At last, the finale is finally here and well, compared to the game, which had a happy ending, it appears that Kyubey got everything he wanted and more so.
As expected, given its four episodes, the ending does feel a bit rushed. Sure, we find out the reason why Iroha become a magical girl and Touka, Nemu, and Ui finding out about it. Of course, they became magical girls to stop the entropy system and replace it with the Doppel system.
Unlike the game (and probably the Manga as that follows the game’s story), the anime droppel system is flawed. The only way to fix it is somehow defeating the Walpurgisnacht. They don’t necessarily need Shitori Egumo to do it, just a bunch of magical girls fight it to push it back to an area Iroha and Yachiyo can finish it off with their powerful combination attack.
Instead, before Iroha got the chance to save Ui from Eve with Touka’s and Nemu’s help, Of course, Alina thought it’s a good idea to take over Eve to show the world that magical girls exist. Yep, everything went south from here.
To make matters worse, unlike the game, Touka and Nemu couldn’t achieve their objectives in a different way. This essentially set everyone up for the bad ending. Yes, even Ui didn’t even make it along with a lot of other causalities. They are Momoko, Mifuyu, Touka, Nemu, and Ui along with the main Madoka cast besides Homura as it seems.
As for Kuroe, while we find out her backstory, she receives a downer ending. When she helped a magical girl who tried to save a cat while defeating a witch, she couldn’t give her a grief seed to purify her soul gem. Not only that, but she also lost contact with her, which generated a lot of remorse inside her that she couldn’t resolve.
Sadly, Kuroe gotten to the point that Iroha is unable to save her, especially after her Doppel left the barrier of Kamihama. Iroha had to kill her witch and took her grief seed, which is heart-wrenching. I didn’t expect this from the fluffier spinoff. Still, what was the point of adding Kuroe to the story? I think without her addition, the story wouldn’t change that much.
Aside from the production, which looked good, the ending was unsatisfying and kind of breaks from the fluffier and happier version of the story from the game. Sure, the game had a few causalities up to the first arc, but not as much compared to the Anime.
This makes me wonder that the Anime is in a different timeline compared to the game/manga and the main timeline. Yes, it’s basically a multiverse at this point. Either way, it seems that with the anime at least, you can’t escape the bad ending one way or another. This is what made the anime feel unsatisfying, especially from someone who still plays the game. This is despite not paying too much attention to the story, which I will get to at some point. Probably when I progress further in WaniKani.
With that, here are some interesting things from the four episodes:
- Iroha’s reunion with Touka and Nemu – Yep, I find it interesting how Nemu knows what happened to Ui all along. Still, seeing Touka finally remembering Ui and how she hugs Iroha is something. Of course, she gets angry at Nemu that she slapped Nemu hard. While people make a big deal over Will Smith slapping Chris Rock for making a G.I. Jane joke about his wife, the one Nemu receives is more brutal. Not too surprising since Nemu intentionally didn’t tell Touka so she wouldn’t give up on their plan. Even so, it would be funny if someone actually create a meme of that video but replacing Will Smith and Chris Rock with Touka and Nemu respectively.
- The Magical Girl Kuroe helps looks Familiar – While the magical girl Kuroe helps looks generic, the hood that the girl she helped looked very familiar. Yes, it has a very similar design to Iroha’s. Either way, it seems that the game added Kuroe in the game and maybe, she received a happier ending there compared to the anime? Most likely, but I need to experience the story to be sure myself. Not only that, I managed to roll three copies of her, especially since she is a limited character.
- That scene with Momoko and Mitama – At least in the anime, I guess it’s not meant to be. That is despite Mitama and Momoko having a dual unit in the game. Still, it’s heartbreaking at the very least.
- Hints of the 2nd Arc – Despite the failures, it looks like there are some hints of this with the Kamihama Magia Union and the appearance of some important characters. The most notable is Shigure Miyabi.
- Ren and Rika
Aside from that, at least with this anime adaptation, we can’t escape the Urobutcher, even though he didn’t work on the story of the game. On the bright side, this is just one timeline, and the game is another, which is still ongoing. That is despite the North American servers closing a little over a year ago.
At the end of the day, I kind of wished there was a happier ending like the game for once. That of course, makes me wonder what despair that is in the upcoming forth movie. We’ll eventually find out. Still, it’s worth a watch for completion, but for those who still actively follows the game story might find the anime ending disappointing.
I’ve watched enough Moepocalypse shows to know the risk of going into them.
I didn’t play the mobile game so while I get your disdain toward Part 3 I do not share it. It’s vintage Meduka to me. At least Iroha’s family all survived. Still loved it despite the somber conclusion.
Even after a week, I still do not like the ending nor I think it’s canon given that the Magia Record timeline is separate timeline. Even with the happy ending, it’s obvious that it causes other issues. Even so, I feel that the ending was a cop out and make me believe that they changed the ending half way because it was too difficult to animate the Last Magia part of the end of Arc 1.
Either way, at least the Manga won’t use this ending since it follows the game, which also has a localization, which of course means the Anime ending is not canon at all. Also, it seems that the Japanese viewers hated the ending.With that, I guess the west will eventually find out the true ending despite the game ending service almost two years ago.
Heya. Probably late, but since you were wondering about the timeline stuff. Well, DoroInu recently stated in the recent anime guidebook that the Magia Record anime is one of the failed timelines Homura went through prior to the events of Madoka Magica. Madoka would eventually take this failed timeline into the Law of Cycles upon her ascension to godhood.
The reason why the anime ended the way it did was because DoroInu was only allowed to adapt Arc 1, and while he wanted to go with the original ending…he felt like such an overly happy ending wouldn’t be as satisfying without Arc 2 to explore the repurcussions of it. So he made an ending that would be as conclusive as possible.
Yes, this probably explain everything, but even with the Arc 2 just ended, which makes me wonder what will go from here, especially with the movie on the horizon that builds on rebellion. Maybe Arc 3 next, that might be even darker? My guess is anything.