The Girl in the Corner.
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)
With just a few episodes left until the Tempest, the girls must make haste with their plan to capture a site administrator. In the event that they fail, it's very likely that each of them will die within a matter of days. Of course, there is a pretty significant chance that their operation in itself will lead to a fatality or two- but hey, someone needs to do something, right? With no options left, the girls split off into three groups in an attempt to pincer one of the admins. Fortunately for them, the one with the really weird face that punches peoples' heads off walks right into their trap.
The unfortunate part of this is that (As we expected) the administrator is not one to be messed with. Even after being surprise-attacked by Rina, she only winds up losing one leg. Yeah, this seems like it would be a big deal for most people, but this particular apparition seemed no more worried about losing a leg than she would have been had she lost her car keys. Regardless, the fight carries on for a few minutes before the admin ultimately gets teleported up to the roof. There, Sarina is lying in wait with her trusty yoyo and straight up cuts the ghostly figure into pieces. Once everyone else reaches the roof, however, it's revealed that this figure is no ghost at all, but rather the reanimated corpse of another girl their age. How the corpse was reanimated? No idea. Why it had wires and stuff instead of organs? Also no idea- but that's all beside the point.
The main idea we're supposed to leech from this is that the admins are theoretically the same as the girls themselves. Unfortunately, before we're even able to figure out how we feel about this, Nana shows up out of nowhere and blows a few holes into Sarina. As it turns out, she had used the other administrator to lure the girls right into her hands. And even though Sarina is probably not dead (Or at least I hope she's not because no one really made a big deal out of it), Nana's scheme is certainly not over as she plans to finish off all of them tonight.
The thing is, Yatsumura has other plans. Left with no other options and running out of hope, she uses her stick one last time to entrap everyone but herself. I believe her plan was to use this window as an opportunity to take Nana down herself, but that backfires completely as she too is gunned down with ease. Despite losing probably 25% of her body's fluids within a matter of seconds, Yatsumura stands strong just long enough to insult Nana a few times and say her goodbyes to Aya. The goodbye is expectedly heartfelt, backed by a slightly-expected "I love you," before her body goes limp. In a totally-not-metaphorical way, the rain begins to fall and Aya breaks into a panic, creating what is easily the most emotionally-charged moment of Magical Girl Site thus far.
At the end of their rope and trapped inside a literal box, the girls must figure out a way to end things once and for all. Unfortunately, the chances of that seem slim to none.
In Summary:
Given that many loose ends need to be tied up within the last few episodes, I'm surprised to say that this particular installment of Mahou Shoujo Site has been the best so far. The pacing is spot on and, even if I never particularly cared about Yatsumura or Aya all that much, their goodbye scene is pretty heartbreaking. Seeing Aya become borderline insane with grief was pretty tough, even though she's been a terrible character up to this point. Maybe I'm still emotionally scarred from the last scene in Angel Beats, but any time someone does that thing with their hands where they try desperately to hang onto something after it passes, I get a little teary-eyed. At the end of the day, however, things will need to be amped up even harder as there is only one more episode until everything must come crashing down.
Episode Grade: A-
Streamed By: Prime Video
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