Manga Review: Kazumi Magica The innocent malice Vol 5: Part 1: We'll meet again one sunny day.

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 Lets see, evil clone of a central character, obsessed with killing their original. Sounds about right only difference is that unlike Ryuga we actually know where Hijiri came from.

 Once again sorry for the delay in getting this part out but again life happens. But instead of me pointing you to the previous reviews of this Manga I'll instead save that for the end of this series of reviews to avoid redundancy. Back on track Volume 5 opens with Hijiri abridging the Darth Vader speech to Kazumi who of course tells her to stick her offer where the sun don't shine, even though she was a replacement the friendship between them was real. 

Your words have touched my heart, tiny little homunculus girl.  NOW LEZ GIB OURSELVES A BIG OLL BACK BREAKEN UG EH?!

 Kazumi manages to break out of the tube and grows back to normal size, maybe she had one of Saki's shrooms on hand. Kaoru offers Hijiri a chance to just stop all of this but she refuses, which leads to Umika giving her a reason you/we suck speech that really needs to be read for yourself. Nonetheless now that Kazumi won't join her Hijiri has no reason to be holding back anymore. Umika and Kaoru transform to let Kazumi rest but Hijiri gets some unexpected help. Some of Mirai's bears break into the barrier carrying tainted 6 Soul Gems including the Souju's all of which turn into witches that form a protective wall around Saki's witch. The two are undeterred however as Umika uses a spell she recorded on Kaoru.

Copy, please?

 Despite the extra Kaoru's and Umika trying a sneak attack; Hijiri and the witches prove to be too strong for them. Kazumi tries to transform but her soul gem is at its limit. Which is where Juubey comes in and does his thing.

Or not. Hey dude I know you've been kind of useless but thats no reason to fall to pieces over this.

 So now that Juubey's dead the girls are completely hosed without a way to purify their soul gems.

Wait Juubey, no no no I remember now, to our collective displeasure.

 Kaoru tries to use the two gems left behind by Juubey's remains but they're dissolved and completely useless. Now that there's no way to fight back Hijiri sends the Nebula disk witch to attack, however when it hears the sound of Kazumi's earrings it roars and the other witches charge in and start to eat her. Yes what was left of Saki commanded the witches to eat and kill her so she can give the three her Grief Seed, what little of the girl inside of the monster broke out long enough to save her sisters in arms. Kind of like Day of the dead only with less Zombies and more friendship. The chapter ends with Umika and Kaoru taking the Grief Seed and fulfill Saki's last request, using it to purify Kazumi's Soul Gem saving her life at the cost of theirs.

 Chapter 20 opens with Kazumi completely restored and no longer in danger of witching out. Hijiri even after seeing everything that these girls went though for each other still thinks Kazumi will go along with her crazy ass plan, look kid there's a difference between being stubborn and just plain old fashioned stupid. Kazumi obviously tells Hijiri to blow her offer out her ass and uses Umika's power (aka Kyoko's) to create copies of herself, which manage to take out the minor witches in one strike leaving Hijiri with just the Twin Fox witch. As Kazumi charges ahead the duo reminisce and regret on how they should have introduced her to Saki much sooner then they did.

 Yeah apparently they could have had Kazumi meet the rest as soon as they found her, but they just wanted to wait and see if she was stable before moving things forward. They concluded that aside from Kazumi retaining Michiru's cooking skills she has no trace of Michiru's memories or personality, so pretty much perfect. Further in the past after a fight with a witch Umika got the idea to resurrect Michiru from the ability she copied from the witch with her X-File spell as well as pooling everybody else's powers together.

Now this just begs the question of 1, how she made this thing in the first place and 2 since Witches have hearts what would a Heartless born from a witch look like?

 As stated earlier this is the ultimate taboo they're breaking for Michiru since she went through so much to protect them. Saki read through her journal and confirmed that Michiru at some point learned the truth, thus she made sure the other's gems were cleaned before hers and did everything she could to hide the truth from them. Her little way of trying to cope with the fact that she accidentally sentenced her new friends to inevitably becoming horrible monsters, well some people take up yoga, some people play video games and others hide the truth about their new friends becoming rejects from Tim Burton's deviant art page. Nevertheless they all agreed to this insane plan since they desperately wanted to pay back their mentor and beloved friend for all she did no matter the cost. 

