After Eve of Awakening left the anime looking like it gave up being an adaptation and decided to pursue being a do-over instead, we reach the finale. How much more could the bois at SHAFT possibly cha-- a lot. A fucking lot.
First things first. Episode 22 is a backstory episode. It goes through a few changes, by far one of the biggest being that instead of Touka finding out about Magical Girls and Incubators on her own and coming to the others with this information, they sneak into a Labyrinth to see Iroha hard at work. Someone, quick, add another tick to the "Iroha getting her ass kicked" counter!
The other major change being how we got this exposition to begin with. Nemu just remembers everything. While an odd change, the removal of the personification of the Eternal Sakura from S2 kind of necessitated it.
Ui being the Magical Girl of the Witch that would be known as Embryo Eve is an okay twist, and it provides a decent enough explanation to the mystery of the Small Incubator.
The Eve awakening does something unique to the anime that only really serves to guide the story to the main event of the episode. The girls still going through with using Ui's Witch Body for liberation causes sudden Doppel Syndrome to a ton of Magical Girls, and someone's gotta deal with it.
My issue with this is not the scene itself, but moreso just its existence. It may free the afflicted girls at Fendthope's ruins from their Doppel Syndrome, but those girls don't really achieve much from here on. Most they do is make a combo plane and tie down a moth. That's really it.
Episode 24 may start with Alina watching the world burn to the ground, but it's very obvious who this episode really belongs to.
Anyways, Kuroe may have taken Tomoe Iroha up on the idea, but she...does not cope with it well. To the point that in Episode 23 she experiences the sudden Doppel Syndrome and essentially kills herself by breaching Alina's Doppel Barrier and fully transforms. Iroha putting down the newly-born Ichizo is painfully to watch, even if the fact we don't get much in the way of knowing her before Ep24 does bog it down a little.
Neo Dorthy Motherfucker
I'm not kidding, that's what the ruins in her Witch introduction come out to say. And the best (or worst) part? It's perfectly in character for Alina. God, I actually don't think I've expressed in any of my MagiReco reviews until now that I love Alina as a character. Crazy bitch is just so entertaining to watch.
Anyway, time for what may be the scene closest to its equivalent in the source material. Nemu's sacrifice against Alina. Just...let's not kind ourselves. NDM is a form completely unique to the anime and Touka joins in the sacrifice. And just to fuck with Iroha even more, let's sprinkle in Ui (whose soul in still in the small Kyubey, by the way), jumping onto the highway to hell alongside her two buddies. So that's Alina, Nemu, Touka, AND Ui gone in one fell swoop.
Two things about the Magius sacrifice.
- Only Nemu sacrifices herself to take down Alina (who in the game has a completely separate "Holy Alina" form). Even if it was a necessity for Touka to go with, Ui had no reason to jump in with them aside from, idk, fuck it why not?
- Remember how I said characters don't come back in the last minute in the anime? Yeah, this is why I brought it up. Unlike in the game, Nemu isn't coming back in an epilogue. They are all GONE! In Nemu and Alina's case, this is a good change. They never should've come back after Last Magia.
And now, for something different.
Iroha doesn't get something cool like that. She just gets the good ol' "I'll always be with you." given to her by Ui. Because Iroha is just getting given the shit end of the stick here.
Yeah, no, this timeline was just another failure to throw in the ever-growing list. Kind of ironic, really. Not only does Homura take another loss from Walpurgis, but it's in the series where the original version had her take part in the final shot that killed Walpurgis. Just another day at the worst office in Magical Girl history.
Here's the thing with Dawn of a Shallow Dream. I gave up on it being a faithful adaptation early into Season 2, so I came in not expecting much aside from them somehow getting the Due Anima in.
I'm left mixed on this ending. It comes a lot closer to the feel of the parent series than either season before it. That's not entirely a good thing, though. It's TOO close to the parent series. It stopped feeling like a spin-off and started being a copy of the original 2011 TV series, and MagiReco (TV) ended up failing to meet the standard it placed on itself. You shouldn't always be like your parent, even if they're a masterpiece. Spin-offs, in my opinion, should be a balance of what worked about the franchise's history and something to make it unique. In that sense, I have to say that Magia Record peaked in Season 2. For most of Season 1, it felt like any generic episodic Magical Girl show. In Season 3, it felt too much like MaMadoka. Season 2, while still straying away from the somber and hopeless main plot that defined the main series and the final minutes of Magia Record (TV), slipped in more of the character specific suffering of the 2011 series through edits to the game's character backstories. Season 3 strays too far into the hopelessness that defined its parent, to the point they killed 11 characters in THREE EPISODES! Magia Record Season 3 has a higher kill per minute than some slasher flicks (assuming all ambiguous characters are dead by the end of the post-credits scene).
Speaking of,
let's see just how hard of Ls everyone took in the anime:
Iroha: Debatably the worst off. After travelling all the way to Kamihama in search of her sisters, ends up being there to WATCH as they all (her blood-related sister that has been missing from reality as well) sacrifice themselves in a futile attempt to kill Alina Gray. Oh, also, literally right before, her friend witches out while driving it in that it's her fault, AND she had to put that friend down. All in, at most, the span of a few hours.
Homura: Debatably the worst off. Has been jumping through time countless times by now, finally arriving in a timeline where she might have a chance to finally finish her eternal cycle of suffering. However, Walpurgis ends up going back to Mitakihara where Madoka gets killed again and the others end up MIA. Her cycle of torment continues with no end in sight.
Mitama: Lost both Mifuyu AND Momoko (Momoko and Mitama having been heavily connected through their Magical Girl lives AT THE VERY LEAST)
Yachiyo/Tsuruno: Lost Mifuyu, another of their old friends (Yachiyo: another one of her crew dying while she lives on - Tsuruno: among the girls saved by the sacrifice)
Sana/Felicia: No notable change, might be a bit down after the high of victory ends
Momoko/Mifuyu/Touka/Nemu/Ui: Sacrificed self
Alina: Vaporized by Due Anima
Kuroe: Witched out, put down
Madoka: Killed by Walpurgis (this is not up for debate, Homura wouldn't go back AGAIN if Madoka lived)
Sayaka/Kyoko/Mami: Presumed dead
Kyubey: Gets to keep its system of exploiting young girls and their unstable emotions (BONUS: biggest threat to established system taken out)
Yeah, Kyubey is the only one in the anime to take a straight W. Fuck's sake, dude.
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