Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku

Wanted for magical girl raising project. Girls who are interested of becoming magical girls and do all the goody-goody stuffs of helping other people are very much encouraged to apply. Successful applicants will be directly contacted by our administrator. Thank you. Woah. If only making a magical girl was that easy to begin with. When was the last time you see a dark magical girl anime? I know there are a handful throughout the years and I still remember how grim Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica was. Well folks, looks like here is going to be another dark and bloody magical girl anime. It may all look nice and sweet about a programme to develop and nurture magical girls. But behind all that glitter and sparkle of Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku lies something much darker. Something more sinister. Something that makes everybody wished they have read the finer prints and between the lines of the contract. How do you feel when I summarize this series in one sentence: Magical girls killing each other in battle royale style! OMG! Indeed. Now do you have the guts to watch how the best magical girl is chosen?

Episode 1
Koyuki Himekawa seems interested as she is told by the game’s mascot, Fav about this Magical Girl Raising Project. Wow. Sounds cool. Use magic and fight the darkness. Oh… I remember Kyuubey… Don’t do it! It’s a trap! Next day, Koyuki is discussing with her friends about rumours that magical girls have been responsible in taking out triads and the mafia. They also talk about the game company of Magical Girl Raising Project and their ridiculous ads and it is obvious Koyuki seems hooked on it. Because it’s free to play. Flashback reveals Koyuki has always loved magical girls. Back home, she gets a message from Fav that he has been observing her and is deemed fit to become a magical girl. Koyuki, no!!! IT’S A TRAP!!!!! Too late… Instantly she transforms into a magical girl nicknamed Snow White. This is real. This makes her very happy as she goes around town helping those in need. Fav also tells her she is the 15th magical girl and her special ability is to hear the thoughts of others in trouble. Fav also believes it is time for her to meet other magical girls via this online forum. Currently online now are Nemurin, Sister Nana, Vess Winterprison, La Pucelle and Cranberry. La Pucelle offers to train up Snow White since her area is next to her. La Pucelle then explains how each magical girl is given their own territory and thus rarely bump into each other. She warns the rogue magical girl, Calamity Mary in the Jounan district and to stay away from her. The combo pair of Top Speed and Ripple are passing by so La Pucelle also explains how some magical form teams. This has La Pucelle offer to team up with her. Snow White is surprised she knows her real name. La Pucelle’s real name is Souta Kishibe, Koyuki’s elementary classmate. Wait a minute. Isn’t she a boy???!!! No wonder Koyuki can’t recognize him. Or her. So you’re completely female if you’re a magical girl. La Pucelle vows to protect Snow White who feels very safe to be by her. When Koyuki comes home, there is an important message from Fav that he plans to cut this region’s magical girls to eight.

Episode 2
Of course everyone else isn’t too happy about this announcement. Making it worse is that Fav has already planned to take in a 16th magical girl since she already made a contract. It seems Fav has miscalculated. As magical girls draw power from the region, having too many of them will drain the power very quickly. But the question now is how they are going to half that number. Wait. What? Collect the most Magical Candies? You mean they’re not going to kill each other? Shucks… We have a flashback of how Top Speed and Ripple met. When the latter was a new magical girl, Top Speed offered to train her. However Calamity Mary appeared and announced that it was supposed to be her turn. Although Top Speed apologized and wasn’t looking for trouble, it didn’t take long before Ripple and Calamity Mary start fighting. The latter backs down when Top Speed pleaded. She also lets Top Speed have Ripple whose ability is her shurikens never miss. Snow White and La Pucelle save an elderly couple from a house on fire. This earn them lots of Magical Candies as the people they rescued are safe otherwise they won’t receive this many. Koyuki can’t sleep and logs online. She sees Nemurin and talks to this nice girl. She learns her ability is to enter people’s dream. Then we see Nemurin fighting monsters and saving the world in dreams. Although this earns her a lot of Magical Candies, what happens in dreams stays in dreams. Fav advises her to get real ones in reality. Ruler is having her groupies announce how many Magical Candies they have got. She chides Tama for not getting any because she won’t let anyone in this group drop out. Soon, Fav announces the top Magical Candies collector is Snow White. At the bottom is Nemurin. This means she will be eliminated. Snow White is sad and after she is done talking to Nemurin, her account is immediately terminated. Because Fav tells Nemu Sanjou (Nemurin) that she has until midnight before she cannot transform into a magical girl, she takes this last chance to enter people’s dreams. When time is up, she is suddenly cut off. Later when her mother comes in to check on her, she is in utter shock that her daughter is dead! OMG!

