I will say that first and foremost that this isn't a review where I recommend or don't recommend the show, there's plenty of other reviewers in here who are most likely better at that than me especially due to my bias against the anime despite the fact that I've been a big fan of the game for four years now; literally joining up ever since the JP server first went up.
Around last year, I made a review about S1 expressing my disappointment with it which you can read here; though I think some of it doesn't elaborate in enough detail as to why I felt the way I did when S1 did certain things and hopefully I can do better this time around.
Due to my previous view of S1, of course I'd have to ask to myself why I'd even want to see S2. Fundamentally S2 is a continuation of S1 using the characterizations there as its foundation, however the foundation it does set up is on very shaky ground. So I had the question of "how should I judge S2?", is it something I could assess purely through how I enjoy the show? Is it something I judge as I disregard what S1 did and try to enjoy it on its own merit despite directly being a sequel to that? Or should I act like the game is the true foundation to S2 and act like it's a reimagining of the latter half of the game's main story?
Those were all views that has its own ups and downs, but what I did at least consider important was to not let how I viewed S1 affected how I viewed S2 too much. I may have disliked S1, but I want to view what S2 had to offer instead of just bemoaning the same points I had made about S1.
Ultimately I came out of that pointlessly pretentious train of thought by approaching S2 by considering the first half of the game as the true intended foundation. But I did consider it as a personally important choice due to the difference in how Iroha and Yachiyo's relationship is portrayed between the game and the anime, even if some of it are subtle enough that some people won't really think much of it. Iroha and Yachiyo are the key players in the marketing materials, they're the driving force of S1's (quite literal) cliffhanger, and they're treated as the most important dynamic in the story besides Iroha's relationship with Kuroe.
Yachiyo's loss of Iroha is what sets off the major story beat for S2, and Kuroe's search for Iroha serves to push Yachiyo into that direction. Though the real strength of this part of the story isn't really anything to do with how Yachiyo handles her grief of Iroha's disappearance, though that's something I'll touch on later, rather it's her treatment of Mifuyu and how it plays into her larger character arc in S2 that I consider to be Yachiyo's double-edged sword in this story.
The portrayal of Yachiyo's grief via the incredibly underrated expression work and her amazing VA delivers a striking image of how the survivor's guilt that she faced turns her into this single-minded monster who disregards everything around her under the idea that perhaps Iroha really is the one to prove that she isn't just a living, breathing bad luck machine who kills everyone around her.
Throughout the story this is something Yachiyo is on some level challenged on, firstly through her childhood friend Mifuyu and the parallel that is presented between her and Iroha. Mifuyu views herself and the people of Magius as weak, girls who were manipulated by Kyubey into a system of exploitation, something she wants to free herself from with Magius. To Mifuyu, Iroha wasn't different from her, she was weak. Not in the sense that she was at her core someone who couldn't do anything in front of the truth behind the magical girl system, but someone who like her were weak enough to become victims of Kyubey's lies.
To Yachiyo however, that couldn't be true. Iroha was the person who defied everything Yachiyo knew about herself, she wasn't weak. They weren't victims, or in the least she didn't want to think that they are victims. Iroha and Mifuyu were at first weak to her, Iroha's introduction to her in S1 had her stutter a lot, she was easily intimidated by Yachiyo, and she lost against a Kamihama Witch who she could easily curb stomp. Mifuyu was similar based on what Yachiyo said, and this is further elaborated in the game, however that's where the differences show up. Mifuyu upon realizing the truth ran off, she was emotionally vulnerable enough to be fooled by a kid to join a shady cult. Iroha wasn't that, she stayed by Yachiyo's side after learning the truth, she convinced her with all her might that she wasn't to blame for Kanae and Meru's deaths, things Mifuyu weren't able to do to her when she needed it the most.
And that's where I think the difference between how the game and the anime portrays Iroha and Yachiyo's relationship becomes important. There's a few subtle moments in the game that I think makes a huge difference in how this battle between Mifuyu and Yachiyo ends up becoming, primarily from the Seance Shrine arc.
There are two important aspects in that arc that mattered, firstly is how Iroha's whole arc from Chapter 1 to Chapter 3 (or the equivalent of S1EP2 to S1EP5) has her trying to become stronger, not just to survive the stronger Witches of Kamihama, but also to further her search in her sister.
The anime takes this really weird route how in Episode 3 and Episode 4 Yachiyo has always told Iroha to become strong to find her sister, and that's generally where it ends before the season finale and S2.
