Your weekly dosage of magical girls, despair, and bloodshed has arrived!
(Spoilers in this review)
The episode opens with a flashback to Sister Nana trying to tell Calamity Mary that committing crimes as a magical girl is unacceptable. As expected, Calamity Mary tries to shoot the two of them, who run off after Winterprison gives CM a bit of a beating.
After the OP plays, we’re back in the present time. Winterprison warns Sister Nana to stay on guard after that one time with CM. Swim Swim, who’s peeking out at the two, remains as obsessed as ever with surpassing Ruler.
The ambush occurs and now we’re down two magical girls. But at least WP saved Nana! Despite the mutual kill, I think the surprise attack was wonderfully executed. Swim Swim definitely has a knack for devising cafty plans. I do wanted to point out that Tama didn’t do anything while everyone was throwing down. I mean, she could have bailed out the girls when they got trapped behind WP’s walls, in my opinion. Maybe Tama didn’t want to get involved with murder?
So that takes up about 10 minutes. Then the eyecatches come up and they’re rather interesting.
We then get a sneak peek of the daily life of a housewife – who happens to be Tsubame aka Top Speed. In hindsight I feel like I should have known she was a housewife – she’s given homecooked food to other magical girls in previous episodes and she has implied she has a curfew. Plus there’s the whole “delinquent girl starts walking the normal way of life after falling in love” scenario.
Could it be the six months Top Speed keeps bringing up has to do with being pregnant? Or maybe it’s their anniversary? At least she didn’t menion it this episode but I’m still thinking about it nonetheless. Victory goes to Top Speed for making me unable to forget it.
And then we get a brief scene of Sister Nana wallowing in her grief.
Anyways, the contrast between her and CM is rather jarring. While Top Speed is a young housewife who’s happily married (to her childhood friend’s older brother, no less), CM is a middle-aged, alcoholic housewife who abused her own child and was abandoned by her family, as seen in a flashback.
After she was left all alone, Fav announced that Yamamoto Naoko was suitable to be a magical girl. Really, Fav? His loose lips do reveal that he intentionally chooses girls who don’t mesh well together in order to create tension, however.
Most of the older women he’s chosen are kind of outcasts in society, aren’t they? Nemurin was a NEET, Ruler was an arrogant office lady who only thought about herself, and here we have the mother of the year.
The last few minutes of the episode shows us what happens in CM’s “meeting” with Ripple. She’s acting as hitman for Fav now (and she really likes tormenting people), so it’s no surprise she’s trying to kill Ripple. Ripple and Top Speed do manage to get away, however.
CM’s track record for actually killing magical girls is pretty terrible, by the way. She walked away from Ripple and Top Speed. Ruler didn’t die (but was probably physically abused judging from what we’ve seen in this episode). Winterprison and Sister Nana escaped. Hardgore Alice survived.
However, CM resorts to shooting regular humans and blowing up cars… with her sniper rifle? I guess her magic allows her to make things explode with her boomstick. In any case, she’s gambling that creating chaos will lure the goody two-shoes pair back to where she is. It’ll probably work.
How this mess affects (most of) the remaining magical girls is also shown. Snow White and HG Alice are going to join the fray. Swim Swim plans to attack the others as they head to the scene. Mina, the only one left of the Peaky Angel Twins, is probably going to try to kill everyone out of despair. Tama is still disagreeing with her group’s direction but refuses to speak up.
Rumor has it Nana is still crying over Winterprison to this day. Cranberry is more interested in finding out who murdered Winterprison. Maybe Fav will tell her since he serves her, but maybe not. If she does find out, the fab four three-girl-group will probably get targeted by the Musician of the Forest, too.
