often the bright-eyed, hopeful pink magical girl, but here we have someone who shows very little emotion and is ultimately the least animated character that we’ve seen. But who knows maybe I’m reading too much into it. But let’s not forget the background characters! While we haven’t interacted with them as much, they still offer quite a bit in terms of the humor and overall set up for our main cast. Trust me, the two unnamed students in Chiyoda’s classroom? Absolutely hilarious, I hope we see more of them. But ultimately, I’m excited to see if more fun characters get introduced to the mix!
The humor is direct and it’s pretty rapid fire, but I guess that’s what you would expect from something that is being adapted from a 4-Panel Series. Not that it’s a bad thing though, there’s plenty of things that happen in an episode that’s bound to get at least a smile out of you. I’ll be completely honest, the humor for me so far has been a little bit hit or miss. There were definitely some moments where I thought to myself “ah, that was the joke” and then just kept going. Though, it wasn’t the sort of humor that made me cringe, so they were just generally things that didn’t quite land. However, there were other moments where I definitely let out a good laugh, so even though not all the jokes landed, it was still a good time. Personally, I felt the strength in the humor came from dialogue – little one liners from characters just knocked it out of the park. Though, that’s not to discredit the visual humor as well. There were definitely moments where a character’s spoken joke wouldn’t have been as funny without the visuals accompanying it (for example! the bottom right scene!)
This is an anime that doesn’t seem to take itself too seriously and certainly doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but if you’re looking for something light-hearted to watch this season, I would definitely give it a chance to see if it’s your cup of tea!
Possibility of Watching: Unsure! Will need to watch a few more episodes
Possibility of Blogging: A Solid 50/50!
So I thoroughly enjoyed this episode!!! One moment that had me laughing was the timer that came on when Chiyoda was transforming. That was just hilarious to me considering most magical girl transformations nowadays can be verrrrry long. But yeah like you said, some jokes did fall flat in some areas but overall, it was still a whole heap of fun!
Also something I find amusing is the fact that Yuuko is voiced by Konomi Kohara, who is currently voicing Cure Milky in Star Twinkle Precure. Idk it’s just very interesting to see Konomi go from playing an actually magical girl to playing a devil who has to kill a magical girl XD