Magia Rekôdo: Mahô Shôjo Madoka Magika Gaiden

Review of Season 1: Since the original Madoka Magica became such a success there were a slew of imitators that tried to do what it did but there can only be one as it often is. Despite being apart of the official franchise, Magia Record feels like one of those poor imitators often with a meandering first season of no thrills, no stakes, no suspense, no intrigue, nothing that made the original series so great in the first place.

The first major issue this show has is the bulky cast. Besides our main girl, Iroha we have so many other characters that come into play and the plot seems to just forget about most of them anyway. With so many characters to quickly introduce and quickly dump. None of the characters are interesting and all feel like the same stock characters in many shows. The good one, the stoic one, the hot head and the cheerful one. The rest are just uh?

The show is just as visually trippy as the original, with just as many odd designs and creative uses of Gekidan Inu Curry's art. But that's also to this show's detriment as the art just seems to be all over the place with no design purpose other than to look cool. This show follows Rebellion's act by constantly bleeding the unreal of the witches into the real so often it's hard to track what is what in this world. What is the world of magic that these girls are intended to fight (which this show surprisingly has very little of) and what is these girls ordinary lives.

The character art is still just as good with unique designs for all main girls, enough design variety that gives them all a place to be in this series. We're even treated to one full magical girl transformation sequence which was fun.

In the absence of Yuki Kajiura this show surprisingly still pulls out some good music by Takumi Ozawa and my hat goes off to them for that.

I'm extremely disappointed thus far with Magia Record. I had my doubts already going in and was already disappointed that the producers decided to adapt a side story based on a mobile game instead of the sequel to Rebellion they had been teasing these last few years. Poor choices have really dragged the first season with dull story telling and dull characters robbing the show of the excellent razor sharp tension set from the original.

Will season 2 be better? I don't know but my interest had dwindled as watching this was a chore. Too much emphasis on making crazy art and not enough on storytelling and that's a real shame.