I think it’ll be good to list off all the magical girls in case viewers have forgotten who’s still in the running. Good thing I put that spoilers warning on the top of my post, right? But just in case:
BIG SPOILERS INCOMING
- Snow White – weirded out by HG Alice but alive
La Pucelle– wasn’t careful so he became car kill- Ripple – angry at family but alive
- Top Speed – the best housewife and still living
- Sister Nana – in hysterics but alive
Winterprison– massive blood lossNemruin– screwed over by real lifeRuler– et tu Brutus?- Swim Swim – clinging onto Ruler’s shadow but alive
Yuna– saved onee-chan!- Mina – in despair but alive
- Tama – disheartened but alive
Magicaloid 44– stomach problems- Calamity Mary – playing Call of Duty with hacks enabled
- Hardgore Alice – of course she’s alive
- Cranberry – seeking battle!
So we’re down to 10 magical girls. 2 more to go. But will the elimination rounds even stop once the number of mahou shoujo is down to 8? Will Fav step in and stop the massacre, or will he sit back and enjoy the show? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see!
Next episode is titled, “Notice of New Rules!” The game is being changed yet again, my friends. See you next week!
The Lily Garden 
Thank you, anime make me realized their aim, waiting a week can be good sometime haha.
That logic is true though, they have no idea about the ‘admins’ while Fav is a hologram as shown in last episode. The safest and quickest way is to kill the other before you end up dying. Swin Swin’s group is really bad at fighting and gathering candy after all. Not to mention “quitting” lead to death too. Swin Swin mentality is currently set as “be a good leader” and “survive with your subjects”.
With Ruler’s teachings and no one to argue with her, she would end up at that conclusion.
Also do you see character stats for Ripple in this episode in Mary phone?
Here is the one for all the characters, someone create a stat sheet by combining stats from Fanbook 1 and 2. http://imgur.com/ 1lLk5gX
Oh characters song sample are out too (in Youtube), Gov8zjlxuIU, EAcvi6SDI7E, PVtZVn2mvI8.
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I’m glad that you’re enjoying the show, too. New perspectives due to different mediums is always nice!
Mmm. It definitely seems drastic at first but it’s the only option they have left. She’s only a young girl so it can’t be helped that she’s so fixated on imitating someone she admired. Good point about having no one to stand up to her, too.
I did! That kind of character stats stuff is always very enticing to me so I was very happy they included that. Just wasn’t sure how to mention it in the post so I ended up not talking about it.
Wow, thanks for sharing the fan art and the character song samples! I’ll give it a look and them a listen~
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“And you hate yourself for that, don’t you? … …pon!” Fav’s mask is slipping lol. Nice you caught on Fav’s category for Magical girls, aka outcasts, runaways and bad people in general while sprinkling a few nice and protective people here and there. “Friction” indeed. He even separated them via district and competition neatly. Also you can see part of Fav capability in cyber realm in episode one.
Tama was the one who bring down all the walls actually. The scarf Nana holding was the original she made, the one in winterprison came with her transformation. In other news Cranberry is salty, Alice is a stalker and Snow continue to be focused on helping in a death game. Oh and nearly every one has flashbacks now.
With those out of the way, I want to talk about two Magical girl who come up with a way to end the game. These are not from LN btw, just my thoughts.
Mary, a 35+ something divorced housewife who relieve her stress with hurting people and drinking. She had nothing worth left on her life anymore, saved a power fantasy know as Calamity Mary. As Mary she ruled the district. She was feared. She was at the top of the world. Now she run into a few that she can’t kill, Alice, Fav. etc She sort of snapped not that she was sane from the beginning. The conclusion she come up was to kill as many magical girl possible, the game won’t be able to complete then while it would make her feared again, one upped Fav and complete the end of her deal. After all why wait for weeks for the other to die when she can simple do it in one go?
Swin Swin. a 7-10 years old child emulating a person she admired, a child not out of princess phase, someone with all the intelligence, power and leadership position yet young enough to be still morality developing stage. So what happen when She followed Ruler words to the letter?
In the end she too come to a similar but different conclusion like Mary.
Sorry that it ended up a bit too long!
