Hardcore
(This review contains
spoilers!)
As the grand finale approaches ever
closer, Magical Girl Raising Project continued to pull back the curtain on the
mysteries behind the scenes, as well as kill off two more characters, leaving
us with five remaining girls.
This week was more or less split into
two halves, the first focusing on Snow White and Hardgore Alice, and the second
focusing on Swim Swim’s crew and Cranberry. Ripple only had a cameo this week,
as she proclaimed her intention to hunt down Swim Swim in a vengeance.
Hardgore Alice’s story came to a
rather anticlimactic end, as Minael and Swim Swim basically figured that if
they kill her in human form, she can’t come back. They accomplished this with
relative ease, although it would’ve been much more of a surprise had the
showrunners not telegraphed her death by showing her home life yet again! This
is becoming a serious problem for the show, because it happens twice this
episode for the two characters that died, as well as for essentially every
character death before this. Although it was sad to lose Alice (she’s been a
great, albeit underused character), it would’ve been a lot more tragic had she
not go down predictably.
The good thing about Alice dying is
that it’ll give Snow White even more of a purpose to start doing things and get
her hands messy. Considering she’s the face of the series, Snow White has a free
ticket to the end right now, and I’d love
to have her act against her character out of pure spite and vengeance.
Speaking of that, let’s talk about
Swim Swim, especially since the rest of the episode focused on her. She and
Cranberry are currently battling it out for who’s earned the right to be the
main villain of this series. Swim Swim has overall done more, but the show seems
to be playing Cranberry as the true final boss, as well as the one pulling the
strings behind all this. Given how Fav refers to her as “Master”, it seems that
she’s the mastermind behind the killing of the other girls, as well as the
reduction of the final count from eight to four. She also seems to be planning
a deathmatch of sorts for the grand finale, which I’m assuming will be how the
four get cut down to one.
But anyways, after the killing of
Hardgore Alice, Swim Swim and her crew hunted down Cranberry to the woods. Unfortunately,
Minael got cocky and got herself killed, meaning this is the end of the Peaky
Angels. Which, again, would’ve been shocking, had it not been telegraphed by a flashback just prior to the actual
death. Seriously, come on! At this point, it’s become such a hallmark to
the show that you can accurately predict who’s dying next just by seeing what
this week’s flashback is! Considering Snow White’s character has improved in
these last few episodes, this has definitely become my biggest gripe with the
show.
We ended on a cliffhanger again, with
Swim Swim and an injured Tama trying to hunt down Cranberry, but it looks as if
Cranberry may have the upper hand. This means it’s time once again for me to
predict who’s next to go! Looking at it right now, I’d say that Ripple is going
to coast to the final four alongside Snow White, specifically because she’s
away from the current action, as well as because she’s featured prominently in
most of the promotional material. Cranberry is likely to survive as well, especially
considering that she seems to have become the true final boss. This leaves Swim
Swim and Tama, and I’d say either one of them is the most likely to go. I’d
give Swim Swim an extra edge for survival, especially since she currently has
the highest headcount, as well as fueling the fire to both Snow White and
Ripple’s vengeance, should she meet them in a final four deathmatch. Tama, on
the other hand, doesn’t really have much of a place in the end, but her betraying
Swim Swim would be an excellent bookend to her arc. I kind of find it hard to
believe that would happen unless the showrunners hid some hints to Tama
performing a coup d’état incredibly well, meaning that she is most likely to go
next.
Next week’s episode title was
something along the lines of “Servers down for maintenance”, so perhaps
everyone will be trapped in human form or something for a while. While this
episode was still good, the continued use of flashbacks as an attempt to gain
sympathy for the dying characters ultimately backfires, as it has destroyed any
chance the deaths have of being a surprise. I assume we’re down to only two or
three episodes left, and that doesn’t give them much time to learn their
lesson. Still, despite this glaring issue, I’m still enjoying the series for
what it is.
FINAL SCORE
7/10
Good
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