Episode 3
Top Speed gets a call from Swim Swim for a favour. It seems she forgot about a meeting with Ruler for a leaf viewing event and will be late. She sends her there in time and as expected, Ruler is not pleased with this. After Top Speed leaves, Ruler has her groupies to bury illegally dumped garbage to score Magical Candies. Snow White and La Pucelle are called by Sister Nana and Winterprison. When they were trying to find past logs of Nemurin to remember her by, they stumble upon this conversation between Fav and Cranberry. He told her that when a magical gets terminated, she will also die in the physical world. Meanwhile those idiotic angel twins are jealous Snow White is at the top of the popularity rankings too. They have Tama give them ideas on what to do. A PV? They like the idea and their popularity shoots up to second place although they still hate how much Snow White is in first. When Ruler summons them for a special meeting, it seems that all the magical girls are now being told and confirmed by Fav about real death once you drop out as a magical girl. Panic is starting to sink in. Didn’t read the rules, eh? Oh man, this is like Kyuubey… So what if they want to quit being a magical girl then? They will also die! Sh*t hits the fan when they realize the online article of a girl dying from a heart attack in her room that closely resembles Nemurin. It is her! Snow White is depressed about it so La Pucelle swears her loyalty that she will still protect her no matter what may become of her. When there is a version update notice that allows them to transfer Magical Candies, Ruler knows what the deeper meaning is. No, it is not transferring excess ones to those with smaller amounts or work as a team to earn Magical Candies. Because this can also be done with one’s device is off, they are telling them to steal Magical Candies. And who has the most Magical Candies right now? That’s right. Ruler and her groupies are going to target Snow White and make her die tonight.

Episode 4
Sanae Mokuou (Ruler) was chastised by her boss for coming up with an effective and flexible scheme. She was transferred to another lowly division. Her hate for idiots only grew and when she became a magical girl, she was thrilled at her ability to make anyone obey her commands. Hey. Can a person this ‘old’ be a magical girl?! Well, they had a boy being one… The angel twins distract La Pucelle and fight her. Despite pit traps from Tama, she can still hold her ground as she pounds them. Meanwhile Ruler has Snow White frozen as commanded while Swim needs to transfer her Magical Candies. It is tough on Ruler since she has to maintain this position without moving and Snow White has got lots of Magical Candies! When La Pucelle realizes this is a trap, she rushes back. This only angers Ruler that those idiots aren’t even good enough to stall others. Swim is done when La Pucelle lands an attack that separates Ruler and her groupies. Ruler calls for a tactical retreat. Snow White is depressed and La Pucelle is adamant to go get back her stolen Magical Candies. Snow White doesn’t want her to do that. But when they see her device, they are in shock. Ruler and co try to divide the stolen Magical Candies. As they have stolen 2,088 of them, they can’t divide it equally among the 5 of them. However Ruler dictates she will get the lion share as she planned all this. Swim will get half of that and the remaining miniscule balance to be divided among the idiots. When the announcement is made, Ruler is in last place! Flashback reveals Ruler was attacked by Calamity Mary. Humiliated, she gathered people with weak will to follow her to be meat shields. Now that Ruler is dead, the angel twins are mocking over her dead body. No more mean woman to boss them around. It seems this was a plan hatched by Swim. After she got Snow White’s Magical Candies, she transferred 25,000 to Tama. In actual fact, Snow White’s total is 50,000! Stealing half was enough. Then Swim has Tama order Fav to divide this amount evenly to everyone except Ruler, Snow White and La Pucelle. This would make Ruler in dead last place. The angel twins are also in on this. Apparently Swim got this idea when Nemurin entered her dream and gave her the idea of being a princess. A princess is like a ruler, right? But she can’t be a ruler if there is currently a ruler… See where this is going? Top Speed is upset Ruler got last place but Ripple obviously knows a coup d’etat has happened. They are called by Sister Nana to meet.

Episode 5
Sister Nana is trying to seek their help to end the fighting among the magical girls. But with her crying and all that, Ripple finds it shameful and disagrees. Top Speed prevents them from fighting and will think about it. Ruler’s subordinates might be free but now they are at a lost on what to do. Calamity Mary is seen talking to Magicaloid 44 who gets a call from Sister Nana. It seems Magicaloid was her magical girl tutor. Oddly, Sister Nana always wanted to borrow her ‘devices from the future’ (Magicaloid’s ability) in whatever help she wants to do. And she pays good money for it! Of course Magicaloid plays along as a way to make money but one day she didn’t know one of her device helped Winterprison become a magical girl as Sister Nana wanted. Now Sister Nana wants to stop this fighting so Magicaloid claims she can go negotiate on the admins on her behalf. Of course for a fee. Sister Nana and Winterprison are called by Cranberry. As usual, Sister Nana wants Cranberry to help stop this fighting but is instead told to stop what she is doing. Suddenly Cranberry and Winterprison start fighting. Winterprison is barely holding out with her magical walls but with a little of Sister Nana’s help (her ability is to boost the power of the one she wants), they turn the tables and escape. Fav is not pleased that Cranberry let them go as she was supposed to eliminate Sister Nana. However Cranberry has no interest in the game and only wants to fight strong opponents. Since Sister Nana is Winterprison’s source of strength, she’ll keep them alive for now. Sister Nana decides to take upon herself to teach the new magical girl, Hardgore Alice. As usual, the preaching about stop fighting each other, blah, blah, blah. But when she mentions about Snow White being targeted, Alice becomes interested in her and rushes off to where she is. After La Pucelle sends home Snow White, she is confronted by Cranberry who wants to fight her. She is not after her Magical Candies but wants a powerful opponent.

