Magia Record Episode 12

Magia Record Episode 12

Why Is This So Unbearable?

Madoka Magica: Magia Record episode 12 includes many of the “big reveals” of the series. I’ll discuss them, and how they’re not actually revealing anything big, later on in this review. But before we get to that, I need to go through some updates based on information from this episode.

The first thing is Ui. There’s one episode left in the season, and we’re still no closer to figuring out where Ui is than we were at the start of the series. Iroha has come across no one who knows anything about Ui — or at least no one who will admit to knowing anything.

That in turn leads to there being three possible outcomes. Either everything is going to be wrapped up poorly next week, there’s going to be a second season which has yet to be confirmed, or we’re just not going to get a conclusion to this series.

I know that people have been saying Magia Record will need a second season for a long time now, and I don’t deny that. But at this point in time I’m not sure it will actually get one.

From what I’m seeing, we’re going to get a poor, unfinished ending to the anime and a call to action to download the game if we want to know how it ends. I don’t think that was the original intent, but I also don’t see Shaft picking this series up for another season.

If I’m wrong, great.

The second thing I want to mention is Mami. I’ve been pretty stubborn in my defense that Mami wouldn’t join the Wings of the Magius, but based on this episode, I can see why she might join. I’ll explain why that is bit by bit throughout the rest of this review.

Kanae and Mel

Kanae and Mel are two former magical girls who died in the line of duty. We don’t exactly meet them, but we see the circumstances leading up to their deaths through Mifuyu’s memories.

A question for those of you who play the mobile game: Are Kanae and Mel playable characters? Or are they just story elements? I’d imagine they’re still playable characters.

With the deaths of Kanae and Mel, Yachiyo, Mifuyu, and Momoko learn the dark truths of life and death as a magical girl. That’s their main role in the story.

Kanae (dead) from the anime series Madoka Magica: Magia Record
Kanae (dead)

And looking at their deaths from this standpoint, I can sort of see why Mami might join the Wings of the Magius. In this timeline, Mami was able to protect Madoka and Sayaka (who I assume both became magical girls without issue).

But rather than snapping when she learns the truth behind magical girls, she takes it upon herself to save them from their fate. So from that standpoint, I still stand by my assertion that Mami’s mental breakdown in the original series doesn’t play into why she would join the Wings of the Magius.

Instead, Mami is taking the role of Homura in this timeline — which is also what Mifuyu has done in a sense. Originally Homura sacrificed herself to protect her friends from their fate, and that’s what Mami and Mifuyu are doing here by joining the Wings of the Magius.

However, we also have Yachiyo who takes the opposite route. Rather than trying to protect her future friends, she decides not to make any more friends so that way she can’t lose them.

And this could lead one to argue that Yachiyo is in the wrong, while the Wings of the Magius are in the right.

The (not so) Big Reveal

Now, as for what was learned from the deaths of Kanae and Mel, that’s not actually anything revolutionary. I thought the big secret Momoko planned to tell Rena had to do with what we later learned are called Doppels, but that’s not the case.

Instead, the first big reveal is that soul gems physically house the souls of magical girls; so breaking a soul gem is the same as killing a magical girl. And the second big reveal is that magical girls are just adolescent witches.

If you’ve already watched the original series, which I think is fair to assume most viewers have since this is a spin-off of it, then neither of those things are a surprise. I understand that they’re surprising for these characters, but to make that the “big reveal” doesn’t really make sense.

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

Look, I don’t think many people would argue with me when I say the original Madoka Magica anime is better than the Magia Record anime. And one of the things the original series did better was how it revealed these dark truths about magical girls.

So I think a better way to go about doing this would have been to take a page from the original series. Rather than having this series explain these concepts again, they could have simply had Mami explain it to the girls (mostly off screen) a bit earlier and then saved this episode to focus on Doppels.

The original series is only 12 episodes and a movie, so it’s not a big commitment for people to watch that and understand how magical girls function. It’s not like when Boruto re-explains ideas from Naruto for newer fans so they don’t have to go back through 720 episodes.

Take advantage of the previous storytelling of the series.

Doppels

We’re finally given a name for the pseudo-witch forms magical girls in this series can take advantage of: Doppels.

This final part of the episode is really the only time when we’re given new information about how this world works in the episode. And it’s also the main reason I could see Mami joining the Wings of the Magius. But at the same time, I don’t think Mami knows everything, and if she did, I’m not sure she would have joined.

So the main thing here is that by using a Doppel, a magical girl’s soul gem can be purified without the need for a grief seed. This has two huge benefits.

