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  • Complete Monster: In this dark Magical Girl Genre Deconstruction, Shoutan Himei, Komachi Aki, Kongou Shin, and their allies face multiple threats amongst the Yamiko, but it's the human or human-like nature of the following that makes them even more monstrous:
    • Dark General Radon, the very first Dark General, was freed from his Yamiko impulses by the priestess and tasked with training the Sailors to fight against the Yamiko and their Queen. Deciding to instead take the Yamikos for himself, Radon, as "Magnificent Kamen", recruits several girls as Sailors and Child Soldiers instead—such as the 11-year old Himei—and sends them against the Yamiko, only annoyed because they die before he could launch a final offensive. Kamen shows little hesitation in killing any eyewitnesses of the fight against the Yamiko. When Himei becomes too temperamental and traumatized, Kamen fires her in order to manipulate her into committing suicide. Defeated once more after this gambit's failure, Radon returns to the Queen's side, plotting to overthrow her, torture Himei for all eternity out of spite, kill her friends, and become the Yamiko leader. Upon fighting Himei's boyfriend Seiki, Radon taunts him about his insufficient skills and brags about how he'll make Himei his lover upon getting her back.
    • Kongou Akira is Shin's uncle and the CEO of Syber Investment Concern. Raping his niece when she was a child for the crime of annoying him, Akira used his connections to keep any evidence of his crime from reaching court, ensuring he'd walk away a free man. When Shin is shunned from hers and Akira's family after the event, she learns that Akira raped several other members of their family, and pressured them into staying quiet. With a hatred for children combined with pedophilic tendencies—as he got off on child pornography—and a shockingly personal depravity despite a near-nonexistent amount of screentime, Akira utterly outclassed most Yamiko in sheer wickedness.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: A grimdark magical girl story with a manipulative recruiter disguised as a benevolent being tricking girls into becoming magical girls, who are then forced to fight for their lives? Seems familiar.
  • Hype Backlash: Some don't think it lives up to its infamous reputation, especially those more familiar with modern fanfic conventions (e.g. exhaustively researching Japanese culture) or deconstructions of the genre that came later.
  • Magnificent Bastard: In their fight against the Yamiko, Himei Shoutan, Aki Komachi, Shin Kongou and their allies dealt with these ruthlessly brilliant schemers:
    • Dark General Cobalt, originally a suicidal architect's weak Yamiko, was tasked by the priestess to repair the Yami-gaia's city. Creating Yamikos out of skilled humans for that purpose, Cobalt stands out for his pragmatism, refusing to engage in his fellow Yamikos' depravity and peacefully sending a human prisoner he experimented on back home after the latter is no longer useful. Creating the Super Yamikos to target Himei and her allies, Cobalt consistently adapts to the formers' situations as needed, having enough information to kill Himei by the time a rampaging Yamiko destroys the Yami-gaia. When the priestess confronts him over this incident and reveals why she gave him that task, Cobalt and his trusted underling Ohta turn against the Yamiko, helping Himei and her allies from within by tricking two of his fellow Dark Generals into going after them and dying as a result. Working with the heroes, the priestess and Dark General Argon against the Yamikos in the final battle, Cobalt lives past the battle, becoming the sole surviving Yamiko at the end of the story.
    • A Shinto priestess, inadvertently creating the Yamikos in an attempt to purify herself and causing her boyfriend Aoshi's death, decides to make up for her mistake. Cursed with immortality by her Yamiko the Dark Queen and locked in the Yami-gaia, the priestess decides to free Dark General Radon from his Yamiko impulses and have him create the Sailors on Earth as a fighting force against the Yamiko. Noticing Radon's treachery, the priestess saves Cobalt, a young Yamiko and frees him from his impulses, disguised as the Queen to gain his trust. Promoting him to Dark General status, the priestess tasks him with rebuilding the Yami-gaia city, fully aware that the Yamiko would inevitably screw over Cobalt's task, driving his hatred for them to breaking points and leading him to team up with the Sailors. Working with him and Aoshi's Yamiko Dark General Argon in the final battle to help Himei and her allies, the priestess regains her mortality and is last seen at peace now that she knows Aoshi forgave her.
  • Nightmare Fuel — The six-year-old girl's Yamiko. The Super Yamiko. The fate of Ami.
    • That six-year-old with a pencil.
      "All I ever wanted was someone to play with, and they never would. Now you're trying to hurt me, too, and I have to hurt you back..."
  • Once Original, Now Common: At the time, this story was groundbreaking in its examination of magical girl stories. These days, it would be more original to play magical girls straight. With so many deconstructions of the genre available, this story looks increasingly heavy-handed and amateurish in its handling of the material.
  • Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: The story's obsession with making things as dark and depressing as possible (and its seeming belief that rape is the only bad thing that can happen to a woman) makes it a chore to struggle through and its happy ending feel unearned.
  • Spiritual Predecessor: Though it probably didn't inspire Puella Magi Madoka Magica, the feel's the same. More straightforwardly, it's one of the main inspirations for Princess: The Hopeful. Exhaustion is its stated 'mood'.
  • The Woobie — Poor Himei. Poor, poor Himei. Himei's pitiable, but also a bit mean.

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