Magical Destroyers (in Japanese: 魔法少女マジカルデストロイヤーズ, literally "Magical Girl: Magical Destroyers") is an original anime by Bibury Animation Studios, which aired as part of the Spring 2023 season. The series is based off of various long-term concepts and illustrations by the illustrator Jun Inagawa. A mobile phone game was released the same year, but shut down after only three months.
In the year 2008, Japan made a ban on all things related to Otaku. In 2011, led by Otaku Hero, a revolutionary group tries to overtake the ruins of Akihabara to live with the things they love. Their secret weapon is a trio of Magical Girls: Anarchy, Blue, and Pink, who follow Otaku Hero's lead into the war against the SCC.
Tropes
- Alien Blood: Slayer as well as the copies of Blue and Pink bleed their respective colors, being a creation of Shobon through ambiguous means.
- All Your Powers Combined: Played With in Episode 3. To deal with Unit-@, Otaku Hero suggested the Magical Girls to combine together, but they get distracted as Blue thought of combining as an orgy. In the end, they have a combined finishing move, Triple Destroyer, where Pink prepares a cannon and Anarchy and Blue launches it at full power.
- Amnesiac Hero: The magical girls have no memory prior to their first meeting with Otaku Hero. Anarchy describes it a as though they have just been born.
- Antagonist Title: Turns out the name of this anime aren't referring to its heroes, but its villains.
- The Bad Guy Wins: In the finale, SHOBON have succeeded in killing the Otaku Hero with the Magical Destroyers now on his side, defeating the otaku rebellion and continuing his anti-otaku movement. Fortunately, however, SHOBON’s victory is short-lived when he finds out his world had went off-script as a new Otaku Hero and his fellow otaku rebels show up to challenge the Magical Destroyers.
- Beach Episode: Episode 4 R U Ready? has a variant where the heroes compete with a rival faction in a swimsuit contest at a river. When the SSC attacks halfway, even the magical girls' outfits changed to swimsuit variants to match the venue.
- Decoy Protagonist: The magical girls initially appeared to be the female protagonists, but are actually The Heavy of the anime, serving the Big Bad and becoming the Hero Killer group of the Otaku Hero.
- Dies Wide Open: The first day of scaling the Nakano building includes a harsh blizzard, to the point that Kyōtarō unexpectedly freezes to death with his eyes open.
- The Dog Was the Mastermind: Origin, the mysterious supernatural being that gave SHOBON his powers is in that world is present as Kyōtarō.
- Emoticon: The SCC's Mecha-Mook army has perpetual OwO expressions on their domes. This is also the default expression of the Big Bad, SHOBON.
- Elite Four: The SSC has the Four Heavenly Kings below Shobon, consisting of:
- Unit-@, who pilots the giant, speedy, car-based mecha.
- Slayer, who is a magical girl just like the heroines. In fact, she is Anarchy's dark counterpart.
- Adam, a cheat user who can bring his targets into his cyberspace with his partner Eve.
- Hiwamari, a quiet little sister who hold the swiss-army head of her beloved older brother.
- Fairy Companion: Accompanying Otaku Hero and the Magical Girls is Kyōtarō, a small red Cartoon Creature.
- Fling a Light into the Future: Otaku Hero does it by flinging away his helmet right before dying, knowing that SHOBON's script expected him to die wearing it. With this act the script has gone off the rails, and the otaku have now a fighting chance.
- Funny Foreigner: In their quest to get a power-up for the magical girls, the heroes encountered Marcus, an eccentric blonde white man who is a fellow closeted otaku. Subverted that it's all an act; the SSC set him up to "help" the heroes, in exchange for his family's freedom.
- Goblin Face: The Magical Girls frequently break face when something goes wrong for them.
- The Hero Dies: In the finale, Otaku Hero dies, but someone else takes up his mantle.
- Heroic Sacrifice: After witnessing his former friend getting killed by Slayer, the Itasha Driver rams his car into the deadly foe before she could defeat the main heroines.
- Hot-Blooded: Anarchy is a bundle of controlled rage.
- Hypocrite:
- The SCC fights against Otaku culture, but aside for SHOBON every named member seen so far is clearly deep into it. Justified for Unit-@ and Slayer in that they've been brainwashed.
- When fighting Otaku Hero in his virtual world, Adam mocks him for being unable to do anything without the Magical Girls, when he himself is unable to do anything without Eve and was a very poor gamer without his cheats.
- And ultimately SHOBON himself as his vengeance against Otaku led him to basically create a gamified world filled with tropes and cliches stemming from that culture.
- Insecure Protagonist, Arrogant Antagonist: While Otaku Hero struggles with believing there is for the resistance several times throughout the series, SHOBON seems more than confident in his ability to defeat them.
- "Last Supper" Steal: The final shot of the OP shows Otaku Hero and the magical girls in one of these, him with his arms raised and flowers coming out of his mouth while the magical girls look crestfallen.
- Legacy Character: Following Otaku Hero's death, a new guy takes up the mantle to continue the revolution.
- Lovable Sex Maniac: Blue is a kinky fucker who is introduced having been kidnapped on her way to a hookup, but is otherwise a good friend to the main cast, weirding them out aside.
- Magical Girl Genre Deconstruction: All three magical girls hate being magical girls, even as they enjoy the power it gives them. They are deeply cynical and nihilistic, the opposite of the usual Magical Girl attitude. See also Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll below.