Episode 6
Makoto Andou (Magicaloid) does whatever she wants. She hangs out with a homeless man and eats with him before bumming in her friend’s place. While grinding some game, that is when she became a magical girl. La Pucelle and Cranberry begin their fight. OMG. First blood! It’s getting bloodier by the second as Cranberry beats up La Pucelle. Cranberry expresses she doesn’t fight strong opponents to gain strength but to kill them. This makes La Pucelle scared although she does make a little comeback and make Cranberry spill some blood of her own. But that is all futile because amidst the flashback of Souta’s reluctance in turning into a magical girl… He got hit by a truck? Before we know it, Souta is dead and everyone attends his funeral! Gloomy days are here for Koyuki. It seems this accident is just a cover up. As conspired by Cranberry and Fav to make it look like an accident when he was actually killed in that fight. Fav then makes an announcement. The good news is that there is an introduction of 5 items. First come first serve. La Pucelle’s death is also ‘good news’ because this means nobody else has to die this week. Cranberry wonders if this item thingy is a good idea because it might make it hard for Fav to reach his goal as this could mean the weaker ones could be left standing in the end. If the strong ones die in the process, it means they were weak in the first place and part of the process to be slain by the true hero. Fav tries to persuade depressed Snow White to buy the items. Based on what he says, she could guess La Pucelle’s death was no accident. The number on the items doesn’t indicate monetary cost. They cost you years of your life! She is hesitant to take at first but when she finally does, all of them are sold out! A little too late. Her luck runs out because Alice has found her. A chunk of them are bought by Swim’s group. The angel twins bought some medicine costing 3 years. Tama bought a weapon that costs 5 years and Swim bought the most expensive invisibility cloak for 25 years! Then she switches with Tama and decides to call the weapon Ruler. Wicked. The other magical pouch that can hold anything is bought by Calamity Mary who spent 10 years. Magicaloid didn’t buy any as she wants to hold on to her life. Knowing that the magical girls will be killing themselves, it’s a reason why she teamed up with Calamity Mary. However Calamity Mary doesn’t trust her and thinks she will backstab her one day. So to win her trust, go kill somebody. Before Alice can do anything, Magicaloid decapitates her! She decides to kill Snow White to please Calamity Mary. Two kills is better than one. However Magicaloid gets stabbed by Alice’s decapitated body!!! Bloody. Horror. No wonder Snow White is freaking out.

Episode 7
Koyuki wakes up in her room all fine. Was it a nightmare? Apparently she has that last item, rabbit’s foot that gives her luck whenever she is in a pinch. But she didn’t buy it. It was Alice who bought it. Sister Nana calls her to meet up. When Calamity Mary cannot reach Magicaloid, she summons Fav to contact her. But when she learns she is ‘not around anymore’, Calamity Mary wants to know who killed her and takes this as a direct challenge at her. At first Fav won’t give out information so easy, claiming fairness, blah, blah, blah. But she knows what he wants and makes a deal for things to go his way if he tells what she wants. Calamity Mary snipes out Alice. That easy? But then Alice rises back from the dead! Time to freak out. No matter how many bullets she pumps into her, Alice keeps regenerating! OMG! An immortal! She experiments with various ways to put her down and when fire seems to be the trick, she puts her remains in a cement block inside a barrel and dumps it into the ocean. Wow. Overkill. Want to bet zombie girl will get out of there? When Fav announces only Magicaloid has been killed by a slasher and thus nobody drops out this week, Calamity Mary laughs like crazy. Zombie girl is still alive. Flashback reveals Kano Sazanami (Ripple) always was picked on by other kids. They teased her for having a mom as a slut and changing so many dads. What does she do? She punches them all to hell! Even when she goes boyfriend hopping, she punches those damn b*tches for trying to warn her! And mom has got a new boyfriend home. Not surprising. As expected, he is a lazy bum and pervert. When he tried to make a move on her, that is when she has had it. She moved out to live on her own. Sister Nana meets Snow White to calm her depress heart. But look. She also has called Alice here! Alice agrees to work with her, delighting Sister Nana who is now off to meet other magical girls to form alliances. Wait. That’s it? You leaving Snow White alone with zombie girl? Man, this is awkward. Snow White tries to leave but no matter how far she goes, Alice is always there! Spooky! She tries to return the rabbit’s foot but Alice says it is hers now and she felt like giving it to her. Top Speed and Ripple are talking about things when the latter gets a call from Calamity Mary to meet. It’s urgent. Ripple isn’t too happy.