The game instead portrays this a bit differently, as early as when Iroha arrived Kamihama, Yachiyo wanted Iroha to prove her strength and show that she could survive in Kamihama. By the time the Seance Shrine arc hits, Iroha was strong enough to not only get Yachiyo's acknowledgement, but to be considered her assistant in Rumor hunts.
This is where I think Iroha's game counterpart better fits the theme of the fight. Her game counterpart has on numerous occasions proven her strength and showed Yachiyo that she is someone who can survive in Kamihama to the extent of earning Yachiyo's trust and even getting her over her survivor's guilt.
Regardless, I think it's a strong way to start out S2. However a lot of the strong points presented early on doesn't hold on for long, not even in this very episode. After the fight, Mifuyu and Kuroe were about to return to Magius' base up until the small Kyubey ran off, which led to Mifuyu teleporting back without her. This was one of my gripes I had with S1 when it does this exact same thing with Iroha in Episode 9, especially since it was cutting off a conversation that you would think is vital in getting Iroha to understand Sana's position of wanting to isolate herself from the outside world. This part with Kuroe just felt like it didn't know how to continue the cat and mouse routine with Yachiyo and Kuroe and that's how we ended up finding Iroha after over a year of wait.
It was pretty anti-climatic to say the least, over a year worth of speculation, marketing, and cliffhanger and this was how it was resolved. People joked about how "Iroha would come back after a single episode" and it actually came true, which wasted one of the most interesting ideas it had offered. I'll get into that a bit later, but for now it's unfortunate one of the strongest aspects of the season had to be resolved so quickly.
The next episode I feel is both the strongest and weakest part of S2, highlighting Iroha's character through her vulnerability (which was sorely needed after Endless Solitude flat out neglected to do so) but also highlighting one of Yachiyo's most hypocritical aspects going into the story that not only isn't explored, but also treated like it doesn't exist. I can't discuss Iroha's side of the story without elaborating on her development through the game, so I tried going about that here. But the gist of it is how Iroha's entire journey throughout the first half of the story is an exploration of her loneliness, and shows how she overcomes it as she enters Kamihama. What is generally described as the episode that's basically Rebellion but with Iroha is funnily enough moreso Kuroe's episode.
While the episode is set in Iroha's dreams, it sets the chain of events that led to Kuroe's change. But this is another double-edged sword, because it's a move while efficient, doesn't feel natural. Kuroe's entire thing was how she abandoned Iroha in S1 in favor of Kamihama, but instead of slowly catching up with her while trying to gently nudging each other to fill the blanks, Iroha just so happens to have a dream that shows everything she's went through. It feels like it's not really taking advantage of the fact that these two haven't talked to each other for a while and only recently were reunited and decided to just skip the part where they actually have to know each other after separating.
However on Yachiyo's side of the story, there's a part of her that starts rearing its ugly head the hardest. Her search for Magius' base primarily has her fixating over Iroha, even the major battle with Mifuyu has her exclusively talking about Iroha; completely ignoring Tsuruno who by her account she pressured into being "the strongest", ignoring Felicia who had to endure an awful life ever since she was a kid, ignoring Sana who lived her entire life in an abusive household that they treated her like she doesn't exist. She once again shows her apathy towards the Mikazuki members whose name isn't Iroha by dismissing the possibility that they might be real even before she came to the theory that they might be inside Iroha's Doppel Labyrinth; Yachiyo in fact only considered the possibility that Iroha is real as a hunch, and willingly cut down the image of everyone else without question. This becomes extremely jarring when in Episode 7 where Yachiyo reunites with Felicia and Sana, she hugs them and told them that she misses her; something her actions would lead you to assume otherwise. Had you assume this is game Yachiyo, perhaps it would make more sense since that Yachiyo hasn't treated the rest of Mikazuki with apathy. But this is a piece of her character from S2, it's not something S1 or the game is at fault for; this is S2 Yachiyo contradicting herself.
After this episode, the more character-driven part of the story just settles down and if that's what you're into MagiReco for then I'm sorry to say this isn't the anime for you. Most of the character points that were set up just fell flat after this point, firstly take Rena, Kaede, and Momoko. The finale of S1 implied something big was happening to them that led them to join Magius; but even until the end of the show, we never really found out any of the details surrounding what happened to them.
