Stolen life
(This review contains
spoilers!)
The promised magical girl death
battles have finally begun, and to really pound that fact in, we got not one,
but two character deaths in a single
episode. Granted, we got another telegraphed death, which was unfortunate, but
the first one came as a surprise. Because it’s going to be difficult to accurately
recap and review this episode without covering exactly what happens, I’ll be
giving away both major deaths, so if you haven’t watched this episode and wish
to do so, go watch it before reading this.
With that being said, I mentioned last
week that if La Pucelle survives the entire series I would eat my hat.
Fortunately for me, I will partake in no hat-eating as La Pucelle bit the dust
in the first half of the episode. Considering we’re presumably halfway through
the series (unless it goes for 24 episodes, but I can’t tell at this point), La
Pucelle’s death was an easy yet effective way to set up the stakes and remove
any safety that Snow White previously had. I still feel that Snow White is too
perfect of a main character, and because she’s front and centre in all the
artwork, there’s no way she’s dying at least before the final episode.
The fight between La Pucelle and
Cranberry was bloody and brutal, but the show once again made the mistake of
telegraphing the big death moments before it actually happened. Just as the
tide of battle was beginning to turn in La Pucelle’s favour, we got flashbacks
and a big epic speech about what magical girls should be, clearly showing us
that poor La Pucelle wasn’t coming out alive.
Cranberry has clearly established
herself as the main antagonist at this point, considering Fav and Calamity Mary
haven’t gotten a lot of screentime yet, and Ruler died a few episodes back. As
a villain, I think she really works. I think her disregard for the candy collecting
in exchange for killing the magical girls herself will be the catalyst for
other girls to follow her example, including the more sinister ones like
Calamity Mary or Swim Swim.
We also saw a little more of Fav, but we’ve yet to understand
what his plan is or whether he’s just a puppet of the true master behind the
scenes. At this time, his disregard for the girl’s emotions and passing off the
deaths as “hey, good news, I don’t have to kill any of you this week!” makes
him resemble Kyubey from Madoka Magica more than ever, and while Kyubey’s
neutrality is what makes him an excellent villain, Fav needs to be different in
order to stand out on his own. Perhaps when we see more of him he’ll be a
little more unique.
Fav’s major part in this episode was introducing five new
magical items, giving whoever wields them an advantage, but also taking away up
to 25 years of lifespan depending on the item. While this is a great way to add
even more dark themes to an already dark show, I have to ask; what the hell
kind of app is this that can just magically take away lifespan!? I guess the
fact that it turns them into magical girls complete with fancy costumes already
brings up questions, but I honestly hadn’t thought of that until now. I really
hope we get some answers as to who’s behind all of this, because that’s easily
the most intriguing part of the show right now.
The other big event was the death of
Magicaloid, who died solely to demonstrate the powers of the new magical girl
introduced last week, Hardgore Alice. Again, the episode opened with a look at
Magicaloid’s home life, making it extremely easy to predict where her story was
going. I was hoping it would be like last week, where both Sister Nana and
Winterprison survived despite having non-magical girl scenes. It’s a shame too,
because I really liked Magicaloid, and I feel there was a lot more they could’ve
done with her instead of having her die like a chump just to demonstrate
another character’s power.
This episode only really served as a
way to up the stakes, reinforce the villains, and kill off two characters. The
halfway point of any anime can be shaky, but I think Magical Girl Raising
Project has the potential to stick the landing. While the main character still
is pretty weak and one of the major deaths was pretty disappointing, the
animation is still great, the characters are all extremely memorable, and the
fact that we’re finally getting the stuff we were promised makes me very, very
excited.
FINAL SCORE
7/10
Good
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