Episode 8
Flashback shows Sister Nana tried to warn Calamity Mary about using her magic to commit crimes. She doesn’t give a damn and starts shooting her. Thanks to Winterprison’s walls, they make their escape. Now Sister Nana is happy to go see Swim’s group not knowing they have laid a trap. Before talk can start, Tama in her cloak abducts Sister Nana. When they emerge, there are 2 Sister Nanas! Which is real? When Sister Nana goes up to Winterprison for help, this is the fake one because she stabs her. The disguise is courtesy of the angel twins’ ability. Winterprison realizes this is a trap and flings a very stunned Sister Nana outside to safety. Winterprison then targets the angel twins and smashes the head of Yunael (the younger of the twins)! In this chaos, Swim uses her weapon to cut off Winterprison’s arm and let her bleed to death. Winterprison sees visions of her time spent with Nana Habutae (Sister Nana). Minael (the elder of the twins) is devastated. Tama is reeling from the bloody shock. 2 dead bodies. Swim wonders how Ruler would have handled this. Obviously Sister Nana is also in despair thinking about those times spent with Shizuku Ashuu (Winterprison). Yamamoto Naoko (Calamity Mary) is an abusive alcoholic housewife. After the family left her for good, that is when Fav brought her into this magical girl project with his sweet words she can be strong, beautiful, etc. As Ripple and Top Speed wait for Calamity Mary, suddenly they are sniped at. They know she is out to kill them in the first place and makes a run for it. Calamity Mary knows she cannot best Top Speed’s, uhm, top speed so what does she do to bring her back? She randomly shoots and kills innocent bystanders!!! OMFG!!! She’s staying true to her name by causing a great calamity! Snow White sees this and rushes to the scene. Alice follows her. Flashback shows Alice revealing her ability to regenerate from any injury and she wanted to meet her again. Swim has a better idea. Wait for all the magical girls to head to the calamity area to rescue and then they kill them all off! Minael agrees with that. Everybody should just die… Cranberry isn’t interested of going but knowing that Winterprison is dead, she wants to know who killed her.

Episode 9
Sister Nana is too depressed to give a f*ck. I don’t think all that drinking and pills are going to help… Ripple jumps back down to face off with Calamity Mary. But Ripple steps on her landmine and bombs are thrown at her. Top Speed luckily returns to swiftly save her from death. Ripple wants to go back and fight her. She knows she is being harassed and Calamity will not stop hunting her till she is dead. There’s talk about not being an ideal magical girl so Top Speed acknowledges those feelings and agrees to help out. But getting near Calamity Mary isn’t easy. They are even shot out from the sky! Then they go for broke with their next trick, which is to drop shards of glass all over her. But cleverly hidden among those shards are Ripple’s shurikens. One strikes right in Calamity Mary’s forehead. Game over. She’s dead. Ripple thought Top Speed is fooling around hugging her. But then she realizes she is bleeding! Oh no. Was she injured during the fight? Actually, Swim stabbed her! Ripple becomes mad as she tries to kill Swim. However Swim is able to turn her body into water so any objects that harm her pass right through. Swim cannot match her agility and escapes. Ripple is further devastated when she returns to the body of Tsubame Murota. She is 3 months pregnant! You going crazy now?! Snow White and Alice are helping the people when Minael drops in. She transforms into an axe and throws herself at Snow White. But Alice takes it right in her head! Don’t worry. She still lives. Now Alice is going to kill Minael like swatting a fly? Snow White could hear the voice of Tama in a dilemma to attack her. Despite Tama is wearing the cloak, Snow White can pinpoint her due to her ability. This makes Minael mad as she grabs the cloak from her and disappears. Tama escapes by digging a hole. Snow White and Alice continue helping others. Alice picks up her dropped bunny doll but it seems it is Minael in disguise… Her original doll was hidden by the cloak. Meanwhile, Nana hangs herself. Too sad to give a f*ck anymore. Fav announces more dropouts than usual. Yeah, 5 of them. So what now? There were supposed to be whittled to 8 and now there are only 7. Yeah, f*ck that. Let’s whittle it down to 4. Are you freaking kidding me???!!! Swim is analysing the skills of other magical girls. It won’t be easy for their group to take on the rest. But this leaves Cranberry who rarely shows herself so she doesn’t know her strength. She thinks of having Tama test the medicine when they face her. Minael comes back happy, certain there is one person they can definitely kill.

