Magia Record Episode 10

Magia Record Episode 10

My Name

Madoka Magica: Magia Record episode 10 looked pretty bad animation-wise. Shaft will probably make the animation look better for the Blu-ray release, but I’m not sure it’s even worth it at this point. Who’s going to buy this series? I don’t buy physical copies of anime anyway, but seriously, who needs this?

I can understand wanting to own the original series. I can understand playing the mobile game. But what I can’t understand is wanting to own this anime series based on the mobile game. As a whole, I think this anime has been a flop so far, and I don’t really expect it do sell well.

The original series is one of my favorite anime, and after Rebellion I thought I wanted more Madoka content. But now that it’s here and I’ve seen what it is, I realize I never needed more.

So if you’re looking for the episode at which I decided Magia Record didn’t need to be an anime, it’s this one. Is it good? Yeah, I guess so. Is it necessary? Not for someone like me who hasn’t played the game. If you’ve played the game you might like it more so far, but my rating of it has been dropping over time.

Magnet Robots and Metallic Girls

The first part of this episode made absolutely no sense to me. Hopefully I wasn’t the only one who had no idea what was going on. And simply based on what I saw, I have a feeling that even the mobile game players may have been lost — like when there was a giant, ethereal kitsune in the Azur Lane anime.

There was still never an explanation given for how Yachiyo & friends figured out that the Endless Solitude was going to drop Iroha and Sana out above the Kamihama tower. And then it’s also unclear if that prediction was right or not.

I could be wrong, but didn’t they get dropped above the radio tower instead? I’m fairly sure they got dropped above the radio tower, and then the walking magnet antenna robot pulled them over to Kamihama tower. So if Yachiyo & company had gone to Kamihama tower and there wasn’t a magical robot there, they would have been out of luck.

A magnetic antenna robot from the anime series Madoka Magica: Magia Record
A magnetic antenna robot

Also, I think we need to talk about the walking magnetic antenna robot. First of all, I’ll accept it’s existence because magic is at work here. However, that doesn’t excuse the fact that it’s clearly using magnetic forces to pull things towards it which aren’t magnetic.

This may come as a shock to you since our blood contains iron, but humans aren’t magnetic. Our bodies are mostly water, and water messes with magnetic fields. So no, a magnet could not pull in Iroha or Sana.

But, I get it, your next argument is that there’s magic afoot. You’re right, this magnetic robot does rely on magic, but it’s also very clear that it’s using a magnetic force to pull everything towards it. We’re specifically shown metal objects like a bike and trash can get pulled in.

Magius

Also during that scene of magnetic nonsense we see paint girl (I forgot her name already) catching witches like Pokémon by throwing cubes at them. That’s just a thing that exists now I guess because when Mami shows up she instructs the Wings of the Magius twins to do the same.

And, yeah, Mami being a high ranking member of the Wings of the Magius is a thing now too. I’m not really sure how I feel about that. It seems to go against everything Mami stood for in the original series, so is this really her choice? Or is she being controlled somehow?

The only thing that leads me to believe this is really Mami’s choice is that she claims to be doing it for Madoka and Sayaka. If the reason was simply because she believes in what the Wings of the Magius are doing, I’d have some major doubts.

Also, since she refers to herself as Madoka and Sayaka’s mentor, that implies this series takes place after the original series and Rebellion. It has to be after the original series because she knows who they are. And it has to be after Rebellion because she knows Madoka specifically.

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

With the arrival of Mami we also learn that even the Wings of the Magius isn’t a cohesive organization — which doesn’t make much sense. Based on how they were introduced into the series, you’d think this is a highly organized group. But as we see, paint girl is clearly part of some other faction within the group.

And, at the end of the episode it’s revealed that one of Ui’s hospital roommates is probably one of the three Magius. If you remember, there were three of them in that room, so are they all Magius? Is that what happened to Ui?

A Place Called Home

At the end of the episode the girls bring Sana back to live with them in the boarding house. They each get their own mugs so that everyone feels like they’re at home — and these mugs each represent their owners. However, Yachiyo’s mug is basically just her magical girl design put on a mug; it’s not subtle at all.

But the mugs aren’t really what I want to discuss right now. Instead, we have a new magical girl added to the party: Sana Futaba. Sana is interesting in that while we know her backstory and the wish she made to become a magical girl, we still don’t know much about her.

Before Sana was officially introduced into the series, one of the Wings of the Magius twins mentioned her by name. It seemed like she had once been friends with Sana, but hadn’t seen her for a while. However, when Sana and the twins come face to face in this episode, nobody mentions any connection between them.

Magical girls' mugs from the anime series Madoka Magica: Magia Record
Magical girls’ mugs

The twin didn’t appear to know what the Electric Wave Girl rumor was, and yet she knew who Sana was. Is this a plot hole? Did the anime cut something out from the game in relation to Sana? Or is this something which is going to come up later and was merely skipped over for now in an awkward fashion?

My source (@katiethetransbian on Tumblr) has confirmed that Yachiyo is, in fact, a college student. We also know Iroha and Tsuruno are high school students, but what about Felicia and Sana? They both seem like middle school students to me, but as we know, Felicia doesn’t attend school.

As for Sana, I don’t see how she could really attend school either considering her invisibility. And unlike Felicia, she can’t exactly work at Tsuruno’s restaurant — at least in a way that involves interacting with customers. So is she just going to spend her days alone at the boarding house?

Conclusion

This week’s review of Madoka Magica: Magia Record was all over the place, but the episode kind of was as well. There were a lot of things which either didn’t make sense, contradicted previous parts of the series, or are going to require a lot of further explanation. But what did you think of episode 10? Let me know in the comments.

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My review of the next episode is available here.

3 Replies to “Magia Record Episode 10”

  1. This is an alternate universe and has nothing to do with the timelines of the original series. I was hoping you’d come to that realization on your own.

    With that out of The way this episode was a mess but mostly because the added things and didn’t explain things well.

    Like the magnet thing wasn’t in the original

    The cubes are Alina’s persona magic and again they didn’t explain it at all and I’m mad.

    As for mami. I honestly think this is in character. In the original as soon as she finds out about the truth about magical girls and witches she brakes down and tries to kill everyone and herself. Given by how she probably knows now and is given a chance to save all magical girls aka the salvation they all yamper about it’s pretty clear she’d join.

    Paint girl (Alina) is referred to a magius making her one of the leaders. Mami was just full of her shit and didn’t want needless violence in her quest for justice

    1. I received some other comments about this episode and my view of it particular on social media as well, so I’ll be properly responding to everything in the next episode review.

      But in the meantime, here are some quick responses to the points you brought up:
      1. The way they label this series as a side story makes it seem like it’s meant to be somewhere within the main story. I’m fine with that not being the case, but I didn’t want to assume that until the series was over and it was still ambiguous.
      2. If the cubes are Alina’s personal magic, why can the other girl use it as well?
      3. Someone else also said Mami was in character here, but I don’t think that one timeline in which she goes crazy really defines her. Especially considering this appears to be in a timeline where she was able to protect her friends up until now.
      4. I saw Alina was referred to as a magius, but I figured it meant she was using magia instead since the reveal of her being a magius came out of nowhere.

  2. I forgot to mention it but as much as I think the anime adaptation is a bit on the mediocre side I do think it would do well. The shear fact that people lined up for blacks to buy a water bottle with “luck water”(as a promotional stunt for the anime during the 6-7th episode) on it makes me think that it would sell well enough in Japan. Considering that where most of sales usually are from and yeah I think the series would be a success regardless of quality.

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