 So for months they tried and tried but it never worked out, even Kazumi their most perfect creation can't avoid the fighting that comes with being a magical girl. Kaoru and Umika flashback again (take a shot) to the group wondering what to give Kazumi once she's finished. Mirai would give her one of her custom teddy bears, Satomi was going to give her back Toto who apparently was injured when Michiru became a witch. Umika was going to let her be the first person to read her new book (so, your gift to your friend/creation is to show her how awesome you are. Real selfless gift right there lass, maybe she was just really desperate for some feedback, but based on their previous attempts to recreate Michiru I would have guessed it would've turned out like this.)

 Moving on to less narcissistic gifts Kaoru was going to give her the uniform she won in the national tournament. As for Niko, she proposed a trip to America, she wanted them all to look up at the Pleiades constellation in the Grand Canyon, where she'll be able to tell them everything about herself. As for Saki, her gift was the earrings, besides being her gift it was her way of trying to move past Michiru's death, by seeing Michiru's most treasured item not as hers but Kazumi's. So essentially a regift? "cough" Cheapskate "cough".

 Back in the present as the two are about to succumb to despair they notice a much bigger problem. Saki's grief seed is about to hatch into the Nebula Disk Witch all over again. At the same time a giant glyph over the city shatters, which reminds the two about how Grief Seeds were originally disposed of. Our chapter ends with the return of the reason why the Pleiades Saints started this insanity, the being that's ultimately responsible for all of their problems, the unholy fucking fuzzball himself; the Incubator! 

 Chapter 21 has Kyubey just strutting around like he owns the place and introducing himself to Kazumi. Kaoru is perplexed as to where he was this this whole time, when in reality he never left they just didn't notice him. He elaborates that the reason why he went unnoticed this whole time was due to Umika. As yet another flashback tells us (take a shot) when Kaoru confronted Juubey what really happened was that when Umika grabbed the incubator; instead of rewriting Juubey's memories she in actuality beat Kyubey to death against a wall. She thought that would be the end of it but of course where there's one Kyubey there's another not too far behind like a game of wack-a-mole.

 But instead of the usual cannibal routine Niko kept the dead Kyubey and experimented on it. The results of her research was an artificial incubator that was subservient to them as well as able to purify Soul Gems without a Grief Seed, and thus they named their creation Juubey. With their new incubator Umika planted the finishing touches, by combining her magic with the other 5 Pleiades she created a giant spell glyph over Asunaro city that replaced every magical girls' memory of Kyubey with Juubey and made his presence completely undetectable, so that way he can't come into contact with and create new Magical Girls. Kyubey admits that her plan was pretty damn good save for one problem, they used an incubator body as the basis for their Juubey project.

 Now admittedly his critique makes sense since if Incubators were created to absorb the energy when hope becomes despair why would they be given a function that purifies Soul Gems without the use of a Grief Seed? So all Juubey was in the end was just a sentient placebo, all he did essentially was give their Soul Gems a spit shine job when they really needed a trip to a car wash. He speculates that the only reason why they didn't become witches sooner was a combination of holding back their strength when fighting as well as a residual purifying power of the Grief Seeds Juubey ingested.

 Speaking of witches Umika and Kaoru are on the verge of becoming ones themselves. 

"Just as planned Bwahahahahahahahahaha!!!!" Yeah Kazumi he couldn't help but look at what's bleeding all over the floor right over there?

 Kazumi skins the Fox witch but unfortunately it didn't drop a Grief Seed. So this chapter ends with Kazumi holding her friends hands begging for them to not become witches. With this revolution we've officially reached the climax, will Umika and Kaoru be saved, will Hijiri be stoped before she can destroy humanity, and what of the other magical girls stored in the freezer? Check out next time where we see the conclusion of Kazumi Magica The Innocent Malice.

Special thanks to my Patreon backer Jesse for his support.

Kazumi Magica The Innocent Malice is owned by Masaki Hiramatsu, Takashi Tensugi, Magica Quartet and Yen Press.
Bioshock Infinite is owned by Ken Levine, Irrational Games, 2K Games and Take-Two Interactive.
Rick and Morty is owned by Justin Rolland, Dan Harmon, Justin Roiland's Solo Vanity Card Productions, Harmonious Claptrap, Starburns Industries, and Williams Street.
South Park is owned by Matt Stone, Trey Parker and Comedy Central.

Warhammer 40,000 is owned by Rick Priestly, Games Workshop and Citidel.

If the Emperor had a Text to Speech Device is owned by Bruva Alfabusa.