Episode 10
An emotionless Ako Hatoda (Alice) visits her father in prison who tells her not to come anymore. Worse, the school is giving her that look because news spread that her dad murdered her mom. Snow White and Alice find solace with each other. But when Snow White learns about the whittling to 4, she loses it. She doesn’t want to this sh*t anymore. Alice tries to calm her but she takes out her frustrations on her and leaves. Alice is devastated when she is told not to follow her anymore. Alone again, naturally? When Ako heads to school, she is shocked Swim attacks her. Apparently once your identity is known, you lose your qualities as a magical girl. Swim chases down injured Ako who is looking pretty scared now she can’t transform. She remembers joining this magical girl project with a dark design and wanted to meet Snow White because it would be a good colour contrast between them. Apparently Swim can also teleport out from puddles and that is where she makes the kill. Another strike to make sure. Snow White could hear Ako’s voice calling out to her as she races there. Ako’s last words are as long she is still alive, there is still a magical girl in the city. Ako is also particular of Snow White because Koyuki helped find her lost keys before. Then it’s goodbye forever. Swim didn’t know it was so easy to kill Alice. Minael rues they should have done this from the start as she remembers her times with her twin. Mina and Yuna Amasato (Minael and Yunael) are a bit of a rascal as they grow up, doing almost everything together. Heck, the funny part was a guy confessed to them and doesn’t care which. Just date him! Hell no! Minael remembers masquerading as the doll and being brought to Ako’s home. That’s how she know how she looks like. If they had done this earlier, Yunael would still be alive. Next on the target list is… Cranberry receives a call from Swim to meet. Funny, Cranberry is thinking how strong this girl is seeing she has killed 4 magical girls! Then there’s a talk with Fav about making a false report and hiding the truth from some committee in the magical world about this project. Swim’s group arrives at Cranberry’s cabin in the woods. Swim enters the cabin and takes a medicine. But Cranberry is already outside and she knows Minael and Tama are trying to trap her. While Tama escapes from an attack, Cranberry crushes Minael’s heart as she is disguising as a rock! Tama panics when she sees Minael’s corpse but Swim isn’t as she plans to pincer Cranberry. Cranberry assesses Swim’s calm judgments and the reason why she is the leader in slain magical girls. But she can’t beat her. Can she?

Episode 11
Lots of dead magical girls. It seems a demon summoned for some selection exam has gone berserk. Even the master is dead. Only Cranberry is left standing and somehow she killed it. That was when Fav decided to team up with her to do something more exciting instead of these boring exams. Swim directly attacks Cranberry. Although Cranberry’s attacks go through Swim’s body, something about she can see and hear her, it means light and sound are unable to pass through. Cranberry lets loose a light explosion that blows her away. As she checks her body, she is shocked to see Swim’s real self is of a child. In that distraction, Tama scratched her. It is a fatal scratch as her ability is to make holes in anything she touch. Cranberry’s top explodes! OMG! After Tama picks up Ayana Sakanagi (Swim), she transforms back and slits Tama’s throat! WTF???!!! Flashback of Tama Inubouzaki’s life as a loser. She never did well in exams and sports. Her younger siblings did better and are ashamed to be related to her. Her only solace was her grandma but she died suddenly. That is when Tama became a magical girl and under Ruler, she was even thought how to read and write words! She can only regret what she did wrong. The dead don’t even contemplate. Fav now considers Swim as his new master and she agrees to play along with his game. It seems Swim killed Tama not because she is a ruthless master wannabe. Ruler told her never to let anyone know her true identity. Ayana goes home to do her homework like all those violence never happened. She ponders if Ruler would have become master without letting everyone die. Ripple remembers how Top Speed was enraged when Nemurin was killed. Likewise, Snow White thinks back about La Pucelle, Sister Nana and Alice. Ripple calls Snow White to meet. If she has any information on Swim, let her know now. It’s about revenge. Snow White tries to tell her this only makes her a murderer but Ripple doesn’t care about being a magical girl she once wanted to be. That’s why she admires her. Fav then interjects to hint Swim’s weaknesses are light and sound. Go figure the rest. Seems this killing game is going to whittle down to 2. Oh heck, why not just make it one? Snow White can’t believe what Fav has done although he says he is just giving a little supportive push. Ripple makes her final peace with Top Speed. The latter’s spirit thanking her for bringing her body back at her home? Time for Ripple to have a showdown with Swim.

Episode 12
As Koyuki is crying in depression back in her home, she doesn’t want to become into a magical girl anymore. Fav tells her that is not how it works as he reveals he is from some scouting department in the magical world to recruit and train magical girls (man, this reminds me of that Kyuubey’s explanation…). He was in cohorts with Cranberry who was the master but she got killed. Fav would prefer Snow White to be his master because Swim is a talented killer but is not a good master. Ripple too has personality issues so Fav doesn’t want her. That is why Fav motivated Ripple to fight Swim and have them kill each other. All that is left is Snow White. As master, she gets to decide how the next magical girl get selected. As Cranberry was the previous master, she decided to use this social media game which is popular in the human world which made recruitment easier cover up their true goal under the guise of gathering Magical Candies. Normally failed candidates would just have their memories erased but this time they decided to kill Nemurin so things would be spiced up. Thus, collecting Magical Candies is just red herring to have them kill each other. Fav can’t understand why she looks so surprised. She should have seen this coming?! Koyuki can’t take this anymore and destroys her device as she transforms to go stop the fight. Too late. It’s already in progress. Swim is having a great advantage because it is raining and there are puddles everywhere. Ripple is blinded an eye and an arm cut off before the flash of lightning made her realize this is Swim’s weakness as she is unable to turn her body into water. She uses a flash grenade to stun her and take her down. Just to be safe, she stabs her body many times! Ripple is happy to get revenge and the collapses.

