Manga Review Oriko Magica Volume 2 Part 2: Quality or Quantity? (Spoilers)

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Both were abandoned by their parents. Though in Imperers case he was already an adult who could care for himself when his dad kicked him out and at least there was a good reason behind it. But in the end all they both wanted was to be happy.

 So here we are at the last review of the introductory manga of Oriko, her deranged attack dog/girlfriend Kirika and the sweat little snow pea Yuma. Also it didn't take and entire year to recap the whole thing this time, sweet! I guess that's attributed to me just me getting my act together. Though this will be the last Madoka Manga review for the year as Halloween is coming up and I have something special planed for November and December and Kingdom Hearts 3 will be taking up my time in January, just a heads up. As usual here's the links to the last two reviews of this series for those just joining us.

Part 1

http://ondavidsbrain.blogspot.com/2018/09/manga-review-oriko-magica-volume-1-i.html

Part 2

http://ondavidsbrain.blogspot.com/2018/09/manga-review-oriko-magica-volume-2-part.html

 The last recap of this volume opens with a flashback of Oriko's house vandalized and Oriko herself in the fetal position near a wall. After her Father's suicide apparently everyone had their scumbag switches flipped and began ostracizing her and treating her as subhuman. Her classmates, her fathers associates, everyone began attacking and terrorizing her for something that didn't even involve her. Of course Kyubey knows a desperate mark when it sees it and offers Oriko the contract. 

 Speaking of monsters; Kirika's witch Latria (thank you Magica Record) begins its attack on the quartet, aside from Homura the girls are understandably shocked and distressed by learning the truth, which was a brilliant strategy on Oriko's part. She knew that they wouldn't be able to accept this fact and since she already knew of this fact she can kill them off with a clear mind while they're overwhelmed with fear and denial, but as usual Homura isn't having it and keeps fighting the two to protect Madoka from their insanity. Sayaka and Hitomi in the meantime are trying to escape with Hitomi understandably starting to crack seeing her classmates being killed and devoured by the familiars. But enough of that nonsense back to the fight, where Homura figures out the terrible secret behind Oriko's powers.

 Yep Oriko can see into the future. Homura figures that this precognitive power coupled with the Witches slowing magic makes them a very dangerous combo. Then Oriko starts trying to break Homura with her mind games which worked long enough to create an opening to slam her in the back with her steel balls.

 All that's left is to finish off Yuma. She tries to heal Kyoko and Mami but they've given up knowing that even if they survive they'll just become witches later.

It's been fun, but now it's time to finish you off Little Green.

MY NAME IS YUMA, SAY IT SAY MY NAME!!! YUMA YUMA!!

No, Super Kami Yuma!

 Super Kami Yuma then heals Mami and Kyoko, gives a motivating speech that I really don't want to spoil and helps the senior Magical Girls reduce the witch to a crumbling pile of rubble. With what's left of her Girlfriend dying in front of her the weight of all of Oriko's antics finally start to get at her. Homura breaks it to her that she's lost and that if she keeps this up her Soul Gem will become corrupted and she'll become a witch too. Kyubey chimes in spoiling everything about Oriko's plan. She had Kirika kill local Magical Girls creating the mystery of the Magical Girl hunter on top of pointing him to Yuma all to keep him from making contact with Madoka, then she staged the attack to kill her before she could meet him. However our chapter ends with Kyubey saying that despite her best efforts he found Madoka.

Well for the sake of fairness Kyubey, you're an evil piece of garbage, so screw off!

 The final chapter starts with another flashback of everyone heaping praise on Oriko. Though they only address her as Mikuni, never distancing her from her father's name. All except for one certain person. Back in the present Madoka managed to break out of Homura's barrier and meet back up with Sayaka and Hitomi. After hearing how all of her classmates are dead Madoka heads off to Homura, but Sayaka and Hitomi join with her since they're friends and all that mush. Back with the Magical Girls Oriko doesn't know when enough is enough and is using every last ounce of power to make Homura waste her magic so that she'll unleash everything at Madoka when she shows up and kill her. Homura and the others keep up their assault on her but when Kyoko's spear is about to hit Kirika's corpse Oriko remembers her wish.

It was for a reason to live.

 After pulling she pulls the spear out of her chest Homura points a gun at her Soul Gem.

"Click"

 As Oriko falls a piece of Kirika's witch falls near her and so using all of her strength unleashes one last attack which zooms past them all and hits Kyubey. With that Oriko and Kirika are dead, but as it's revealed; Oriko's a sore loser, her attack wasn't meant for Kyubey, using her precognition powers she hit Madoka; piercing her heart and killing her instantly.

 So with Madoka dead Homura bites the dust and reverses time to restart events anew again. Speaking of Kira Yoshikage; we end Oriko Magica with the spirits of Oriko and Kirika meeting in Mitakihara school with their memories scrambled, neither recognizing each other. Oriko says that she's carrying an incredible burden due to sacrificing many people to save far more, Kirika suggests that she can help with the burden and so she offers her hand and the two move on into parts unknown. So that was Oriko Magica and boy was this one weak compared to what we've covered before. Now that's not to say it was awful or anything don't get me wrong it's just that there were a few things that held it back. 

