Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku Episode 4 Review: Add More Friends!

Schemes and horrible plots are taking place in Nabuka City. What started off as a promising career opportunity for a group of ambitious Magical Girls has now turned into a rat race for survival. Some girls are gradually letting out their inner bad bitch, others get a personality crisis, and Snow White is depressed because the Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku admins are throwing off her groove. Can’t they all just get along?

Japanese Original Episode Title: フレンドを増やそう!

Plot

Where were we? Oh yeah: Snow White is swimming in Magical Candy along with her bff La Pucelle and they are chilling waiting for the ranks to come out, when ‘suddenly’ Ruler orders her annoying minions to have a go at her and steal all her candy. La Pucelle starts hunting them down and all hell breaks loose. A conspiracy unfolds and we learn a bit more about Swim Swim’s and Ruler’s personal lives. Last but not least, as if it wasn’t crowded enough already, a sixteenth Magical Girl is recruited and joins the massacre. Dance puppets, dance!

Episode Highlights

Ruler who in case you haven’t already noticed is the type of person that has never been loved enough by their parents and ends up feeling like the world owes her a whole lot since she works harder than everyone else and everyone else is an idiot. Fitting that description so elegantly, she is naturally an office worker who due to sexism is not recognized for her efforts at work whatsoever. She takes it out by being a bitch to everyone around her and bossing her AUCG around. And this episode is all about her. She would have been so happy to know that.

When they attack Snow White, the Peaky Idiots (who but the way have just two wings, total, how could I have missed this before?) lure La Pucelle away on a not-so-epic-penis-joke-filled battle, while Swim Swim and Ruler capture Snow White and transfer all her Magical Candy to Swim Swim’s phone. The plan works and La Pucelle gets so pissed off they (because unfortunately I don’t know what Shou-chan prefers to be called) knock off the tower where everyone else is with his massive di- eh, sword. Yeah. As they fall to their doom, Swim Swim saves Ruler’s life and she is spared thank to her mysterious magic we do not yet know about.

And then… COUP D’ ETAT SUPER FUN TIME! You didn’t expect that, did you? While Ruler is being a complete bitch on how they should share the Candy they just stole from Snow White, this week’s ranks are being announced and the loser is… her! She obviously dies. We get a sentimental flashback on how she met Calamity Mary, which would have been a complete flop, but thankfully she decided to down a bottle of Umai Osake’s Whiskey that ran all the way down her cleavage, which made me laugh for a good seven seconds.

So basically what happened is that Swim Swim betrayed Ruler. She stole only half the Magical Candies Snow White had and distributed them evenly amongst all the Magical Girls, excluding Ruler, leaving her on the very bottom of the list. Apparently everyone hated her, except for Swim Swim, who idolized her but got brainwashed by Nemurin into overthrowing her and taking her place. Poor Tama is crying alone in the corner, deeply traumatized, but nobody seems to give a crap.

I also noticed that several Magical Girls all have manicures.

Themes & Trivia

Sexism, again: Ruler’s alter ego, Sanae Mokuou, is a very common case of female employee in corporate Japan. Sexism in the workplace is an internationally known Japanese society issue, one that has recently being tackled by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, by introducing his ‘womenomics’ scheme.

Sanae (木王): Since this episode was all about her (and really poor in any sort of references), let’s have a look at Ruler’s actual name: by individually reading the two kanji, one symbolizes the word ‘wood’ and the other the word ‘king’. If you throw a couple of things in there (木の女王) you can read it as ‘wooden queen’. Is your mind blown or what?

Comments

I guess that this has been the most substantial episode so far. It included a sentimental flashback into someone’s life, betrayal, suspense, and a plot twist. It was also quite refreshing to find out that it’s not the secondary characters that will be dying to begin with, and that everyone’s life is on the line.

I am actually looking forward to the next episode. As I have said numerous times in the past, even though I have no high expectations, I am enjoying it at this point. There’s something to watching a group of watching a group of teenagers trying to kill each other, just like trying to catch all the Pokémon. Probably less rewarding. Or maybe equally. What do you think? Let us know in the comment section.

NEXT TIME: A new character has been added! (新キャラを追加しました!)