A horrible fate has fallen upon the Magical Girls of Nabuka City. After Nemurin’s death, I suppose I know what to expect from the development of the show: the girls are going to start spilling each other’s guts out. Isn’t that exciting?

Japanese Title: バージョンアップのお知らせ！

Plot

The group of annoying secondary characters that were introduced in the previous episode are working their tiny butts off to get more Magical Candies. In the meantime, Snow White and her sexy transgender friend Shou-chan find out, thanks to a really dodgy group chat, that when you lose your Magical Girl status you, um, die. You should have probably read the terms and conditions before signing up, ladies. The girls have another intense staff meeting where FAV is casually being the menstrual reincarnation of all evil, only to later on receive a message that they can now exchange Magical Candies. Apparently that makes a huge difference since everyone is peeing their pants about it.

Episode Highlights

TopSpeed is riding her vintage broomstick when she gets a call from someone called Swim Swim. You would expect a Magical Girl with a stupid name like this to be more cheerful, but her voice tone and lack of facial expressions make her look like she’s dying inside. TopSpeed gives her a ride to the mountains where she is supposed to go ‘leaf viewing’ in the middle of the night -hilarious- and meets with the rest of the AUCG (Annoying Unimportant Character Gang). Apparently she has some sort of connection to their leader, Ruler, who needs to have her face pushed down a toilet, judging from her behaviour. TopSpeed tries to bribe them with food then leaves in the usual quirky way.

The AUCG basically consists of Ruler, who is a power thirsty bitch; Swim Swim, her lackey; Minaelle and Yunaelle, a really disturbing pair of angel twins (also known as the ‘Peaky Angels’); and Tama, the underdog that constantly get bullied by everyone. Their task for the night is to bury illegal garbage, a task Ruler has discovered and gracefully assigned to them while she’s chilling with Swim Swim. We find out Tama’s power, digging holes. It’s not gonna get better for this girl, is it? Wasting more air time on the AUCG, the twin angels decide to film a PV to gain popularity. Their mannerisms are almost as irritating as FAV’s.

Snow White and La Pucelle are being summoned in the chatroom by Sister Nana only to discover that they will die if they lose their powers, thanks to Winterprison (a girl whose scarf covers half her face) who has been snooping around the chat logs. She has discovered a log of the Magical Girl called ‘Cranberry’ discussing just that with FAV. Who the hell is Cranberry, and why has she been keeping this information to herself? Magicaloid, a mecha self-proclaimed ‘rare character’, is present during the whole thing, and later informs Calamity Mary of the news, pledging her allegiance to her. Nobody cares.

Obviously, FAV has some terrible excuse for all this, but I have a hunch that behind this whole Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku app is a group of angry sexless men in their thirties who really need to shower and who have spent their whole lives trying to get a group of teenage women to kill each other for their pleasure. Further proof of this is that they now allow the girls to exchange Magical Candy, either voluntarily or by force. Ruler deems this to be a great opportunity and plans an attack on Snow White and La Pucelle. Just before the attack takes place, for some inexplicable reason, La Pucelle swears loyalty to Snow White, and Snow White bursts into tears. The AUCG gathers around them and the episode ends just before the first big fight of the show is about to happen. Somebody is probably going to die.

All this for candy that is not even edible.

Themes & Trivia

Leaf Viewing: Autumn leaves (koyo), is the centuries-old Japanese autumn tradition of leaf viewing, similar to cherry blossom viewing in spring. There are specific areas around Japan where travelers gather to experience the beauty of discolored autumn leaves as the event moves southwards, starting from Hokkaido and ending in Tokyo and Kyoto in early December. You can even follow the different phases of koyo around Japan online.

PV: What the ‘Peaky Angels’ make to become more famous, in popular Japanese culture is called a PV, or Promotional Video. It is something similar to a movie trailer, like a sneak peek into a new popular media that is about to be released, such as a new anime, music video, band album or film.

Seiza: Literally ‘proper sitting’, seiza is a traditional formal way of sitting in Japan. Swim Swim discusses the reasons why she is always sitting in seiza when next to Ruler, her so-called leader. Fun fact: it’s not good for you.

Comments

We are almost at that point where all the killing is about to start, and I have to say, Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku is not that bad. Uninteresting as the plot may be, it is not a pain to watch, and after a few glasses of wine you can almost enjoy it. There are obviously loads of things to be improved, such as quality of dialogue and cinematography, and I don’t think it could ever turn into something amazing, but at least it’s not horrible, and it qualifies as a decent way to waste some time looking at animated boobage.

I believe the easiest way to make the show more interesting would be a higher budget spent on animation and special effects. The plot is not that deep, and it can only go so far, but some fancy transformation sequences, some playful light here and there and a bit more intriguing body movements would give it a bit of a wow factor. The fact that the whole story always takes place during the night does not help either, as the colours are constantly dim and unattractive.

Any ideas on how this show could be better? Leave a comment below, hoping that someone in Lerche  is gonna listen. Or read – that’s more likely.

NEXT TIME: Add More Friends! (フレンドを増やそう!)

Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku (Magical Girl Raising Project)

Started broadcast in October 2016 !

Official Website: http://mahoiku.jp
Official Twitter: ＠mahoiku_anime

(C)2016遠藤浅蜊・宝島社／まほいく