Puella Magi Madoka Magica

It's a joke, kid. He's quoting Two Best Friends Play.

Totally unrelated to the current conversation but the 2019 Christmas unit in Magia Record is a RikaRen duo unit, and since they're my second favorite Madoka ship (only behind MadoHomu of course) I'm practically shaking with yuri joy.

@The Oriko art, I kind of like it. I think it wasn't great in the initial manga and there's still some wtf panels but I don't mind the contrast between the cartooniness and the gore and there were definite improvements in the sequels. It reminds me of 2000 era video game manga, actually.

I also think the new characters (Oriko, Kirika, Yuma) are designed way less grossly than like 50% of the Magia Record characters. Way too many of those 13-16 year olds are in thongs. Way too many.

Edited by PhiSat on Dec 13th 2019 at 2:47:44 AM

What would be the acceptable number of teenagers in thongs to you?

Oriko's design would be marvellous were it not for the stupid bucket hat. I love the fancy ballgown aesthetic.

Alina is coming to Town thoughts:

• Somehow, I summoned her on my first (and only, I'm saving them for different banners) ticket.
• The premise is rather amusing. Alina, in a bid for more power, fuses with an Uwasa and is forced to moonlight as a superheroine chuuni against her will. The whole Death Santa thing is gonna be weird taken out of context though.

@Uninstall Any specifics for Holy Rika/Ren?

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Dec 13th 2019 at 5:13:16 AM

Looking at that trailer for the Magia Record anime without playing the game, I find it very interesting how knowledge of the magical girls and Kyubey seems to be spreading as an urban legend of sorts. It sort of reminds me of that Charlie Charlie challenge that became popular in the English speaking world a few years ago, and it also makes me wonder what the Madoka world would look like after a Broken Masquerade.

Edited by SantosLHalper on Dec 13th 2019 at 10:23:09 AM

A Broken Masquerade world would likely be a mixed bag for the puella magi.

Best case scenario: No more Magical Girls (as the Incubators would likely be yeeted off the planet) and the the existing ones would be free to live their life for what little time they have. Bonus points if the Doppel system is still in place ensuring they have a life expectancy equal to the muggles.

Worse case scenario, The Magical Girls being targets for crazy incels or "suffer not the witch to live"-type fundies (which would likely becomes factors to their soul gem corruption), turned into pariahs or militarized for their powers (including the "become an Eldritch Abomination" one) a la Mai-Otome.

Middle of the road would be that there are some assholes wanting to kill them, but also some allies that are either Magical girls or otherwise thata re able and willing to protect them from those assholes, plus it might make networking beyond Kamihara/Japan easier ensuring a broader Magical Girls community and constant reminders that they are not alone. Also would expect them to be the subject of human rights related bills as a result (to prevent their powers being abused or those powers being sued as an excuse to deny them their rights). Basically think Always Female mutants. Also likely would be that the Incubators are still running amok creating new puella magi and by extension, witches, but the populace being more aware of them and what being one entails gives them more negotiation power over them and likely slowing the rate of new magical girls.

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Dec 13th 2019 at 7:59:47 AM

A world where the Magical Girls are public fact?

Ooooh.

@MorningStar1338 we don't know much about Christmas RikaRen yet, other than the unit being a dark type with an AAABC deck (the same as Rika's). And also their 4* art at least is adorable.

The event is titled "The Page I Write on the Holy Night- From Here, With You"; the last part of which is a play on the memoria Here With You. Also there's some sort of cake-building thing on the game's twitter.

One of the biggest problems magical girls face is that they have no society or culture. They can't grow as their own sect of people even though they need to due to their jobs and bodies. Whatever the human reaction is, having a large pool of sympathetic people to talk to would make all sections of their lives much smoother. To say nothing of the information exchange that would change everything in regards to how they act.

They have a culture; every 30 April, they wait with bated breath whether their city is going to be the one destroyed or not. If it is, they're going to fight to the death.

Not to mention their gig rendering them territorial, which with a small population size would hinder cultural development a little.

Of course, Kamihara might seethe beginning of such a culture forming since it has the population density for it there are several networks available.

Honestly, I can't really see any good reason why the Madoka setting still has a masquerade. I mean, okay, the most spectacular stuff is presumably happening inside labyrinths away from prying eyes, but with that many girls across that much time getting wishes granted and gaining magical powers as a result, how the hell is it still secret?

It facilitates the lack of communication between magical girls, because otherwise it would be impossible for the witch twist to be a secret. But yes, logically speaking they should've been public long ago. There's no governing body helping/forcing the magical girls to lay low, and the Incubators don't have the capacity to enforce a masquerade.

Green Jesper event reveals that yes, government knows about their existence but the politicians and police bigwigs are just using them to buy wishes.

Yeah, I get the Doylist reason, I meant there's no real Watsonian one.

The Masquerade was broken hundreds, if not thousands of times throughout history. However, every time it happened, things got screwed up so bad another girl wished to Kyubey that it never happened.

Edited by SantosLHalper on Dec 14th 2019 at 12:03:39 PM

I mean, you had Joan of Arc and the fuckin Queen of France running around doing magic stuff in the 100 Year War.

Okay the new batchs of story maps for the Death Santa event are out and they have me wondering about whether or not the Amane sisters' parents are Amicable Exes.

Nope, their sidestories shows that they're not amicable is precisely why they're separated in the first place; their father is sexist, their mother is a sheltered doormat, and their maternal grandmother is a snobbish in-law. If they didn't make their wish, Tsukuyo and Tsukasa would end up fighting over inane things everytime they go out.

And so my watch-through with my mother ends. She really liked the ending, though she found it to be very Doctor Who, Time Paradox-y. She's actually come to enjoy the show, so much that the theme song just plays in her head randomly.

Both of us are now in a state of scratching for more. I think we'll watch the movie next; I've heard some things about it, and up to now I've been happy thinking the manga ending is canon, but I'm willing to give it a shot and my mother is on board with watching it too.

Tsukuyo's mom and Tsukasa's dad also illustrate the class divide in Kamihama; Tsukuyo's mom and grandma come from the rich and snobby Mizuna ward while Tsukasa's dad comes from the poorer craftsman quarter of Kosho ward. The class divide and the general enmity between West and East Kamihama was too much for the parents to overcome.

We interrupt this airing of Dio-chan's Bizarre Adventure: Christmas Tendency to bring you A Hallmark Presentation about a pair of twins who were separated at birth and went to great pains to spend one Christmas together.

Honestly With that the answers to my last question yielded, I'm kinda unsurprised that Tsukasa kept that the "friend" she was meeting is Tuskuyo a secret. What's more interesting is that the ending of the current batch of quests seems to imply that the Fur God wanted to warm Alina's soul.

Meanwhile in JP we have "Rika & Ren Save Christmas" when they're not too busy flirting in Ren's magic sleigh