By the time Snow White arrives, she is disheartened to see their corpses. Fav congratulates Snow White for being the sole winner without soiling her hands. But Snow White can hear Fav’s worries that if this master terminal is destroyed, it would be troublesome. She tries to break it but Fav assures this master device is very sturdy. But when Fav is mocking other magical girls, Ripple suddenly gets up! Apparently thanks to Snow White’s rabbit foot. Ripple is mad Fav mocked Top Speed as Snow White could hear Fav’s thoughts that he is scared Swim’s weapon can destroy the terminal. Fav will say anything to get out of his predicament so Snow White tells Ripple not to listen. Ripple lunges the weapon and destroys the terminal. Bye Fav. In the aftermath, the site for this magical girl project is gone. Error 404. There are also a lot of news about terrorist organizations and bad guys being taken out mysteriously. It has also been 6 months since Koyuki had run away from home and her friends have never heard from her since. In actual fact, Snow White and Ripple have been going around doing these deeds. They have received messages from the magical world to stop acting on their own but they ignored and deleted them. Snow White and Ripple have a friendly battle with each other as Snow White narrates her love for magical girls. Even if people say they are for young children, she will never stop dreaming.

Mahou Shoujo Nante Mou Ii Desu Kara!
Ah well. What a bittersweet ending. At least the surviving duo go around in secret to do some good for the world. Even if their work goes uncredited, I believe this is what being a true unsung hero and a magical girl they believe in. After all, this might be their way of atoning for the unholy game they participated in despite it was no fault of theirs. Maybe in a way they too are to blame. While Ripple clearly had her hands tainted, Snow White didn’t do anything and that itself might be as good if she joined in the killing spree. Well, at least our heroines didn’t sacrifice themselves and be one with the world! So as you can see, this is what happens when Game of Thrones is a magical girl version. Haha! Too bad the small cast of characters would hardly make any deaths epic. But this isn’t the first anime to have its cast of characters kill each other. Old series like Basilisk and Gantz have already been doing this a long time ago.

Call me a sadist but somehow I was getting more and more engrossed in interested in watching the magical girls take out each other. Yes, this is the main reason why I gradually found this series to be interesting. You rarely have magical girls fight each other in battle royale style and in fact this could be the only show to do so as far as I know. Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica may have its dark and grim moments but they don’t turn on each other although they too have one alternate timeline of killing each other.

Upping the dark and grimness of the series is of course the blood splattering and some body parts decapitated. Because you don’t normally see those in ‘normal’ magical girl shows that are laced with toxic magical goodness. So if you want to compare this series with other shows that are liberal and generous with the use of blood such as Shingeki No Kyojin and Drifters, this one makes it more brutal in comparison, don’t you think? So while watching the magical girls use their single unique ability in battle that may not amount to anything much, the sight of blood suddenly splattering and dripping might suddenly leave your jaw agape wide open. Yeah, at least it proves that even magical girls bleed. Get the note, Superman?

Despite many of the episode titles sounding like happy and bright game notices such as “Welcome to a world of dreams and magic!”, “Collect magical candies!”, “Add more friends!”, “New character!”, Up your friendship!”, “Get the super rare items!” and “Notice of new rules”, it feels like they are hardly the theme of the episode. Sure, that may only last for a few moments as the rest of the episode would be as grim and dark. Heck, the final 2 episodes’ titles is somewhat of a reminder of how dark this is going turn out to be, “Server down for maintenance” and “File not found”. Hell, they even added some horror-like suspense and interference to mess with our minds and scare our fragile hearts when these couple of titles popped up.

Another reason why this series is interesting is because of how it threw me off in which magical girl would go first. Yes, I was actually trying to predict who would die first and the last ones to stand. Of course with Snow White being the main protagonist, that is a given she will remain till the end. In short, my predictions were mostly wrong! I expected Ruler would be one of those last bosses because of her b*tch attitude but her early death signals the start of my failed predictions to come. I didn’t expect strong ones like La Pucelle and Winterprison to go out early or in the middle of the series. I didn’t expect Tama or Minael to last that long because they are somewhat the weakest and I saw them as numbers to be killed off. Who’d knew that they actually outlasted the stronger ones. This included Calamity Mary, whom I initially thought would be the last boss just like Ruler and because she is so badass but also went out in the middle. With more known about Cranberry and her unusual strength and power, I thought she would be the last boss then but I was proven wrong again when they picked her off!

Alice as the newcomer I thought she would be in the last 4 because her delayed appearance could mean she is hiding some sort of twist, right? Wrong! And here I was thinking how Sister Nana would be killed, she did the unthinkable and beat me to it by killing herself! I didn’t see that coming for sure! So you see how because all my predictions were off (because I’m so confident after watching a handful of shows about everybody killing everybody over the years) that is why I became engrossed instead of feeling frustrated. Oh heck, I should have guessed Snow White and Ripple would be the last ones standing because their bio-data in the mid-intermission are the first ones to appear. Big hint and sign, dude.