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Oh, I definitely missed Fan’s snarky comment! His mask is falling apart~
It took me a while but I finally noticed, haha. It seems like there’s more outcasts than nice girls for sure, though. He put a lot of thought into this, huh? Ill have to re-watch episode 1, then.
Oh, that makes sense. I guess I thought Tama might have been able to bring the walls down faster, but Winterprison was just moving too fast!
Ohhh that makes a lot of sense. She included a scarf for her magical girl mobile game character, after all.
Salty Cranberry and Stalker Alice. She just popped out of nowhere once Snow White left her house. Definitely missed that. Damn, Alice, calm down!
I’m still waiting for the Tama flashback. The girl is too kind for her own good.
Those are good breakdowns of CM and Swim Swim. You’ve definitely explained them and what pushed them to act like how they have well. It’s interesting that the oldest competitor and the youngest competitor both came to the conclusion that murder is the fastest way to end the game.
No no, I’m very thankful for your insight as usual. The longer the better! Thanks for dropping by!
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Haha, I really like your list at the bottom. And your captions, too! You should try doing some comedic posts/lists–I think they’d be really awesome!
I agree that the first battle was executed pretty darn well. No wasted moments that I can see. And I like how you pointed out the contrast between the two moms, and also the play on Yamato Nadeshiko.
Oh, Swim Swim.
I think you must have telepathy with this series, haha. Pregnancy makes the most sense with Top Speed. Sister Nana is so hysterical right now that she’ll probably off herself next ep, if someone else doesn’t get to her first :c .
Compared to the others this one wasn’t as exciting, disregarding the first 10 minutes. I’m blaming it on the 3 flashbacks in a row–though I do want a cool scarf. I also feel that every time someone says they’re going to protect someone, they’re going to get killed. So, uh, sayonara Top Speed? I might say Alice but she’s practically indestructible. So OP.
After some thinking, I realized that the things that seem to work for this series are ones that I would normally complain about for others. There’s just something that I like about it, but I can’t quite pinpoint it!
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I just realized something else. If they’ve already gotten rid of 6 magical girls, with only 2 more kills remaining, and there are at least 4 more eps, what’s going to happen during the rest of the series?? I don’t know what the wrap-up might entail, and I am so curious right now!
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Thank you! Well, maybe in 2017. I am always worried I’ll miss something on a list wahaha.
The battle itself was fine, I agree. It’s just that the flashbacks slowed it down a lot. I guess that can’t be helped. Kyra Desu definitely influenced me when it comes to names! Well, I guess Swim Swim is as bad as Ruler at this point. Apathy instead of insults, though.
Well, we will have to see. I’m just realizing everything in hindsight. I can appreciate that the show doesn’t give us nonsense scenes that could or could not be meaningful. Sister Nana is a wreck right now ;_; hope Fav spares her the lecture.
Yeah it was definitely the flashbacks. Too many characters leads to all of them getting development right before something happens to them, I suppose. But the first fight and the last part were still interesting!
Things ain’t looking good for Top Speed, yeah. She’ll probably head back to the scene when she should have ran like she said she would if someone came after her (except now only one other magical girl can chase after her in the sky since Magicaloid and Yuna are dead,l. Imagine that).
Alice needs some hard limits. Like maybe her lifespan shortens with each massive regen? There wasn’t as much lurching as I hoped for this episode. Maybe some scenes were cut out ;__;
Yeah, some things happening in this show somehow gets the okay from me, too. I’m just too soft when it comes to shows as a whole, though.
Thanks for dropping by! I’m looking forward to reading your write-up!
I don’t know! Maybe one girl gets killed and everyone plays it safe for the next three episodes? That’ll be pretty bad. Or maybe they start the next arc and end the series as a cliffhanger? Maybe they all unite to overthrow Cranberry and the girl group? So much to be looking forward to!
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Okay, I’ll poke you again in 2017 if I remember xD turhur. I think it’s fine if you miss something
Swim Swim’s apathy is something else O_O. This is what aspiring princesses do, I guess?
