Magia Record Episode 3

Magia Record Episode 3

Sorry For Making You My Friend

Madoka Magica: Magia Record episode 3 doesn’t quite pick up where episode 2 left off, and I was a bit disappointed by that. The ending of the previous episode with the chain monsters surrounding Kaede made for some great suspense, and then this episode failed to follow through on it.

I mean, we didn’t even get to see how Kaede was taken away. What did that look like? Only Rena was able to see the chain monsters, so we can assume she witnessed them grabbing and dragging Kaede away. But what about for everyone else who couldn’t see them? What about for Kaede herself?

Rena Minami from the anime series Madoka Magica: Magia Record
Rena Minami

Also, while the girls did defeat the monster which kidnapped Kaede, it didn’t really feel like a big deal. Now, this is partly because, as is hinted later on in the episode, that monster wasn’t their real enemy. But the other reason it felt this way is because there didn’t actually appear to be anything at stake.

Yes, Kaede’s life was supposedly on the line, but think about what the girls found once they made their way into the labyrinth. Kaede was perfectly fine and had simply been waiting for them. Further, with five magical girls teaming up, defeating the monster was no big deal.

I just hope that going forward this side story follows through with the suspense it builds in meaningful ways.

The Coordinator

Near the beginning of the episode, right before we’re formally introduced to Yachiyo Nanami, the unnamed magical girl from episode 1, we meet the “Coordinator.” I’d assume that the Coordinator is a magical girl in her own right, but we don’t actually know that for certain yet.

What we do know is that she plays the role of doctor and arbitrator for the various magical girls throughout Kamihama City. And when we first see her, she’s working with another magical girl, who isn’t named just yet, but will probably show up again later on in the series (or maybe just in the mobile game).

But while facilitating meetings between magical girls is one of her jobs, her more important job it seems is to “upgrade” them. I haven’t played the Magia Record mobile game, but her character seems to be kind of like Da Vinci from Fate/Grand Order — the shop keeper who helps you upgrade your servants.

I think if this anime wasn’t based on a mobile game, we wouldn’t be seeing a character like the Coordinator. Characters like that make sense in the context of games, but they don’t exactly translate well into anime format.

And evidence of this can be seen by the fact that we don’t really stick around with her for long. We’re introduced to her by her title, she gives a little explanation of what her role is, and then she upgrades Iroha’s soul gem.

But we don’t actually know if upgrading her soul gem did anything meaningful for the plot. It just happened because it’s what happens in the game when you want to upgrade a character, I guess.

Magical Girl Transformations

After the girls stop at the Coordinator’s hideout and Yachiyo joins their party, we get to witness their magical girl transformations for the first time. I don’t believe we had even seen Iroha’s full transformation before now. So, let’s go through them in order.

First up we have Yachiyo who is actually the water-based magical girl. I previously thought Rena was the water-based one because she uses a trident and her other similarities to Sayaka Miki. Additionally, the rest of Yachiyo’s outfit gives off a more celestial vibe with the stars — so water was unexpected.

Yachiyo Nanami from the anime series Madoka Magica: Magia Record
Yachiyo Nanami

Momoko is the fire-based magical girl, which I think last week I said might make sense for Kaede. We also see that she’s a fighter based on her movements during her transformation, and this is interesting given the giant sword she uses. You’d think she’d be more of a brawler with that animation.

Rena, as I mentioned, isn’t the water-based magical girl of the group. Instead, she’s the lightning-based one, which is just further evidence for her being the best girl. Sailor Jupiter was always my favorite of the original five Sailor Scouts, and she too is the lightning one.

Additionally, we see that Rena’s transformation (and magic she uses during the fight) is based on mirrors. This likely ties into her ability to transform into other people because either she hates what she sees when she looks in the mirror, or she’s trying to be a reflection of other people.

And, finally we have Iroha’s transformation which has a lot of strange things going on. I don’t even know how to comment on most of it yet, but something tells me the part where she’s chasing after her cloak is going to be very important.

The Chain Monster

While we don’t get to see Kaede’s magical girl transformation yet, we do get to see her use some magic (sort of) while fighting against what I’m going to assume was the chain monster. And, as I sort of predicted last week, it has to do with plants.

We don’t actually see Kaede use magic by herself, but we do see her use some tag team magic with Rena — something which seems to be common among Kamihama city magical girls. Their combined attack involves both mirrors and plants, so we can assume the plant part is Kaede’s.

But, moving on to the chain monster itself, while it does take the form of staircases leading up to a giant bell, it uses chains to fight. And that’s what I’m basing my assumption that this was the chain monster on.

