Have a pleasant apocalypse.
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)
After everything had begun to crumble and fall apart following last week's episode (Please excuse the 5/10 destroyed-building joke), the entire world that our protagonists inhabit had begun to look even bleaker than normal. With their magic sticks lost in the wreckage of Yastumura's apartment and both girls in a slight coma, there's really nowhere to go but up. Luckily for everyone, that crazy girl who was introduced in the final moments of episode five is apparently one of the good guys. In fact, she's so good that she even heals the antagonist back to full health. Hooray! But what we're slowly beginning to uncover is that Shioi and Sarina (And now Nijimin?) might not be the true evil after all. This week's episode pokes holes into the site itself, shining a negative light on Nana and the other administrators (Yup. there are more of them now.) that persists all throughout this installment.
As it turns out, the new girl (Kosame Amagai) is actually a magical girl from a different region or prefecture. I believe they referred to it as a 'jurisdiction' in the series. That being said, Nana isn't the one who granted her her stick. Kosame's administrator is a lot less unsettling, appearing as a slightly more comical samurai-apparition rather than a terrifyingly disfigured young girl. The sticks for this specific jurisdiction seem to work a little differently as well. Not only are all of them easily concealable and made to look like normal accessories, but some of them are meant to be used to the magical girl herself. For example, Kosame's stick is a magical razorblade. It emits healing power but only after she cuts herself and feeds her blood to the party she wishes to heal. Yup. You read that correctly. This girl literally cuts herself open and pours her blood into other girls' mouths- and we're lucky enough to see her do it firsthand in this episode!
After Shioi, Yatsumura, and Aya are all healed up, Kosame goes on to explain a bit more about the Tempest. Her jurisdiction's girls were able to uncover, via another backdoor on the site, that the Tempest does not spell immediately death for everyone. There is a way that the girls can be saved. The bad part is that in order to be saved, they must present a fully charged magic stick to the site on the day of the Tempest itself. Now, this might seem all fine and well, but its a double-edged blade in the fact that in order to charge the stick, the girls must risk their lives and use it past its limit. They are essentially being forced into draining their life away in order to...save their lives.
If you think it seems like this isn't really going to work, then you're right. And based on what Kosame plans to do, you're not alone in this mindset. You see, Kosame thinks the best course of action is for all of the girls to band together and actually kidnap one of the site administrators in order to force more information out of them. I thought this might be a totally fine idea until we see Nana and two of the other admins literally annihilate several of the other magical girls like they're swatting flies out of the sky. Nana can literally shoot holes in people through finger guns. What kind of overpowered nonsense is that? At the end of the day, Shioi somehow turns into a good guy as Aya and friends decide to move forward against an equally active (And overly suspicious) administrative staff.
The only other thing really worth mentioning about this week's episode is that Nijimin apparently has a mega-crush on Aya's brother now. Great, now we get to see that guy again. Just when I thought he was beginning to phase out of the picture, too...
In Summary:
Without beating around the bush, this is probably the best episode of Mahou Shoujo Site thus far. I believe this is purposeful as well considering this is the only episode where they've skipped out on the opening theme. And as much as I hated missing out on that song, there really wasn't time to breathe during this addition to the series. The plot isn't just magical girl battle-royale anymore as the faces behind the actual Mahou Shoujo Site have begun to leak into the bigger picture. With a ticking clock counting down the last few days of their lives, Aya and company need to get themselves together or face an untimely demise.
Episode Grade: A-
Streamed By: Prime Video
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