- Magical Girl Warrior: Anarchy, Pink and Blue are magically-enhanced girls who actively fight the SSC, as Otaku Hero has zero combat skills himself. Slayer is the evil counterpart working for the SSC's side.
- Mental World: Episode 7 Ultimate Game has the heroes abducted into Adam's mind, where it manifests as a game world with Adam having access to unlimited cheats.
- Messianic Archetype: Otaku Hero, as the selfless leader of the revolution, who is an inspiration to his loyal followers, especially the magical girls. The ED and OP also play into this by showing religious imagery of him (for example, him as Jesus in a "Last Supper" Steal). In the end, he fulfills this role by sacrificing himself to his now heel-turned magical girls and makes himself an example for the resistance.
- Mushroom Samba: Episode 2 Gobo Gobo! features a battle between Blue and Anarchy against Pink. Pink makes them all take a drug that makes them share mind-space with her, forcing them to fight her in the weird, surreal world she creates inside her mind.
- No Party Like a Donner Party: When the heroes run out of food while scaling the Nakano building, they resort to eating Kyōtarō.
- Not Distracted by the Sexy: Despite Blue being quite the looker, especially in her swimsuit, both the old and new otakus were far more taken by the old otaku leader's son.
- Odd Name Out: Breaking from the naming conventions of her partners, Anarchy is not named after her theme color.
- The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Slayer kills Hiwamari for attempting to kill the Magical Girls, wanting to be the one finishing the job instead.
- Oracular Head: The reanimated head of Himiwari's brother is a part of the 4 Heavenly Kings .
- Otaku: The SSC brainwash the general public and the Japanese government into thinking such people are freaks, prompting bans on everything that can be considered Otaku culture. A point is made to show that the SSC is not that different from the people they're fighting beneath the surface.
- Overly Long Gag: There's a bit of tongue-in-cheek fun used when SHOBON is first given his reality wraping powers. He is told to put a USB cable that came from his mouth in a PC, so part of the sequence involves him trying and failing to make the connection.
- The Psycho Rangers: Episode 10 introduces Slayer's Magical Girl team, complete with counterparts of Blue and Pink.
- "Ray of Hope" Ending: Otaku Hero dies and the magical girls are under the control of SHOBON; however, SHOBON no longer has control over the world that is going increasingly off-script, and a new Otaku Hero has risen to fight the Magical Destroyers.
- Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll: The three Magical Girls on the Otaku side represent aspects of Rock and Roll culture, with Blue being the Sex, Pink being the Drugs and Anarchy being the Rock and Roll. In contrast, Dark Magical Girl Slayer is named after a Thrash Metal band.
- Shared Dream: Pink has a drowsing drug that gives the consumers a collective dream.
- Super Serum:
- When the team needs muscles, Pink can inject herself with steroid to instantly buff up.
- The Otaku Hero got word from Nick that CHOGO Master can produce a power-up for the magical girls, each in a form of a serum.
- Surrealism: Quite a lot of surreal imagery is used in the OP and ED. The OP includes things like Otaku Hero running around with a fish inside his mouth, the girls diving into water and transforming, which Otaku Hero enters horizontally, before diverging into a deep-fried, heavily edited mess, ending on a "Last Supper" Steal. The ED portrays a decrepit beach where multiple versions of the magical girls' bodies and possessions have washed ashore; there, nurse outfit-clad magical girls nurse Otaku Hero before he dies.
- Stealth Prequel: The Otaku Hero that takes up our OH's mantle at the end of the series, along with his team, are the Otaku Hero squad that appeared in Jun Inagawa's earlier manga concepts for the setting. It appears that manga now takes place after the events of the anime.
- They Killed Kenny Again: Kyōtarō gets killed more times than the episode count.
- This Cannot Be!: In the final episode, when Shobon discovers that everything went off-script when the next Otaku Hero shows up, escalating to a massive Freak Out and/or a culminating Villainous Breakdown from Shobon.
- Title Drop: At the end of Episode 11, and given the context, it also doubles as a Wham Line:Shobon: Congratulations. You have now been born as magical girls... Magical Destroyers. (cue Title Card)
- Too Kinky to Torture: Blue will often enjoy being grabbed and trashed around by the enemies she is fighting.
- Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: Eve tries to brainwash Anarchy, but when she sees into her mind, she gets mind broken instead.
- Translator Buddy: Blue often speaks over Pink's "Gobos" to translate what she's saying.
- Trapped in TV Land: Episode 7 has Otaku Hero and the Magical Girls trapped in Cyberspace.
- The Unintelligible: Pink can only say "Gobo", and variations thereof unlike her partners.
- Trickster God: Origin has shades of this and may even have caused SHOBON's script to fail as she is seen laughing her ass off when it does and causes SHOBON to panic in horror.
- Villainous Breakdown: Shobon suffers through this after everything goes off-script.
- Wham Shot:
- At the end of Episode 10, Otaku Hero opens up the book left behind by Shobon. It contains a script playing the events he and his team have gone though.
- In episode 11, Kyōtarō appearing behind SHOBON as he asks it whether Origin is enjoying the game.
- In episode 12, SHOBON's script showing Otaku Hero's helmet on top of the trash heap... And then it's seen that the helmet is not there, having been previously secured by another otaku.
- Wholesome Crossdresser: One of the rivals has his son dress in a swimsuit for a contest. He effortlessly swoon the competitors to the point that his opponent, Blue, concedes defeat.
