THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRETY OF THE MAGIA RECORD ANIME AS WELL AS THE GAME AND THE PARENT SERIES PUELLA MAGI MADOKA MAGICA After Eve of Awakening left the anime looking like it gave up being an adaptation and decided to pursue being a doover instead we reach the finale. How much more could the bois at SHAFT possibly cha a lot. A fucking lot. INDEPTH OVERVIEW 500https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/496844005523456000/960424084825595924/unknown.png The three of us will save her. Tamaki Ui First things first. Episode 22 is a backstory episode. It goes through a few changes by far one of the biggest being that instead of Touka finding out about Magical Girls and Incubators on her own and coming to the others with this information they sneak into a Labyrinth to see Iroha hard at work. Someone quick add another tick to the Iroha getting her ass kicked counter The other major change being how we got this exposition to begin with. Nemu just remembers everything. While an odd change the removal of the personification of the Eternal Sakura from S2 kind of necessitated it. Ui being the Magical Girl of the Witch that would be known as Embryo Eve is an okay twist and it provides a decent enough explanation to the mystery of the Small Incubator. 500https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/496844005523456000/960427175763406889/unknown.png So it was better for you if I didnt remember. Satomi Touka Episode 23. Now out of the backstory and with the original ideals of the Magius in shambles a new light is shed on the salvation of Magical Girls. Despite the revelations put on the table and a lot of tears put on Irohas shoulder the Eve is still Awakening. Promises are made to be fulfilled and the smaller Magius girls know very well that what theyre doing is a necessary evil towards their goals. The Eve awakening does something unique to the anime that only really serves to guide the story to the main event of the episode. The girls still going through with using Uis Witch Body for liberation causes sudden Doppel Syndrome to a ton of Magical Girls and someones gotta deal with it. 500https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/496844005523456000/960431229071654912/unknown.png What about your promise to take care of me forever? Yakumo Mitama The sacrifice of Azusa Mifuyu and Togame Momoko is... interesting. Coming out of source material where death was minimal dropping the leader of the Feather and the Adjusters Right Hand was an unexpected direction. Oh yeah by the way they stay dead. Mentioning that doesnt involve these two but keep that in mind for later. If they die in the anime they arent coming back last second. My issue with this is not the scene itself but moreso just its existence. It may free the afflicted girls at Fendthopes ruins from their Doppel Syndrome but those girls dont really achieve much from here on. Most they do is make a combo plane and tie down a moth. Thats really it. Episode 24 may start with Alina watching the world burn to the ground but its very obvious who this episode really belongs to. 500https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/496844005523456000/960436474023641158/unknown.png How long do I have to keep being a Magical Girl? Kuroe Kuroes finale is nigh and the cracks are just too big to seal. Iroha literally being like You should totally be a Magical Girl with me. is kind of a dick move considering she should know how rough the whole bit is. And besides this is sort of reused in the sense of Iroha isnt the first in the franchise to want a Magical Girl buddy even if we dont know if Iroha was struggling to cope with the job as badly like the one who came before. Anyways Kuroe may have taken Tomoe Iroha up on the idea but she...does not cope with it well. To the point that in Episode 23 she experiences the sudden Doppel Syndrome and essentially kills herself by breaching Alinas Doppel Barrier and fully transforms. Iroha putting down the newlyborn Ichizo is painfully to watch even if the fact we dont get much in the way of knowing her before Ep24 does bog it down a little. 500https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/496844005523456000/960442254793785374/unknown.png You should care about yourself more. Hiiragi Nemu Episode 25. End of the line. Firstly after a sharp bullying from both Kyubey AND herself Irohas buddies come to pick her up from the sky and she moves on uncomfortably quick. I find this more to be a pacing issue as the series doesnt even have 30 minutes left at this point. After hitching a ride on a magic makeshift plane she FINALLY gets another chance to talk down the girls. But when all seems to end well whod be willing to interrupt but a GENUINE PSYCHO? 500https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/496844005523456000/960445946880229416/unknown.png Alina will turn EVERYTHING into art Alina Gray This insane bitch has decided to fuse herself with Eve consume Walpurgis and force all of humanity to fall to and understand the turmoil of the Magical Girl. Her transformation for this final exciting show is and I shit you not... Neo Dorthy Motherfucker Im not kidding thats what the ruins in her Witch introduction come out to say. And the best or worst part? Its perfectly in character for Alina. God I actually dont think Ive expressed in any of my MagiReco reviews until now that I love Alina as a character. Crazy bitch is just so entertaining to watch. Anyway time for what may be the scene closest to its equivalent in the source material. Nemus sacrifice against Alina. Just...lets not kind ourselves. NDM is a form completely unique to the anime and Touka joins in the sacrifice. And just to fuck with Iroha even more lets sprinkle in Ui whose soul in still in the small Kyubey by the way jumping onto the highway to hell alongside her two buddies. So thats Alina Nemu Touka AND Ui gone in one fell swoop. Two things about the Magius sacrifice. Only Nemu sacrifices herself to take down Alina who in the game has a completely separate Holy Alina form. Even if it was a necessity for Touka to go with Ui had no reason to jump in with them aside from idk fuck it why not? Remember how I said characters dont come back in the last minute in the anime? Yeah this is why I brought it up. Unlike in the game Nemu isnt coming back in an epilogue. They are all GONE In Nemu and Alinas case this is a good change. They never shouldve come back after Last Magia. And now for something different. 