Magia Record Episode 9

Magia Record Episode 9

A World With Just Me

As expected, Madoka Magica: Magia Record episode 9 ties together the three rumors which were introduced in the previous episode. However, the rumor about the invisible girl didn’t exactly tie in as I expected. I’ll discuss that more later on, but first, let’s recap how the Endless Solitude and Electric Wave Girl rumors are connected.

So, I need to start by pointing out that there is currently no Electric Wave Girl — and there hasn’t been as long as Iroha and her friends have been investigating the rumor. The voice they hear over the phone is the Rumor (with a capital “R”) which controls the Endless Solitude.

If you’re wondering what the difference between rumors and Rumors is, it goes something like this: Rumors are the man-made, witch-like creatures which are behind the rumors spreading around local school. The subtitles on the sites I’ve been watching this series on differentiate the two by using the Japanese word “Uwasa” (噂) in place of “Rumor.”

But, if there’s currently no Electric Wave Girl, how did the rumor start? Well, just because there’s no electric wave girl right now doesn’t mean there never was. Before Sana Futaba became trapped in the Endless Solitude, there was an Electric Wave Girl.

Basically, the Electric Wave Girl and Endless Solitude rumors are one and the same. The Electric Wave Girl was merely the girl trapped in the Endless Solitude. But, because Sana wanted to be trapped there, she wasn’t crying for help like the previous captives — which is why there’s no longer an Electric Wave Girl.

The Endless Solitude

The explanation of the Endless Solitude was definitely the best part of the episode. It had a good story, it was explained well, and it had some unique visuals to go along with it.

So, what’s the deal with the Endless Solitude?

Like all Rumors, the Rumor of the Endless Solitude is man-made, just in a slightly different way. It’s not entirely clear, but I’m pretty sure most Rumors are created by the Wings of the Magius, and then rumors spread about them via the local students.

However, it’s also possible that rumors are what spawn the Rumors, and then the Wings of the Magius simply hijack the Rumors which have been created. The Rumor of the Endless Solitude seems to fall into this second category, unlike most of the Rumors which came before it.

The AI and its captive from the anime series Madoka Magica: Magia Record
The AI and its captive

As the story goes, there was an AI that was abandoned by its creators and eventually became a Rumor. It then created the Endless Solitude as its labyrinth and captures anyone who enters. However, it only captures one person at a time, so if someone new were to enter the Endless Solitude, the previous captive is released.

But, we haven’t actually heard any accounts of anyone ever being released from the Endless Solitude even though we know for a fact this should have happened in the past. The reason for this may be due to the way in which one enters this labyrinth.

The only known entrance to the Endless Solitude involves jumping off the top of the radio tower. Obviously only suicidal people would even test this rumor out, so it could simply be that they died once they were released. Or, perhaps the Endless Solitude releases its captives mid-fall and they continue the plummet.

The Invisible Girl

The Invisible Girl rumor is potentially the most interesting rumor of the series because it has no associated Rumor. And the truth is that it isn’t merely a rumor, there really is an Invisible Girl. However, the main difference between the rumor and reality is that not just anyone can become the Invisible Girl.

The rumor states that a girl will become the Invisible Girl if she’s ignored by everyone around her for long enough. And previously, I had assumed that the girl turns “invisible” because she’s actually trapped within the Endless Solitude. But that’s not the case.

The Invisible Girl actually refers to a single person, Sana, who wished to become invisible when she made her magical girl pact with Kyubey. It’s then merely a coincidence that the Invisible Girl ends up within the Endless Solitude, the two are not one and the same as the Endless Solitude and Electric Wave Girl are.

Sana Futaba entering the Endless Solitude from the anime series Madoka Magica: Magia Record
Sana Futaba entering the Endless Solitude

Now, I could be forgetting someone, but I think Sana’s wish is the only one which has been fully explained so far in the anime. We’ve gotten little pieces of information for some of the other girls’ wishes, but with Sana we got the full story.

She felt that she no longer had a place in society, so she wished for her apparent invisibility to become a reality. Some people would call Sana’s invisibility a pretty good wish — a superpower, even. However, for her it’s more like a self-imposed curse.

But, there’s something more we can assume about Sana thanks to her wish. The effectiveness of wishes is directly related to the magic potential of the girls making them. So the fact that Sana’s invisibility doesn’t work on other magical girls implies she’s extremely weak.

Alina Gray

Alina Gray is the next member of the Wings of the Magius who we’re introduced to. Does her name imply that she ranks somewhere between the Black and White Feathers of the organization? I don’t know. But what I do know is that there are a couple suspicious things about her.

First, and this has nothing to do with the story, she speaks in two languages: Japanese and English. That’s not that strange in and of itself, but the site I was watching this episode on translated all of the English lines into Italian. I don’t know why, but that’s a thing that happened.

And no, I don’t watch Magia Record on Crunchyroll even though they have it. Crunchyroll is a week behind (even with Premium), so I’ve been using 9anime instead. However, this week 9anime didn’t have the episode, so I resorted to KissAnime which is where this translation quirk was found.

Second, and this one might have something to do with the story, Alina uses some sort of paint magic she refers to as Doppel. The reason this could be important is that, if you recall, Kaede was fighting against a paint-based witch when she first transformed into her pseudo-witch form.

Was the witch Kaede was fighting against Doppel? It looked like she killed it, so probably not, but it still may have been related to Alina in some way. Perhaps Doppel is what she calls any witch familiars she creates, and Kaede happened to be fighting one of those.

I’m not really sure. But, I feel like it’s safe to say that Alina is somehow related to the witch (or familiar, or Rumor, or whatever it was) that Kaede fought when she first transformed.

Conclusion

So what did you think of Magia Record episode 9? Did you like the story about the Endless Solitude? Do you think anyone has actually survived being released from it? Also, is the reason other magical girls can see Sana simply because she’s weak? And, are Alina and the paint witch connected somehow? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

I know at the end of the episode we’re led to believe the Endless Solitude exit is on the top of Kamihama Central Tower, but so far the series has provided no evidence to back this up. In fact, everything in the anime so far points to this not being the case.

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My review of the next episode is available here.

One Reply to “Magia Record Episode 9”

  1. Alina has nothing to do with the witch kaede fought back in episode 5.(that witch was actually from the PSP game who’s familiar you actually saw in the original series).

    Kissanime uses uses the translations from funimation, who in turn are following the translation that the EN version of the game uses. Alina’s English gets translated to Italian

    As for another aspect they change is how JP differentiate between rumors and the monsters by using kanji to refer to rumors in general, hiragana for Rumors that are magical and katakana for the monsters.
    So in English it’s rumor, Rumor and uwasa(untranslated).

    Finally it wasn’t clear but Alina was turning into her pseudo witch form. I don’t blame you for not realizing since that entire scene was just awful

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