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| To think it's only been a year since my coverage of this manga began. Don't worry I'll try to be more punctual with future installments. |
Part 10
Now that you've caught up time to discuss the art, writing and characters and see where this series stands. First off the artwork done by Takashi Tensugi works for this story. The characters all look cute most of the time and properly expressive when the situation called for it. Kazumi in one panel of looks like a puppy playing with a Kitten in a sock, another she's a calm manipulative chess master. While she was adorable in most most panels my favorites were where she was either shocked or calmly infuriated by those around her. The art was also good at conveying a character's anger and insanity sometimes in the same panel. Though the arts biggest weakness is the design of the witches and some of the Magical Girls.
But I will fully admit that ragging on the witches in a manga is incredibly unfair, it's just one of the elements that gets lost in adaptation, as Linkara mentioned in his review of the Star Trek 2 comics you can't easily replicate what worked in the movie or in this case show in the comic since comics don't have lighting, special effects, music etc. Now where I can lay down some criticism is on some of the girls' costume design. Now not all of them looked too ridiculous like Umika and Niko's for instance, but others like Satomi, Mirai and especially Yuuri's costumes looked more then a little bit revealing. Now don't confuse me for some repressed footloose esq puritan that says that nobody can dress provocatively if they choose, but then again when I can't tell if a character who is 14-16 years old looks like they lost a fight with Edward Scissorhands and decided to not change afterwords I'm going to call it out.
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| "Hell Tensugi calls it out at the end of Volume one, even Umika at the end of Chapter 2 has a 4th wall moment where she asks why when she transforms there's a part where she's naked. Which I can't help but think is part of the joke." |
Its time to talk about the characters themselves starting with arguably the true villains of this story, The Pleiades Saints. I kept making jokes about their actions and conduct during the review and I mean them, in any other story, ignoring the context behind their actions they would be the villains. Thus the reason why this story has the subtitle of Innocent Malice; while their ultimate goal was to save not only Michiru but all magical girls from becoming Witches it's hard to ignore the fact that their actions are horrible and downright evil. Kidnapping, mass brainwashing, human resurrection and betraying their own friends would definitely put points in the evil category. Their actions actualy give rise to the actual villainous Magical Girls of this story so before I go into the Saints in full detail I now have to talk about the antagonists of this story and how the Saints caused all of this.
Aside from the Souju's; Yuuri and Hijiri were essentially victims of the Saints actions whether directly like Yuuri or indirectly as was the case with Hijiri. Yuuri did have understandable motivations for attacking them, they killed the person that saved her from death even knowing what she did and what she became. Her goals were essentially a warped and twisted version of the Pleiades goals, while the Pleiades wanted to resurrect Michiru, Yuuri went straight for torture and revenge. Which does make sense since unlike the saints who had each other for consolidation Yuuri went completely mad by her desire for vengeance and Kyubey being the one to coax her into making the wish and influencing her decision making during her warped state of mind didn't help anyone except him. Even the original Yuuri was about to join them until she became a witch so things may have played out very differently if Ari was there to see Yuuri transform and the saints stayed behind to console her and explain; sure it might not have gotten through but it would have been better then just leaving her to be manipulated by Kyubey.
Hijiri on the other hand had her entire identity and existence called into question, revealed that her entire life was created by Niko so she can live the life she wished she had but was too consumed by guilt to take it. Seeing Hijiri actually reminded me of a character from the 1994 Spider-man cartoon that ran on Fox Kids. An alternate universe Peter Parker who discovered that he was a clone and was consumed by anger and bitterness towards the original (who took the name Ben Riley) and was driven completely insane by being possessed by the Carnage Symbiote becoming Spider-Carnage. His goal from then on became to destroy all of reality for having everything he treasured taken away with the fact that he wasn't the real Peter Parker; just a clone created for no real reason. I could see that same madness and desperation coming from Hijiri, though just like Spider-Carnage she eventually remembered what truly mattered in the end, tried what she could to set things right and atone for all the horrors she committed. Though as she said she barely had to do anything to the saints since they were destroying themselves just fine without her interference.
Though her abilities are rather head scratching, her wish was for the ability to sneak by people undetected. So how exactly does that lead to her being able to copy the Saints powers like she was Megaman or something? Though in the panel where she explains how she made the evil nuts we see her using her connection magic on Umika's book which as demonstrated when she used Kyoko's Roso Phantasma spell she would have more then likely copied the other's magic as well in case one of them died so she could give the clone all the memories of their powers. Admittingly that's just speculation but it makes the most sense to me so I'm sticking to it. Speaking of, the Evil Nuts are a rather useful and potentially deadly little tool, something that gives ordinary people the abilities of Witches while retaining their sense of self, if she wanted too Hijiri could have made an army of Pseudo Witches to conquer the world. But those who're motivated by revenge don't tend to think long term, though once she got her revenge she could have moved on to making that army to exterminate humanity; still thankfully those Evil Nuts never made it into the hands of others who could cause serious damage with them.
As for Souju there wasn't really all that much to her aside from her duel Soul Gems and downright evil hobby. Honestly it's my head cannon that in her spare time she's dancing around her soul gem collection listening to "Mambo #5" the same way Buffalo Bill dances to "Goodbye Horses". Shame though if this was the world of Soul Eater she'd either be taken care of by Soul and Makka or become a Kishin with how many souls she's taken. Such potential gone down the drain, shame. Now that the antagonists are out of the way time to give my thoughts on whom I consider the real villains as well as our main hero.
I'll be starting with whom I believe to be the most off the deep end to Kazumi herself. Though keep in mind their motivation isn't the problem with them, it's how they go about it that tiptoes over the moral event horizon.