500https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/496844005523456000/960451354583773184/unknown.png Why does everyone leave me? Tamaki Iroha Yachiyo and Iroha are finally allowed to get their respective closure with Yachiyos old crew and Ui respectively. This is also when Yachiyos true ability is revealed: Hope Inheritance. Now when I first read that shit in Last Magia my instant reaction was Okay hold on bullshit. Yachiyo isnt GOD HERSELF This game just shat the bed in the final stretch fuck this. But now I think I was wrong kind of. From how I understand it now she can take whatever hope a girl has like shes a bowl or jar and convert it into power. Basically what Im saying is that Nanami Yachiyo is a walking talking Magical Girl Spirit Bomb Iroha doesnt get something cool like that. She just gets the good ol Ill always be with you. given to her by Ui. Because Iroha is just getting given the shit end of the stick here. 500https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/496844005523456000/960455111413469264/unknown.png Let me hear your voices Tamaki Iroha And using that power Yachiyo and Iroha materialize the Due Anima I must say for the magia record that this attack is used to kill WALPURGISNACHT in Last Magia as opposed to it being used on Neo Dorthy Motherfucker in the anime. Speaking of that bitch stood no chance facetanking the Due Anima. She is NO MORE Dead Reduced to atoms Taken by the Law of Cycles She no longer exists Even in her last moments Alina just had to take someones spotlight. Bah Holy Quintet has all 5 members this time. They can handle Walpurgis all together...right? 500https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/496844005523456000/960457437368959006/unknown.png Then in the end....everything Ive done.... Akemi Homura Puella Magi Madoka Magica Episode 11 Yeah no this timeline was just another failure to throw in the evergrowing list. Kind of ironic really. Not only does Homura take another loss from Walpurgis but its in the series where the original version had her take part in the final shot that killed Walpurgis. Just another day at the worst office in Magical Girl history. 500https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/496844005523456000/960461401871228928/unknown.png FINAL STRETCH SERIES THOUGHTS Heres the thing with Dawn of a Shallow Dream. I gave up on it being a faithful adaptation early into Season 2 so I came in not expecting much aside from them somehow getting the Due Anima in. Im left mixed on this ending. It comes a lot closer to the feel of the parent series than either season before it. Thats not entirely a good thing though. Its TOO close to the parent series. It stopped feeling like a spinoff and started being a copy of the original 2011 TV series and MagiReco TV ended up failing to meet the standard it placed on itself. You shouldnt always be like your parent even if theyre a masterpiece. Spinoffs in my opinion should be a balance of what worked about the franchises history and something to make it unique. In that sense I have to say that Magia Record peaked in Season 2. For most of Season 1 it felt like any generic episodic Magical Girl show. In Season 3 it felt too much like MaMadoka. Season 2 while still straying away from the somber and hopeless main plot that defined the main series and the final minutes of Magia Record TV slipped in more of the character specific suffering of the 2011 series through edits to the games character backstories. Season 3 strays too far into the hopelessness that defined its parent to the point they killed 11 characters in THREE EPISODES Magia Record Season 3 has a higher kill per minute than some slasher flicks assuming all ambiguous characters are dead by the end of the postcredits scene. Speaking of lets see just how hard of Ls everyone took in the anime: Iroha: Debatably the worst off. After travelling all the way to Kamihama in search of her sisters ends up being there to WATCH as they all her bloodrelated sister that has been missing from reality as well sacrifice themselves in a futile attempt to kill Alina Gray. Oh also literally right before her friend witches out while driving it in that its her fault AND she had to put that friend down. All in at most the span of a few hours. Homura: Debatably the worst off. Has been jumping through time countless times by now finally arriving in a timeline where she might have a chance to finally finish her eternal cycle of suffering. However Walpurgis ends up going back to Mitakihara where Madoka gets killed again and the others end up MIA. Her cycle of torment continues with no end in sight. Mitama: Lost both Mifuyu AND Momoko Momoko and Mitama having been heavily connected through their Magical Girl lives AT THE VERY LEAST Yachiyo/Tsuruno: Lost Mifuyu another of their old friends Yachiyo: another one of her crew dying while she lives on Tsuruno: among the girls saved by the sacrifice Sana/Felicia: No notable change might be a bit down after the high of victory ends Momoko/Mifuyu/Touka/Nemu/Ui: Sacrificed self Alina: Vaporized by Due Anima Kuroe: Witched out put down Madoka: Killed by Walpurgis this is not up for debate Homura wouldnt go back AGAIN if Madoka lived Sayaka/Kyoko/Mami: Presumed dead Kyubey: Gets to keep its system of exploiting young girls and their unstable emotions BONUS: biggest threat to established system taken out Yeah Kyubey is the only one in the anime to take a straight W. Fucks sake dude.