Which brings me to the characters of the series. I have mixed feelings about it. Because of a series that kills off its characters, is it necessary to know about their backgrounds? In some ways, yes. It is a good way to tell us about their back story and how they end up in this game, albeit they do not really impact the flow of the story in any way. It is just to give us some sort of understanding that these are girls, each with their own set of problems to deal with rather than something that would really affect the storyline in general. It gives them character and personality at best. But because there are 16 of them, the limited episodes and screen time means their stories are short and what you see is what you’ll know. That’s all. Therefore me wanting more than 16 characters and bloating it up to say, 50 so I can watch the gore fest might just dilute and make this part cheap. Thank goodness only 16, right? Also, the names of their character and magical girl nicknames reflect their behaviour so if you know your Japanese decent enough, you can guess their attribute and power based on their names.

So when you read the bio-data in the mid-intermission, it practically says everything and all you need to know about them. Every episode features 2 magical girls. It explains their unique ability as well as their general character in normal form. They are also shown their magical girl and normal form too although I wonder why a few do not have their normal form even though we don’t even get to see their real faces very much, at least we get to see in short instances. Like when they’re dead. Yeah, not pretty. My scepticism for Cranberry only increased because as the last bio-data, she is the only one without a real self and Fav is featured in this place. If you count your magical girls right, what happens when they run out of bio-data to show? They display ‘important’ quotes as said from the magical girls! Some are thought provoking like “If it’s talent they want, then they need only eliminate the weak and select the strong” while some are just WTF. “What did I do wrong?” and “Huh? I don’t know”. Huh? Why does Tama’s words like these get featured?!

Snow White being featured as the main protagonist doesn’t feel like one. Thanks to the other magical girls and the ‘fairness’ of giving them their due screen time. Because it is funny come to think of it that Snow White who didn’t even kill a single magical girl, she lasted till the end. It is as though she stayed dormant waiting for other rivals to take each other out before making her appearance. Heck, there are no more others left so who else is going to be in focus? Because for most the middle parts of the series, Snow White is relegated to the background while other magical girls duke it out like Calamity Mary and Ripple settling their score. All mostly can be done without Snow White ever coming into the picture. After La Pucelle’s death, I feel that part of Alice’s role is to help shield Snow White from everything else and part of the reason why Snow White is able to stay safe and alive till the end.

Swim is the most terrifying and deadliest of all characters. Even deadly as she shows no emotions. Heck, she may even be the youngest girl among all the participants and she is already so ruthless. Not sure if she is really this wicked or she is just trying to find her place and live out as what Ruler has told her. Sometimes I find Swim and Alice to be overlapping characters because they are both emotionless and they are both lolis. Heck, even their powers seem to overlap in the sense that it makes them immortal. I also want to comment on the angel twins. Despite looking the cutest of the lot, they give off this impression they are cutely dumb and all that because you see them rejoicing like idiots when things go their way. That itself makes them scary too. Especially when the other is gone, the other turned into a crazy killer. For Tama, I just want to say that the moment I laid eyes on her and get to know her character, she kinda reminds me of that Cartoon Network character, Courage the cowardly dog…

So we’ve got almost every other magical girl having some sort of their own problems like Calamity Mary’s alcoholic ways and the need to dominate others weaker than her, Ripple hating her own mom and Ruler wanting to prove that she is a capable leader. In view of this, I think the happiest magical girls are Top Speed and Sister Nana. This is shown in both their magical girl form and normal form. Ironically Top Speed was an ex-gangster but she is living a pretty happy family life and even expecting! It was just a sad ending for her. Likewise, Sister Nana and Winterprison are perhaps to most lovey-dovey couple. At first I was wondering if Winterprison is actually male because of her androgynous looks. She also tends to wear male-like clothes and play the male role for Sister Nana. So it could be her just being a tomboy and their relationship is still much lesbian? Well, if Winterprison is a guy, it would then overlap with La Pucelle’s character in a few ways. The thing that annoys me about Sister Nana is how she tries to preach to everybody. I’m cool with her being honestly goody-goody but I can somehow relate in real life her kind of character praising and glorifying whatever the speaker is trying to preach/sell/advocate. It’s that kind of annoyance.

Speaking of Fav, this little blob reminds me so much of Kyuubey and even though they have this similar vibe, they feel totally different. Despite when they talk using nice and cute tones but you can sense that there is something hidden beneath all that. Even when they tell you the truth, they tell it straight to you without changing their emotions and talk in the same cute manner they have always been talking to you. Having them as your moderator and contractor, you are really screwed big time. But can you blame them? It’s not like the girls did ask for hidden clauses and conditions at first. Everyone is so happy thinking about their own perceptions of the good it will be being a magical girl till sh*t hits the fan then it’ll be too late. One big difference is that Kyuubey exists physically while Fav feels like his is only digital.