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| I guess I'll start off with the teams resident crazy cat girl Satomi. She was purrfectly pleasant and friendly at the start often acting as a calm motherly figure, always addressing people politely, clearly loved animals and definitely the second most emotional member of the team. Though just like with Mami this was just a brittle persona, and once she saw that Niko became a witch even though her Gem was seemingly clean; that broke her and her descent into madness began. Though not as immediate and panicked as Mami was during her break down she was far more calm and malicious, showing absolutely no signs of remorse in her actions when she was forcing Saki to kill Kazumi nor during the forced fight between Kazumi and the Clones. She may have started wanting to help animals and save them but in the end she just became a rabid animal herself." |
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| Though speaking of mad personas and cold heartedness Mirai was a broken girl who would do anything to earn Saki's love; even if it meant killing the girl she loved in the process. She was the atypical Tsundere character and only seemed to soften up around Saki which makes sense since she saved Sakis life without hesitation when they first met. Being ostracized as she was It'd make sense that she'd gravitate toward possibly the only person in her age group who showed her any true kindness. She even started to bond with her during their time together, though she knew Saki liked Michiru she most likely took it as a small rivalry but it gradually devolved into obsession and jealousy. She was a ticking time bomb and she went off whenever Saki was involved whether she was hurt or wanted to get rid of anything that could stand between her and Saki; including the girl who was responsible for the two meeting in the first place. Even her last act was self sabotaging, summoning witches to protect Saki's Witch and by proxy the girl who was trying to exterminate humanity. |
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| Which leads us to the person who created her in the first place. Niko was one of the more intelligent of the group, though she was the most emotionally distant. But hey you'd be a bit of a gloomy Gus too if you accidentally killed two of your friends before you even learned how to spell. Which begs the question, did her parents never consider; oh I don't know A GODDAMN THERAPIST?! Yeah no, this was mostly on them, their little girl accidentally killed two of her friends did they really think that she'd just get over it if they told her it wasn't her fault? Quite frankly the thought she didn't try to kill herself years ago over the guilt would be a miracle. As I commented before there was something to be said about her wish, she could have removed that memory and had a happy life with her new friends but instead chose to create a clone to take her place, give her family the daughter they deserve while she continues to atone for what she did and dedicate her life to fighting witches with her new family. Knowing that she could never accept running away from her sin she gave the ideal her a chance to live the life she never could, too bad Hijiri didn't see it that way. THANKS KYUBEY!!! |
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| Moving on to the de facto leader of the team. Out of all the Pleiades she was obviously the one who wanted Michiru back the most out of all of them. As we saw in the flashbacks she went out of her way to replace Michiru's earrings. This was furthered evidenced by how she handled the clones, she couldn't bring herself to kill something that had her face and so chose to seal them away. This love extended to Kazumi as well when she broke through Satomi's mind control and stabbed herself instead. She always was the first to try and comfort Kazumi, giving her votes of confidence and trying to reassure her that she and the others have her back. However even when she was holding Kazumi she just couldn't get past the fact that she was a clone of Michiru. Though she knew her and the others actions were horrible she was the most determined to tough it out and do whatever it took to bring Michiru, the one she clearly loved; back to life. |
I'm counting these two together since they're the first two of the saints that Kazumi meets and the only ones aside from her to survive this whole ordeal. Besides they do seem to work better as a pair Umika doing the heavy thinking while Kaoru does the heavy kicking. Since they were the first ones to find Kazumi and guide her in the life of a Magical girl it would make sense that they bond with her more then the others; the fact Kaoru was willing to fight the others to protect Kazumi when she called everyone to the freezer was evidence enough of her loyalty. Umika meanwhile was one of the core members behind the groups plan for good and for ill, not only was she the one responsible for rewriting Kazumi's memories but more importantly she was the one who wrote Kyubey out of the memories of the entire city's magical girl populous. She was also resolved to kill Kazumi to make sure the project could continue, much to Kaoru's horror. But for good and for ill these two survived in the end with their new best friend and no amount of altered memories can change that fact.
Which leads us to our title character and hero of our story. What else can I say about her? She's a pretty good main character in my books. She's loyal to her friends but not so forgiving as to let them off the hook for their actions; bubbly and goofy without being an idiot and when the situation called for it she could be genuinely angry and hurt. (Fuck you Wrong, Leftovers and Dumbluck) Hijiri called her and Kazumi artificial humans yet between the two Kazumi was the most human without question. So her wish at the end while I get the sentiment is still head scratching to me. She's already proven her humanity many times over so why would she need to wish to become human knowing that she would lose that humanity as soon as she earned it when she could have; as I suggested wish for her friends back to life? But again the sentiment isn't lost on me it's just the logic that throws me off.
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| So might as well mention the Saints other victim and creation. Juubey was created to fill the Kyubey gaps in everyone's memories and purify the gems for the saints. Though as shown it was nothing but a placebo. Which is a good bit of symbolism concerning the saints actions and personalities. I won't go into too much detail why since I think you all can figure it out for yourselves. But even it's existence was a lie and died for nothing. Poor fake fuzzball. |
Overall Kazumi Magica is a great side story. It gives us new likable characters, presents a good moral quandary and demonstrates a few things we always wanted to see in the main show. Which also showed why it isn't such a good idea for magical girls to team up, someone trying to change magical girls back to humans and introduced the possibility of artificial witches and magical girls, both with horrible consequences. The artwork was competent, with vibrant expressive faces and designs; though the backgrounds could use a bit more detail but whatever. Next in our look at Madoka we'll go back to the main characters in a world where Homura will meet her intellectual match and we hear about this franchises Masato Kusaka.
Special thanks to my Patreon backer Jesse for his support.
Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story: Magia Record is owned by ANiplex, F4samurai and Magica Quartet.
Archer is owned by Adam Reed, Floyd County Productions, Radical Axis and FX Productions.
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