  1. Magical girls won’t die and turn into witches when they fall into despair, because they can self-cleanse their soul gems.
  2. Magical girls will no longer need to fight witches in the future, because all witches will be defeated and no new ones will be created thanks to this self-cleansing.
Mifuyu's soul gem becoming clouded from the anime series Madoka Magica: Magia Record
Mifuyu’s soul gem becoming clouded

I think Mami would view those two benefits in a very positive light, and this is why she joined the organization. But, the fact remains that the Wings of the Magius are producing witches and Rumors which are harming civilians.

I just don’t see Mami agreeing with this, even if it’s only a temporary thing until all witches can be destroyed. She obviously knows they’re harvesting the power of witches, but maybe she doesn’t know they’re also the ones creating them in the first place.

Also, although it was revealed that Touka created the Doppels, how she did this hasn’t been explained yet. That’s a major gap which is going to need explaining. There’s obviously a downside to Doppels which simply hasn’t been revealed.

And how did Touka “implant” Doppels into the other girls?

Conclusion

Normally I’d suggest that Touka does know who Ui is and actually used Ui in the creation of the Doppels. But considering we still have no information about Ui, I’m going to differ to a more reasonable stance and say Ui has nothing to do with this.

But what did you think of Magia Record episode 12? Has your opinion on Mami joining the Wings of the Magius been changed in either direction? Did you like how the truth of magical girls was explained in this series? And how do you think Doppels are created? Let me know in the comments.

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My review of the final episode is available here.

4 Replies to “Magia Record Episode 12”

  1. Hello! This is the first time commenting here. Good job on analyzing the episodes so far.
    What can I say? I completely agree with you. This series has been such a disappointment!
    I was thinking that a new season would be necessary but after this episode I, too, think we won’t have it.
    Speaking about this episode:
    -I liked the battle memories but they explained, as you said, what everyone already knew.
    -I expected Momoko and Tsuruno to have a bigger role here. About Tsuruno, as you said in the last post about this series, she acts very strange… she is in the Mifuyu memories so it’s hard for me to believe that she knows anything.
    -Doppels: I understand that they can free magical girls, but Doppels were not so important in themselves so far. I mean, they didn’t had a big role in the story, right?
    -Will we know how Kaede and Iroha transformed into a Doppel?
    -About Mami… she is just there for fanservice at this point. Would she join the Magius? I think so but also how this organization works is a mistery for me. Why not tell every magical girl about it?

    I honestly I think this series was just a wasted potential. There are too many things wrong… let’s wait for the final episode but frankly I wouldn’t suggest the view to others.

    1. Thanks for the comment. Before this series came out, I thought I wanted more Madoka Magica anime content. But now that it’s here, I realize I didn’t need it after all.

      The one thing I would argue against is the idea that Doppels haven’t been important so far. While it’s true we still don’t know much about them, they’ve sort of been a major force behind the scenes for a while now — especially considering they’re the reason grief seeds are unnecessary in Kamihama City.

      1. I don’t know. I think a good series set in the same Madoka Magica universe could still be possible. The Magia Record premise, indeed, was really promising to me: a girl accepts to risk her life to make a wish come true, but then she forgets what this wish was. I thought this was the core of the anime in the first place and that it could focus more on representing the life of a magical girl and maybe on the rivalry between magical girls instead on the “witch side” of the medal.

        About the doppels, I’m still not convinced. Yes, they are the reason why grief sieds are unnecessary in Kamihama City but doppels didn’t have a real effect on the story so far. It could be anything. Maybe doppels are the reasons why voices are created (about this… did I miss something or we still don’t know what Uwasa are?) but still they represent a missed opportunity.
        But I believe this discussion rises from the fact that this is a story born for a videogame, that can be really compelling for that media, but is not made for a series.

        Btw, I had a lot of problems posting the first comment. I hope you didn’t have 1234 identical comments! ^^

        1. I agree that it would have been pretty interesting if the story focused more on how Iroha forgot what her wish was. I actually forgot that was even a thing that occurred.

          As for Doppels, I can see where you’re coming from. They didn’t play a major role on the surface of the story so far, but I’d still say most of the things happening behind the scenes are connected to them. Without Doppels, the Wings of the Magius wouldn’t even exist because they would still be reliant on defeating witches to keep themselves from turning into witches.

          And Uwasa are like mini-witches created by the Wings of the Magius. It wasn’t explained exactly what they are yet, but there are two things implied by them:
          1. It’s heavily implied that (at least most of) the girls who go missing due to Uwasa end up conscripted into the Wings of the Magius.
          2. The Wings of the Magius seem to harvest Uwasa for some purpose which likely has to do with the creation of Doppels if I had to take a guess.

          And finally, I did see your multiple comments, so I just deleted the duplicates. I have the comments set up so your first comment has to be manually approved, but then you should be able to comment without issue after that. This is just because spam bots were getting through the recaptcha, so I removed that and implemented this first comment approval system instead.

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