Oh, poor, unfortunate soul.
What They Say:
Aya Asagiri lives a life of torture. Bullied by her peers and physically abused by her brother, she contemplates suicide as a means of escapism. One particularly harsh night, her laptop abruptly turns on and beckons her toward it. There, a website known simply as the 'Mahou Shoujo Site' offers her a chance to sculpt her own fate with the help of a stick that will grant her powers. But will something as simple as a magic wand truly be enough to save her from a life not worth living?
The Review:
Content: (Please note that the content portion of the review may contain spoilers)
Yeah, yeah- I know what you're thinking. "Two episodes and only one review? What's going on, DJ? Are you okay?" And, contrary to what my friends and family may think, I am totally 100% okay. No problems whatsoever. The only reason I've had to stoop to incorporating both of these episodes into a single articles lies in the fact that Amazon Prime still has no idea what the hell they're doing. I swear, there have been three episodes of this series so far and I'm pretty positive that each one has landed on a different day. But even though the shoddy release schedule has laid waste to my attitude in terms of reviewing Prime shows, I put my best foot forward to ensure that it wouldn't impact my viewing too much this evening.
Considering that last week's episode ended on a razor's edge (Lol), Mahou Shoujo Site had quite a bit of explaining to do in order to calm things down for a bit. And, without beating around the bush, that's exactly what the second episode accomplished. Apart from the introduction of the stoic Yatsumura, we were able to learn quite a bit about the Mahou Shoujo Site in general. As I'm sure we all expected, there are plenty of other magical girls out there. The only problem is, well, one of them went ballistic and started killing the rest of them. In fact, the only reason Yatsumura approached Aya in the first place was that she believed their powers would synergize well with one another. The ability to stop time mixed with a teleportation gun will allow these two to essentially teleport anyone anywhere in order to interrogate them.
Or, at least that's how they expected things to work. As it turns out, the crazy magical girl who has been killing all of the others stole a magic stick capable of creating an isolation cube. With the power of forced conflict, she corners Aya inside one of these mid-episode, only to be teleported out shortly later. And while this might seem problematic, given this particular character's success rate when it comes to killing other mahou shoujo, it works out in their favor when she slips into a coma from blood loss and organ failure thereafter. The reason for this is simple- using your powers reduces your life. It's something I'm sure a number of us expected, to say the least. Hell, having Enma Ai help you out in Hell Girl equated to literally signing away your soul in order to exact revenge. Luckily for Aya and Yatsumura, they don't have to make such a hefty commitment right off the bat.
What they do commit to, however, is deciding to help this psychopathic killer. Because as it turns out, she's also Yatsumura's friend. Surprise! And what better way to help her out then sorting through a convenient picture book of all the other magical girls and randomly guessing which of them will have the "Get friend out of coma" ability?
Needless to say, they choose incorrectly. In fact, they chose probably the worst person possible. Magical girl number-four is also the chihuahua in a dog-based idol group, Nijimi Anazawa. No, she isn't the worst person possible because she is a dog idol- she's the worst person possible because her best friend was killed by coma-girl not too long ago. And despite being bubbly and composed for the majority of her conversation with the protagonists, Nijimi clearly has a very large vendetta against the Magical Girl Hunter. Actually, it's probably the most intense vendetta I've ever seen. This girl is legitmately insane- but this honestly makes her the most interesting character thus far.
She's a bit much, but Nijimi is hard to overlook from a sheer characterization standpoint. Not only her design but her personality towers over seemingly everyone else thus far. I'm sure that Yatsumura will have some more development the further we get into the story but, as of right now, that isn't really the case. As for Aya...well, I think we've already seen everything she has to offer. But who knows? Maybe she'll come out and surprise me. I'm a complete stranger to the source material so it's definitely not impossible.
In addition, I want to apologize in case this piece comes off as sporadic in any way. Unfortunately, though, that's kind of how the last two episodes came off as well. There is a surprising amount of information that gets thrown at you over the course of just forty minutes, so any attempt to document each individual aspect actually goes on to work against all of that. I feel like, right now, we're supposed to be overwhelmed by this brand new world- the same way Aya is. And even though the hectic rate of which we're being exposed to it may seem distracting at first, it adds infinitely to the hyperviolent shock-fest that Mahou Shoujo Site is. It's not the best series this season by any means, but it's definitely a ton of fun.
In Summary:
The last two episodes of Mahou Shoujo Site have embellished on not only the world but the characters who inhabit it as well. Yatsumura is clearly more than just the necessary side-character who introduces the protagonist to magic. In fact, she can even be considered the true protagonist of the series- kind of like how many (Including myself) viewed Sayaka from Madoka Magica back in the day. If you're able to look past shock-driven content and can deal with a slightly above average pace, this series still has a lot to offer and has already created a universe with an immensely dark background to it. And while this background may still be shrouded in mystery, the coming weeks will only go on to not only alleviate that shadow but reveal what I expect to be one of the more memorable mahou shoujo series out there.
Episode 2 Grade: C+
Episode 3 Grade: B+
Streamed By: Prime Video
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