Anime Review: Magia Record: Magical Girl Madoka Magica Side Story Episode 1

Magia Record: Magical Girl Madoka Magica Side Story

Studio: Shaft

Genre: Fantasy, Drama, Psychological

Streaming: Funimation

The original Madoka series first aired back in 2011 and it’s safe to say that it caused big waves across the anime community. To this day, it’s still one of the first series people mention when they talk about magical girl anime and its impact hasn’t lessened much over the years. Pretty big shoes to fill. Magia Record is based off a game, and is a side story from the original series – what that means isn’t explored greatly in the first episode. It looks to be set in a similar timeline to the original Madoka thanks to the existence of witches, but whether or not we’ll get to see the original cast is anyone’s guess. There’s a brief freeze-frame of them in the opening but otherwise, we see and hear no mention of them.

Magia Record instead focuses on a magical girl (also, pink-haired like the original protagonist) called Iroha who unlike Madoka has clearly been a magical girl for a while now. She’s joined by Kurose, another magical girl in her city and the two have something of a partnership, though they are not really friends. It’s the job of a magical girl to defeat witches, terrifying creatures who alter the very environment around them with their power. Magical girls are created through the granting of a wish – any wish at all they might desire – and we see quickly how this doesn’t necessarily always work out to the advantage of the girl in question. The trade-off between getting the one thing they desire and risking their lives every day is seen as uneven and something which has clearly been realised by many of the girls throughout the episode. Haunted by dreams telling them to go to a mysterious city where they can be ‘saved’, there is a definite sense of despair and desperation around the characters.

There are clear similarities to the original series almost straight away – once again, this anime is created by Shaft and that really helps to keep the animation and overall style very close to Madoka. The direction, artwork, and music all show echoes back to the original and the main girls seen so far also have pink hair and black hair much like Madoka and Homura. That’s the only similarity the two have so far though and it’s clear that personality-wise they are very different. Iroha appears friendly and chatty to others, but it’s clear she’s suffering greatly from loneliness, lacking both friends and family. The opening to the series, which appears at the end of the episode, also clearly mimics the scenes from the original series but it feels more like it’s done on purpose which is somewhat jarring.

Atmospherically, this anime manages to nail the unsettling, creepy tone right on the head from the get-go. From the appearance of witches to the hidden messages spotted in the subway announcements and posters, there’s a definite sense of something being wrong here. For watchers of the old series, there are definite red flags and even new watchers should pick up that this is not going to be a happy kids’ magical girl show. There’s just enough exposition given in the intro for the anime to make sense for viewers who have never seen Madoka, without alienating long-time watchers.