Iroha and her friends finally arrives at the Memory Museum for a lecture. Iroha sees one of Ui’s friends, Satomi Touka. Does she still remember Ui?
In the beginning, we see two things happen. While it’s raining outside, it seems that Yachiyo feels conflicted if she should go or not. Sure, she hears voices of Kanae and Meru encouraging her to go or she will regret it. Sure, she denies that Iroha, Tsuruno, Sana, and Felicia are her friends. In the end, she changes her mind and decides to go.
With that, Iroha tries to ask Touka about Ui. Sadly, she doesn’t seem to remember and believes that Iroha is making stuff up. Still, I am very suspicious of that she is probably hiding something from Iroha or won’t admit it.
Either way, Touka gives a lecture about the hard-cold truths about magical girls. Meanwhile, Momoko calls Rena over revealing the truth. Eventually Kaede shows up to comfort Rena. This makes me wonder why Kaede so distant to Momoko and Rena. We finally know why. She probably found out the truth about magical girls beforehand. Either way, she apologizes for not being with Rena.
Either way, Touka gave the lectures of the hard-cold truths of magical girls. Yes, it’s something that Madoka found out firsthand with Mami’s soul gem breaking and Sayaka turning into a witch. Besides Touka giving two presentations on two different scenarios where a magical girl die. This includes the soul gem shattering or the girl turning to a witch after using too much magic or having negative feelings of despair without purifying the gem.
Afterwards, Mifuyu takes Iroha and her friends to a VR-like experience to experience the three scenarios. It involves Yachiyo’s old team, which consists of herself, Mifuyu, Momoko, Kanae, and Meru.
In the first scenario, Kanae uses too much power that her soul gem broke after defeating the witch. Of course, Yachiyo and her friends, Kanae, Mifuyu, and Momoko faced off a difficult witch. However. Kanae overexerted herself and her soul gem shattered. It was pretty disheartening to see Yachiyo go into despair seeing her friend pass away.
Of course, it felt so real even if Iroha wasn’t taking part of what is happening. We also witness Meru using too much magic and turning into a witch. This is in despite of Mifuyu purifying her soul gem. I guess the burden from Kanae’s death was a bit too much too.
In the last part, Mifuyu almost becomes a witch from all the despair. However, the witch came out of her body and eventually she came back to normal. Touka appears and finally reveals that Mifuyu used her Doppel. This is a replacement to Kyubey’s Soul Gem and Witch system. I guess Iroha finally knows the thing that came out of her.
With that, I can see why Yachiyo is very hesitant to make friends as they might die. We’ll probably find out more about this next time for the last episode of the first season. Of course, there is the eventual relationship upgrade with her and Iroha.
Only Rie Kugimiya has the ability to voice a loli overlord and make it believable.
It’s not too surprising at all. What is missing is the tsundere personality, but it’s all good.