O you are right about the last part, too; sorry, i was thinking of the epic showdown during the first minutes still! *o*
bloorgh, ya, we can practically see top speed going into her doom unless alice + snow white do something v quickly
this is true. i missed the lurching a lot 😦 i got really attached to Alice last ep, even though (or probably because?) she creeped me out a lot xD, but in a non-nightmare-inducing way
o well, liking shows isn’t a bad thing. I think more often than not people are too harsh so it’s okay! (like how I got really, really angry at Nanbaka this week /shifts eyes /still angry at it /shifts eyes again) 🙂 Like what you like! it’s good that you enjoy mgrp and other shows so much!
Yea, of course! as always, I’m too lazy to write a post immediately so I’m hanging around commenting on your stuff. xD I’m wondering if i should do a general mgrp post this week instead of an episode review/some other episode thing that barely counts as a review but we’ll have to see what tomorrow or Monday me feels like.
I hope they don’t do a cliffhanger 8_8 i don’t think my heart can handle that hahaha
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Haha you don’t have tooo. Ill try to remember. But thank you.
I guess so! Eat cake if there’s no bread, etc. Wait that was a queen…
No worries! Both showdowns were great!
Maybe Snow White can use her telepathy / empathy powers! I can count the amount of times she’s used the ability on-screen with one hand. Alice could be a good shield but who knows if she’ll actually defend someone other than Snow White? Maybe SW ordered her to do so, she would?
(I like Alice, too, even though the name and ability is too much for me haha)
Yeah I’ve been following what you write about Nanbaka (despite not watching the show) and it seems like the series really goes up and down. This week was a nosedive for sure.
It’s certainly a different approach than how other bloggers approach shows. I’m just worried every review will come out half baked. Well, I think being an optimist suits me more (online) so there’s that!
Haha that’s true. Don’t waste your time on my blog and get to work…when you’re nice and comfortable, that is haha. A general mgrp post sounds good! Keep sleeping on it!
I hope so, too. I can’t say I’m a fan of shows ending like that and keeping us in suspense ;___; well, this arc may wrap up nicely yet so we will have to see, as usual.
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Oooo hm you’re right it’s time for SW to show us who’s boss!! She be like, I can dodge every bullet of yours because of my MIND READING!! Because they’re so stressed out from the battle or something. And ya, I guess she could catapult Alice right in front of CM 😛 (I don’t think she actually would, but that would be funny) (You are right about the name&power, haha. To me she is an eternal lurch-dancer?)
Hmm I don’t think so! I enjoy what I’ve read of your stuff 😀 I think it has good points and you put a lot of thought into them. Now I’m anticipating a slip of your sinister/skeptical non-online side xP.
I WILL keep sleeping on it! /rolls
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It’ll be awesome if she could do that! She always seems to pause while using her ability, though. I’m half expecting her to assume the Charles Xavier pose with her fingers by her forehead one of these days haha.
Yeah that probably wouldn’t happen, but it’s a funny sight to imagine.
(Despite the name and power she’s just an awkward, hardcore SW fan who happens to do the lurch. Better than the monster mash and the robot in all categories!)
Thank you! I probably shouldn’t compare myself to other bloggers too much. If someone who puts that much thought into posts is complimenting me, I had better listen!
Sleeping sounds like a plan! Hope you’ve rested well and woke up with an idea on what you plan to do!
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“Calamity Mary – playing Call of Duty with hacks enabled”
Lmao
Good stuff Remy, and yes I liked this within fifteen minutes of it going up. I was waiting like a normal person and not creeping The Lily Garden…I swear!
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Thanks prattle! At least she forgot to install the aimbot!
Ehhh sounds suspicious… I’m flattered either way, though!
I’m glad you’re still watching the show even though you dislike certain aspects. Nevertheless I think I still enjoy this series the most out of the fall 2016 anime I’m currently watching, which isn’t actually saying all that much (Don’t worry, no one can take away Chitose’s rightfully earned spot as meme queen).
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