Magical Girl Raising Project: Talk About Your Online Identity Topics, Jeez

Well, this is a week of darkness for Mechanical Anime Reviews in some ways. Why? I’ve been talking a lot about School Days. If anything, School Days is the darkest of the dark when it comes to anime. Not just because it’s “edgy content”, but because it’s edgy content that has a lot of power and meaning behind them. That’s how a show can hurt some one. From School Days, I’m jumping into the world of magical girls killing each other. Yeah, it’s a magical girl death game. I do have to admit that there was a lot more to this show then that, but that’s all I knew about it before I jumped into the show itself. That and the fact that people liked comparing it to Madoka for some reason. Got to talk about that one too I suppose.

Usually, an anime starts by a character stumbling into a new world and then getting swept away by it. That does happen when Koyuki joined the ranks of the magical girls, but the most interesting aspect of this show for me was the app and what it allowed people to do. The mobile social game Magical Girl Raising Project allows it’s user a 1 in 10,000 chance to becoming an actual magical girl. Why? Because it’s connected to the world of magic. Each girl gains a unique ability and gains magical candies for doing good deeds. Of course, that all changes when the number of magical girls needed is cut short and results in an all out brawl. That’s where the fun starts.

There is many people who call Magical Girl Raising Project a Madoka rip off and I just don’t get why. If anything with it’s death game concept and magical girls with different sorts of costumes with different abilities they are fighting to death, Raising Project is more like a psuedo fate anime then anything else. That’s not a complaint though. As a pretty heavy duty fate fan, I really liked it. If there is one thing that can be called Madoka like, it’s the main character of the show, Koyuki. She’s the ultimate good in the series where everyone else is a different color of gray and some lighter then others. She is the ultimate ideal of what a magical girl should be, which seems to be what her purpose in the show is besides being the audience surrogate in reacting to the horror on display.

So yes, I’ve said that Magical Girl Raising Project is a death game with an increasing level of stakes and drama in the show. The ability to steal candies ramped up the game of some users while the appearance of magical items that only cost years off your life due too. All to the push the girls to killing each other faster and in a more horrible manner. It all hurts too because one can really learn to like the magical girls on display. Koyuki isn’t the only good girl in the show. There are others out there that also carry their ideals with them in a positive way. Too bad they die. Same with girls that you just learn to like. There is that natural attraction to finding another group of people to like until they die too. Raising Project is one of those series after all. The pure inhumanity of it all, but it’s so interesting..

The best and worst part of Magical Girls Raising Project is that you quickly get to know about the girls in question based on who they are in real life versus this very online persona Magical Girl thing. That’s the way I see it at least. Are your brilliant ideas shoved aside in the real world? What if your persona was of a ruler who commanded hopeless magical girls to victory. Do you and your girlfriend have defined roles as a pure maiden and her protector? What if you were a nun magical girl (Sister Nana) and your girlfriend (Winterprison) is your iron clad protector and insanely hot. The ultimate ideal of that relationship on display There is also Ripple who left her home and fought people in real life with her big sister not by blood, Top Speed. Top Speed was too pure for this world. That’s not all of them, by the way but it’s a good start to see where they come from.

For a twelve episode series, this show did a fantastic job characterizing a larger cast in a shorter amount of time. It’s just that I would love to see these characters explored a little more. The ones that I mentioned, Swim Swim, and La Pucelle would be interesting ones for sure. Especially La Pucelle who is a boy playing as a magical girl knight. There is a lot to unpack here in terms of queer representation that the show never got to because La Pucelle just died too early for them to explore all of them. The possibilities being there are interesting, but it’s the nature of the game I suppose. Only a few people can live in a very interesting cast and it’s just saddening. Being interesting is a weakness and a strength for this Magical Girl Raising Project.

I feel like the visuals of the show are along the same lines. For instance, I am really starting to like what Studio Lerche puts out because they either do some creative visual story telling and designs, or they animate the hell out of something that looks traditionally animated. I’m done for either and Magical Girl Raising Project is the second one to a t. Moe character designs fighting each other with unique abilities you can’t find anywhere else is always going to appeal to me. Especially when they have an endless amount of cool locations at the same Hell, it doesn’t matter what character designs are thrown into this, it all works for me. I do think some of the magical girl outfits are a little too fanservicey though. The tube tops, the short skirts, and such. I think it all pays off well though.

I know I’ve been giving a lot of shows the “good” rating ever since I evented the rating in the first place, but I like it because it gives me that great thing to fall into when you find something enjoyable but not ground breaking. Considering it my B rating. That’s how I feel about Magical Girl Raising Project, it’s a B rated anime series for me. I think the characters are great, but are killed off too soon because it’s a death game. Maybe I just don’t like death games, I say when I love the Fate Franchise to death. The visuals are always pretty fantastic, but the fanservice knocks it down a little bit. Sounds like a Good or B rating to me. Glad I finally got around watching this after people have talked about it for years.

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