It’s a spin-off of Madoka if the first words to escape my mouth weren’t ‘What the hell just happened?’ I’d be disappointed in the show. Of course, maybe I wouldn’t be as lost if I played the mobile game, but as I haven’t as I mentioned in the preview I have no idea what’s going on and what beats from the game the show is going to cover. The show does set us up with a few mysteries and a few facts, as well as introduces us to three new magical girls. So let’s skim down that information and try to connect the dots.
- Iroha Tamaki is a magical girl, she can’t remember what it is that she wished for. Neither can the Kyubey she wished from, clues throughout the episode a semi-clear flashback show us wishing for her sister to be cured of her illness. However, that doesn’t explain a lot of things. If her sister is cured, why has she vanished from existence? Removed from pictures, her half of the room they shared entirely empty? Why the inability to remember the wish? The other things that we know about Tamaki are that her parents have gone out of town, she’s a generally passive and helpful person and she can see a young Kyubey that the other magical girls seem not to know about.
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The dream, the rumor. Go to Kamihama City and you can be cured. A decent amount of magical girls seem to be having this dream and the rumor is spreading. A small girl will whisper to them that they can be saved if they go to Kamihama City. However, what is there that can save them? Can you truly be saved from being a magical girl? Also, it’s interesting to see wishes that are so much more mundane and selfish then what we saw in the main series. Wishing to have the courage to ask out a guy, you could compare that to Sayaka in a way but she healed his arm and gave him back his life by giving him the ability to play the violin again.
There is a whole list at one point in the episode of wishes, small and large. Mundane and insane. The one that struck me the hardest and stood out the most was “I want to become the existence that destroys Kamihama.” so yeah, there’s that and I’m interested to see if that’s going to play into the plot at all.
Third and last of this weeks talking points is the magical girl that they do run into upon being transported by a witches labyrinth into Kamihama. Yachiyo Nanami seems to be a strong and confident Magical girl, she also seems very aloof and very determined to keep other magical girls off her territory and out of Kamihama. She warns Tamaki and the other magical girl to stay away and tell the other girls, not only is that there no salvation to be found but that the only thing that Kamihara offers is stronger witches.
She sends them off with two grief seeds and that warning. However, in Kamihama we’ve already met the tiny Kyubey. There is also reason to believe that the mysterious disappearance of Tamaki’s sister Ui. So that’s where this episode leaves us.
My first impressions are immensely positive. It perfectly captures the unsettling air of a Magica series, from the use of sound effects and music to the slight unease in coloring and tone. The witches’ labyrinths were bright and colorful and full of interesting imagery. The music sounds very similar to the original show’s soundtrack and honestly, there is nothing wrong with that. I love the soundtrack to Madoka Magica and it’s one that I have been revisiting for years.
I’m fully in for this ride, that being said, don’t tell me if any of my guesses or predictions in the series to come are true or not based on the game info. I want to go into this blind and that’s exactly what I plan to do.
Possibility of watching: Guaranteed
Possibility of blogging: Absolutely Guaranteed