Sunday, 2 October 2016

Magical Girl Raising Project Episode 1 Review

Attack of the Cute
(This review contains mild spoilers!)

          I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned it on here before, but I’m a huge fan of the anime Madoka Magica. I called it my favourite anime of all time up until Erased came along earlier this year. The art style, the characters, the music, everything about it is so fantastic. If you haven’t watched it yet, you owe it to yourself to do so.

          So I was browsing the upcoming shows for this season, and Magical Girl Raising Project is the one that caught my attention the most. The basic premise is that there’s an app that has a very slim chance to turn you into a magical girl. Our main character is given that chance, and everything seems all sunny until the mascot of the game (who resembles Madoka’s Kyubey in more ways than one) decides there’s one too many magical girls. And that’s where our first episode ends. The cold open teases what to come (which seems to be Magical Girl Hunger Games), but we’re not quite there yet.

          Right off the bat, the idea of adapting the magical girl genre to modern technology is a really cool idea. Having an app be the cause of the upcoming chaos is smart, and much better than the extremely overplayed spirit animal or prophecy. And while the mascot character has yet to distinguish himself as more than a Kyubey rip-off, he’s threatening enough for you to want to know more about him.

          As for the girls themselves, as of right now we haven’t been properly introduced to most of them except our main protagonist and her friend. There’s a pre-existing bond between them, so their connection is already strong. Unfortunately, they’re both pretty cliché to start off (aside from a fun surprise that I won’t spoil), so I hope they come into their own once the supposed death battles start.

          There’s not much else to say about this episode. It’s more or less the setup for rest of the show. The world building and magical girl concepts are all done well, especially with magical girls being treated as mythical creatures like Sasquatch in this universe. Ultimately, I’m excited to see where this goes, even if the starting point feels like it’s borrowing a bit too much from older shows.

FINAL SCORE
6/10

Okay

No comments:

Post a Comment