However, we also know that there’s a witch known as the chain witch — and up until now it was unclear whether or not she and the chain monster were one and the same. At this point in time, I’m going to say that they are not the same, and that the chain witch controls the chain monster.

I said that same thing last week as well, but now we have a little bit more evidence pointing to that being the case. For starters, no witch name was displayed when the chain monster was revealed. All witches have their names displayed when they’re first encountered, and that didn’t happen this time — implying this wasn’t a witch.

Further, after its defeat, it’s revealed that it did not drop a grief seed — another sign that it wasn’t truly a witch. Could it be a wraith?

Mami Tomoe is on the Case!

If you’re someone who bails out of an episode as soon as the end credits begin, then you’ll have missed out on a lot of important information in a whole bunch of anime. That’s just one reason I watch through the EDs of anime every time.

The post-credits scene for this episode showcased Mami and Kyubey having a discussion about what’s going on in Kamihama city.

Although I’ve since updated my review of episode 1, I originally falsely claimed that Kamihama was where the main Madoka Magica anime took place. CNTH corrected me in a comment to say that Mitakihara was the name of the original city where Madoka, Sayaka, Homura, Kyouko, and Mami are located.

Mami Tomoe from the anime series Madoka Magica: Magia Record
Mami Tomoe

So, what’s Mami doing in Kamihama? Well, technically she’s not in Kamihama yet, but she’s been summoned there by Kyubey to figure out just what’s going on in the city. We were previously told that there’s no Kyubey in the city, and now we know why — when he tries to enter the city, it’s as if his own soul is pulled out.

Kyubey also informs us (and Mami) that there have been rumors of someone collecting all the soul gems in the city. It’s unclear if this is the work of a rogue magical girl, a witch, or even a wraith at this point, but the chain witch is probably involved somehow.

And, lastly, Mami seems to imply that whatever’s causing the soul gems to dry up in Kamihama is also reducing the number of witches elsewhere.

Could this lower number of witches outside Kamihama, combined with the dreams about magical girls being “saved” in Kamihama, be a trap? Is someone, or something, intentionally luring magical girls into the city?

Conclusion

That’s all I have for Magia Record episode 3. Have you played the mobile game? If so, what’s the Coordinator’s role in it? And regardless of whether you’ve played the game or not, what do you think is going on in Kamihama city based on the information we have so far? Let me know in the comments.

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My review of the next episode is available here.

2 Replies to “Magia Record Episode 3”

  1. You’ve pretty much hit the nail on the head with the coordinators role as gatcha system.

    I would like to point out though that due to the anime hevily changing the plot to make way for koroe, an anime only character. originally she remembers Ui’s friends after getting adjusted in order set up parallels between the rumor and ui’s friends. This also happened before kaede was kidnapped too. my guess is that they didn’t want overwhelm people with characters since in the original you met momoko in chapter 1 (and kaede briefly).

    Actually both reina and yachiyo are water based magical girls lol. All the girls are sorted into the elements forest, water, fire, light and dark for gameplay reasons. Ex. Madoka is light, mami is forest (flower theme), sayaka is water ect.

    I would like to point out that I don’t think the anime would be able to cover the entire game’s first arc. For starters we have around 60 magical girls introduced In the first arc, not counting crossover characters from other spin offs and MG anime, all of whom have interconnected stories. I doubt they’ll adapt them seeing how most of these girls are being relegated to cameos
    Then we have how despite being 3 episodes in we just finished chapter 2 and completely cut out most of chapter 1. Also keeping in mind chapter 2 is the shortest of the 10 chapters makes me anxious of what’s to come.

    1. It’s interesting to know that Kuroe is an anime only character. Now I’ll have to rethink her entire role in the story. Perhaps she was really only supposed to be around during the introduction and we won’t see her again, but I doubt it.

      And I’m completely fine with this anime not covering the entire story of the Magia Record game. FGO currently has 14 chapters on the international version of the game, with even more on the Japanese version. And with all that, the Babylonia chapter is being adapted into a 24 episode series on its own. With that in mind, there’s no way for all of Magia Record to be adapted in a single 12 episode series, so I hope they don’t even attempt to do that.

      There’s also the problem with the number of characters in gacha games. Fate makes it work by only including a limited number within each chapter, but then you have stuff like the Azur Lane anime that seems to have hundreds of characters all getting cameos. Luckily, from what I saw of the promotional material for the Magia Record anime way back, it only seems like there’s going to be around 10 – 12 magical girls who matter, which is much easier to digest.

      And the last thing I want to say is that my gut reaction said that Rena was a water-based magical girl, but then we got that whole thing with the lightning turning into her trident at the end of her transformation. I could definitely see Yachiyo being dark based as well as water though, which sort of aligns with me originally calling her a “celestial” type.

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