What bothers and confuses me is this magical world thingy and the project Fav is supposed to undertake and report. I’m not sure why they are even doing this as it is not clearly explained and I’m confused if they are really that dumb not to see the magical girls killing themselves. It’s like handing them a project and not even giving a damn about it, so when asked about it periodically, they accept whatever answer and continue not to give a damn. Fabulous. It just shows this magical world isn’t as great as they’re supposed to be or they are just powerless. I mean, why the need of a magical project in the first place, right? Another thing that boggled me is how magical girls lose their attributes if they know about their true identity. Fair enough, if they are in normal form, they won’t have any magical girl powers. But seeing how some of them know each other (like Sister Nana and Winterprison), wouldn’t their power be ineffective? I feel like I’m missing something here… Also I find it redundant that the special magical items cost the purchaser’s lives in years. Because not that it mattered anyhow as they’ll be dead anyway! Get what I mean?! Of course it is to reflect the grimness of the game and to see the desperation of some but like I said, it didn’t matter because all of the purchasers ended up dead in the end.

This series is done by Lerche who has brought to you Ansatsu Kyoushitsu, Hamatora, Danganronpa, Carnival Phantasm, Gakkou Gurashi, Unbreakable Machine Doll and Saijaku Muhai No Bahamut. Thus you can see why the art and drawing style lean towards the moe side like in some of those aforementioned series. Although nothing that extraordinary, sometimes it feels pretty odd to see cute girls killing each other. I can’t say about the character designs because I think magical girls have come a long way since the days of Sailormoon and Cardcaptor Sakura. They aren’t your typical magical girl outfit anymore. Therefore at first it was weird to see a bunch of cosplaying girls running all over town. I mean when you have a witch, ninja, nun, knights, robot, gothic loli and even a cowgirl in the fray, it doesn’t really look like magical girl fest on this level anymore. But I guess this gives a variety of eye candy because if everybody is going to look like palette swap variants of Sailormoon, it would be just bloody boring and pain to look at. Is it me or does La Pucelle look a bit like Saber in some angles?

There are quiet a handful of recognizable seiyuus lending their voices here as I later find out because the shocking thing was how I couldn’t recognize most of them when I should have! Excuse: I was too engrossed in the story and killings for me to strain my ear and listen. So it was really a surprise for me when I discover that Nao Touyama was behind Snow White, Ayane Sakura as La Pucelle, Kikuko Inoue as Calamity Mary and Youko Hikasa as Ruler. They sound so different than their usual. Those that I had barely recognized and took me a while are Yuu Kobayashi as Winterprison and Megumi Ogata as Cranberry. Of course, those outright recognizable are Saori Hayami as Sister Nana and Satomi Arai as Magicaloid.

For the rest I didn’t recognize, they are Manami Numakura as Ripple (Retoree in Show By Rock), Inori Minase as Swim (Chamille in Nejimaki Seirei Senki: Tenkyou No Alderamin), Rina Hidaka as Alice (Anko in Tamako Love Story), Yumi Uchiyama as Top Speed (Momiji in Binbougami Ga), Risae Matsuda as Minael (Taki in Denpa Kyoushi), Satsumi Matsuda as Yunael (Nagaru in Denpa Kyoushi – hey, the angel twins are voiced by the same seiyuus who played delinquent twins in Denpa Kyoushi too?), Asuka Nishi as Tama (Shinobu in Kiniro Mosaic), Yumiri Hanamori as Nemurin (Hanako in Anne Happy), Kurumi Mamiya as Fav (titular character in Hamtaro – is this what evil hamsters sound like?).

I wonder if Sakebe by Manami Numakura as the opening is fitting for such a series. It is a lively rock outfit but personally even if it does fit action sequences, it doesn’t seem to bode well if you have a series about everybody killing everybody and deaths are for real. Personally the ending theme is more fitting despite it is also another rock piece. Dreamcatcher by Nano starts out all echo-y, making it feel close to Enya’s kind of music. Mixing a good amount of English and Japanese words into the song, it gives some sort of hope after all the grim killings we have seen.

Overall, if you are traumatized after watching cute magical girls kill each other, I recommend to you watching Mahou Shoujo Nante Mou Ii Desu Kara for therapy. Yes, that magical girl show about a magical girl doing no magical girl stuffs. Well, if you really get traumatized after watching this, then you’re not ready to face some of the other magical girl series that are dark in their own way. Better off sticking to old school retro Sailormoon and Cardcaptor Sakura, eh? This show is not for the faint hearted and in my books this is an interesting and remarkable series despite what others have to say about it. It shows us the dark side of humans (magical girls in this case) when life and death are at stake. Lots of moral questions are raised but more importantly do you stick with your principles and do what is right. A great reminder never to jump in the bandwagon when things seem too good to be true. Hmm… Better have a second thought and not click on that invitation and application on social media looking for masters to supervise a harem of beautiful obedient and submissive maids in a large luxurious mansion. Can’t… Resist… Clicking…