Tch
(This review contains
spoilers!)
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it
again: Magical Girl Raising Project’s greatest strength is its ensemble cast
and how it uses it. Out of the 16 major characters (not including Fav), 12
remain, and each of them got a brief line in the episode…except poor Tama, who
seems to still be reeling from the events of Episode 4. Given that she started
the show as adorable and innocent, I’m fully expecting her to do something
insane and terrifying later on before dying horribly.
The main players this week were
Calamity Mary and all-new magical girl Hardgore Alice. I’ve been pretty critical
of the show’s treatment of Calamity Mary thus far, as the characters spoke of
her in hushed whispers of this deadly magical girl who’s not to be crossed, but
until now we’ve never really seen her in action. She went into combat with
Hardgore Alice, who might I add is terrifying.
Last week when she killed Magicaloid with her head missing turned out to only
be the tip of the iceberg. Calamity Mary was able to reduce her to a gooey
paste, blow up most of it, freeze the remains, and throw it into a river, and
she still survived. That’s
impressive, albeit a little overpowered.
Speaking of the fight, finally seeing
Mary in action against another character was exciting but at the same time a
little disappointing. This is our first time seeing a character everyone seems
to be afraid of in combat, and she spends the first part of the battle getting
wrecked. I feel that if she had taken on Cranberry’s role from the past few
episodes things would’ve been better, but then Cranberry would’ve had nothing
to do. As usual, the fight scene was gorgeously animated, and the ultimate
result was satisfying.
The rest of the episode focused on
Ripple and Snow White, as we saw Ripple’s home life (which means that she’s
marked for death). Honestly, for a character we haven’t seen too much of yet,
her origins were very grounded and relatable. Top Speed continued to insist she
was fine with dying as long as it wasn’t within the next 6 months as well, but
we still don’t have context. At this point I’m with the popular consensus that
in the real world she’s pregnant, but it’s impossible to tell at this point.
The only real downside to this episode
is that it heavily relies on setting up what I imagine will happen next week.
Snow White meets with Sister Nana, Winterprison, and Hardgore Alice to form an
alliance together, and the episode concludes with Nana and Winterprison
travelling to meet Swim Swim’s gang, although it was hinted that Swim Swim has
some undoubtedly nasty surprise waiting for them. Ripple was also called for a
meeting by Calamity Mary, who I assume is looking for a replacement for
Magicaloid. At this point, lines are being drawn between the girls and factions
are being built, but just as before, I assume one of these empires will fall.
If I were to venture a guess as to who’s
going to bite the dust next, I’d say either Sister Nana or Winterprison make
the most sense story-wise to go next. Aside from Snow White and Ripple, they’re
the only ones that we’ve seen the home life of extensively, and if the past
examples of…literally each of the four characters who’ve died thus far, Magical
Girl Raising Project can’t resist giving the characters a last hurrah of
real-world life flashbacks before killing them. Nana and Winterprison shared a
moment together before meeting with Snow White and Hardgore Alice, and it can
be assumed that with them literally on Swim Swim’s doorstep at the end of the
episode, the show might not have had time to fit it in next week.
But that’s just my assumption. Maybe
the next death will be a complete blindside, as that’s not really something we’ve
seen yet with how telegraphed they’ve been. Nonetheless, I’m very much looking
forward to see where all this is going.
FINAL SCORE
8/10
Great
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