How did Kaede ended up in Magius after S1EP5 when she Doppeled? How did Rena and Momoko joined up? Momoko especially since there's a clear hierarchy in Magius where the white robes are of higher rank than the black robes (this is easily noticeable by seeing how much white robed Magius there are compared to the black robed ones), how did Momoko then outrank Kaede who was in Magius for longer than her? In that same episode Rena said she was running away from Magius with Kaede, implying she did something to get them to go after her; so what did Rena do to make that happen? Why is Rena skeptical of Mitama? Was it just raw skepticism? Did she see something Mitama did that weren't the Doppel Syndromes? All those unanswered questions were part of why the sakuga scene in Episode 4 just felt like fluff, they didn't really contribute much to the more important questions at hand.
Episode 5 then instead of answering questions, raises more and more questions that seems so obvious that I genuinely thought there was going to be a fake out by the end. Why did Sana join Magius? Felicia's case was surprisingly answered quite well by tying it to her trauma of losing her parents to a Witch, at best you can say Sana only joined up to watch over Felicia; but then why didn't she make any contact with Yachiyo, Tsuruno, or Iroha? You might say that they didn't have their phones in Magius; but then when Yachiyo asked why they didn't contact her in Episode 7, why didn't either Sana or Felicia told her that?
This is also where I felt the whole "Iroha disappearance" plot thread was severely underutilized, recall that it was because of Iroha that Felicia (a 13-year-old who had to become a mercenary just to find a place to sleep and eat) and Sana (someone who isolated herself from the outside world) were able to find a place to belong to. Their only appearance in Episode 2 was just a vague "maybe Yachiyo and Iroha are fine" that seems incredibly uncharacteristic of them, they clearly still care for them so why are they staying with Magius like they don't have any choice? They only discover Iroha disappeared after she was found by Yachiyo and Kuroe, which is bizarre when you consider that Felicia and Sana would immediately go on a search for her had they known earlier since they did exactly that after Mifuyu told them about that. It's worth noting that their game equivalents were forcibly brainwashed into staying, which offers its own set of issues with agency, but removing their brainwashing and not finding a good enough justification for them to stay is hardly any better.
It also doesn't take advantage of the idea that we as an audience start to miss Iroha as well by having her away from the screen longer, it's almost surreal to consider that Iroha was at some point considered gone when she's heavily plastered throughout the show and comes back almost immediately. Despite being a strong starting point, it was massively underutilized on multiple angles.
While I mentioned the aspect surrounding Yachiyo and Felicia and Sana as incongruous, her attitude is better acknowledged with her relationship with Tsuruno but at the same time also incredibly conflicted. Episode 6 has Yachiyo acting like Magius were cowards when they were doing what any normal person would have done if they knew they were lied to by beings they couldn't understand; acting like Yachiyo was above it all. This was put into question by Felicia in Episode 7 when she wants to know what Yachiyo's plan is going forward if she does take down Magius, but only revealing by talking in circles that she really is just full of it and doesn't know anything. Episode 7's name alludes to Yachiyo's major flaw throughout S2 where she acts like she's above everyone else, towards Mifuyu who she calls weak, towards Felicia who she considers should be easy to convince, and towards Tsuruno who she thought she knew.
But it falls apart when it's actually shown what Yachiyo doesn't understand about Tsuruno, this is also unfortunately where I have to make another comparison with the game. Let's start off with the game so I can explain what I thought were the major parts of Tsuruno's reveal and what it meant for her character.
To Tsuruno, there were three things that set off her downward spiral: Firstly is her awful grandmother and sister who took off with the money she wished for, secondly was Meru's death which she personally blamed herself for, finally the disbanding of Mikazuki due to Yachiyo's worsening condition. Due to her nature as your stereotypical "genki girl" Tsuruno attempts to glue together whatever is left of the dysfunctional group, but this is PMMM and cooperation is all but pointless. Fast forward to Iroha's arrival to Kamihama, and Felicia and Sana moving into Mikazuki, Tsuruno is now more than ever given more responsibilities to tie everyone together despite losing sight of what her own happiness means to her. In a sense, she's acting strong to keep everyone together.
Which is what the anime also sort of tries to convey, however there are a few seemingly small choices that might not mean much; but affected Tsuruno's characterization considerably: Mikazuki was never disbanded by Yachiyo in the anime, instead they all go their own ways. This means that there isn't really much dysfunctional people for her to keep together, and her internal conflict is no longer about maintaining a group of people that's slowly falling apart. Instead her conflict is now about maintaining her image as "the strongest", something apparently Yachiyo has pushed towards Tsuruno even though we've never really seen that.