 So let's get them out of the way, the biggest problem for me was the artwork. The artist for these was Mura Kuroe and something tells me that he didn't get the universe bible or whatever because his depictions of not only the characters but Soul Gems and Grief Seeds were inconsistent with what we know they look like in the franchise.

Now I might just be being pedantic here but all I'm asking for is constancy in a franchise.

 Also Kyubey was often depicted as being able to fly, what? I defenitly don't remember that anywhere else, maybe like Oriko, Kirika and Yuma his fight is just an irregularity in this particular timeline but it just bugs me.

Though I do like this scene here, he almost looks like he's just floating on by like he doesn't give a fuck. Or like he's hopping around like Pepe Le Pew.

 The fight scenes are also poorly framed by my eyes, half the time I couldn't tell where people were, who was attacking and it was just a mess. Also the faces were off for me, everyone having really big eyes, like the kind of eyes the RPM Rangers were talking about when asking Dr K about their Zords. Sometimes different characters also looked like the same person who just quick changed their clothes, on top of that every character that was supposed to have long hair just looked like they got carried away which wound up being distracting. So all in all the artwork proved to shoot this series in the foot more often then not, but there were some good aspects to it. Mainly the new characters introduced in this series, they work and are compelling in their own rights at least to me.

  Well start off with Yuma, this poor little ball of sprinkles might as well have had the words "my life is shit" on her shirt but she does allow Kyoko to show more of her sisterly nature that she hasn't had a chance to utilize after her sisters death. They both help to heal each other from their trauma with Kyoko teaching Yuma how to live on the streets while Yuma rekindles Kyoko's compassion, as shown when she talks to Mami to warn her about Oriko, remember back in The Different Story when every time they talked they just wound up fighting? With Yuma around Kyoko has softened up to where the two can actually have a civil conversation. Yuma's powers were a great asset as well, aside from being the White Mage of the group she also was able to deliver highly pressurized air blasts by striking targets with her kitty staff. She was a prefect sidekick for Kyoko and Mami but it's just a shame that her mother was a horrid fucking piece of shit.

 On to our Anti-villains. We'll start with Kirika aka X-23 first. 

 The flashbacks showed that she used to distance herself from others until she met Oriko, who according to her was the only person who showed her any kindness. (Maybe aside from her parents but we never learn anything about her home life.) She also had no self confidence since her wish was to completely change her personality, but even then she still couldn't bring herself to talk to her. We don't know how the two finally ended up together but that might be covered in Sadness Prayer so I don't know. What we do know is that their relationship was toxic, not abusive or anything but Oriko clearly used Kirika for her agenda and it resulted in her becoming a bloodthirsty monster who would kill anyone so long as Oriko commanded, she killed for her love and her quest but all that matters to Kirika was that she had Oriko's love, no matter how many bodies she left in her wake.

 Which brings us to the title character herself. She was definitely an interesting antagonist especially in this setting. While she claimed that her whole crusade was to save the world (and let's face it, it would) she was just desperately looking for someone who would accept her. Someone that would stay with her, see her as her and not just an extension of her father, and she had that with Kirika. Problem was that it wouldn't last long when Madoka becomes a witch and destroys the world in about 10 days time, yeah that might put a damper on their honeymoon when a giant unstoppable demon is going around killing all of humanity. 

 So once she saw that Madoka's death was the key to saving the world she became Oriko's #1 target. But the thing is, she and Homura really aren't all that different, they were both ostracized, they both want to do everything in their power to achieve their goals of protecting those dear to them and are ruthlessly ambitious. Her ability to see the future also meant that she's two steps ahead of everyone else most of the time, this combined with her super fast steel balls gave her an even foothold against Homura. But she clearly wasn't much of a physical fighter so Kirika proved even more invaluable to her goals. Though she may be devoted to her cause she thankfully isn't a complete sociopath since she does rightfully feel guilty for those she sacrificed for her plan when she and Kirika had their afterlife reunion. 

 So all in all Oriko Magica is definitely a mixed bag but hey they proved to be popular enough to warrant new stories with Extra Story, Sadness Prayer and Magica Record. Though we're going to be taking a bit of a break from these two for now as I'll wait to see the rest of Sadness Prayer to be translated. For now, October is here and that means us critics are going into spoopy pandering mode. So I'll actually be following up my List of best monsters in fiction with my least favorite. After that when we do come back we'll be seeing Homura take another crack at saving Madoka in a more comedic setting, at least for the first two chapters.

Special thanks to my Patreon backer Jesse for his support.

Oriko Magica is owned by Mura Kuroe, Magica Quartet and Yen Press.
Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story: Magia Record is owned by Aniplex, F4samurai and Magica Quartet.

Dragon Ball, Dragonball Z, Dragonball GT and Dragonball Super is owned by Funnimation, Toei animation, Fuji TV and Akira Toriyama.

Dragon ball Z abridged is owned by Team Four Star. 
Archer is owned by Adam Reed, Floyd County Productions, Radical Axis and FX Productions.
Perfect Strangers is owned by Miller-Boyett Productions, ABC and Warner Bros. Television