Another aspect that seems to have been added is how Tsuruno seemed to have killed Meru's Witch; after deliberating on it a bit on what it tries to accomplish, it succeeds one end but opens a new issue. One of the aspects surrounding the game that's always weakened the ongoing conflict was its heavy reliance on brainwashing, it killed character agency and made a huge chunk of the conflict surrounding it boil down to "they're brainwashed, use nakama powers to snap them out"; and to its credit Tsuruno's kill there does give her a good reason why she would turn over to Magius out of guilt. The issue I take is how Meru and Tsuruno's relationship hasn't really been shown in the specifics, who is Meru to Tsuruno and who is Tsuruno to Meru? Yachiyo and Mifuyu handled this well because we see who they are to each other throughout S1, but Meru's role in the anime is so brief that she's generally reduced to "flashback character". The game admittedly has this issue too if you're strictly looking at the main story, a fair assessment to make, but Tsuruno in there functioned off the general dysfunction of her family and Mikazuki. Though overall, I consider this a net gain in an aspect that I thought was lacking from the game and it should be commended for the idea at least.
While this all paints a picture of a Tsuruno whose portrayal is far less of note in the anime, her core development still stands fine, albeit watered down. The finale where everyone in Mikazuki gathered around and hugged Tsuruno as Yachiyo apologizes, while completely unearned in every conceivable way; is still a scene that has strong emotional vibes and serves as a good capping off point for the season with Yachiyo's arc coming to a close.
On the sidelines however; besides Mifuyu, I think Mitama is also (coincidentally another white haired) character whose change in the anime succeeded. Her shift from the larger-scale harbinger of Kamihama due to the socio-economic discrimination (yes really) to a jaded Coordinator was one of the more shockingly well-delivered changes in the anime; simplifying her backstory where it needed to be, but delivering on a concept that tied to her status as Kamihama's mysterious merchant well. There isn't much I can say about how it plays into the major themes of the story, but it's a short but fairly enjoyable story regardless.
Previously I had said that I intended to view S2 as a continuation of the game than S1, and it did considerably helped me view S2 in a better light. But it was also because of this that certain aspect of the anime was noticeably confused on what it wants to become; I would say easily seen by the inconsistent portrayal of Yachiyo even in this very season alone and the anime's portrayal of Kuroe, who in a lot of ways embody the confused nature of the anime best.
Kuroe is an anime-only character who serves to differentiate the anime and the game, yet her appearance in S1 is brief only during the first and last episode and despite hinting at sweeping changes, ultimately S1 was at its most barebones is very faithful to the game outside of those points. Kuroe in S2 started to gain more relevance; but when Tsuruno's arc was happening, Kuroe couldn't be involved because she couldn't fit into that part of the story. Despite how much Kuroe is pushed as one of the faces for the MagiReco anime, the show itself tells her that she doesn't belong in this story. Which considering how much she's been built up ever since the anime was announced, comes across as mean spirited towards the people who were actually looking forward to her.
S3 is around the corner, coming late this year and I have my doubts for it. I don't think it'll change anyone's opinions if you already liked or disliked S2, if you've come this far then you've set your mind into this series. As I've said in my S1 review, PMMM and MagiReco means a lot to me; and whatever it chooses to do, I'll always want to know regardless of how it ends up.
This season has high expectations due to how it promises to fully diverge from the game; though even if that was 100% the case, it needed to do a lot of things to fully fix the illwill it had gave me in S1. Obviously that wasn't happening, so I tried to look past it and it's by no means godawful that I'd send it to a black hole; but it's always disheartening to see something can be so good but always falls short. If you somehow read me going on this long about a fairly mediocre gacha game anime adaptation then thank you, and I'd once again like to recommend you to at least try the first five chapters of the game which you can find here or try the more well-paced and more faithful manga. It's by no means perfect and has its own fair share of flaws, but it's also a different enough experience for you to try.
Side note: You'll notice I haven't really mentioned anything about the original five of Madoka, Sayaka, Homura, Kyouko, and Mami, which is primarily because I struggle to find anything worthwhile to say about them that isn't the usual "they shouldn't be in this show". That's not really a topic I want to beat to death due to how common of a point it is as I can't really add much either to it. None of it is something I find is worth mentioning and their involvement or lack thereof doesn't really change much about how I feel about the overall season.
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