Season 2 is already halfway over so this episode serves to set up its final stretch. Touka (Rie Kugimiya) reveals her big plan for the Magius: to draw in every Witch within a 200km radius towards Hotel Faint Hope to awaken their own artificial witch called Embryo Eye. With Embryo Eye, the Magius can then give every magical girl in the world the ability to use Doppels. How you might ask? I have no freaking clue. I was already lost when Touka said her cult has an artificial Witch. Magia Record has taken some liberties with Madoka‘s mythos but an artificial Witch is still a big stretch to me.
While running an errand together, Sana and Felicia bump into Kyoko, who snuck into Hotel Faint Hope to steal some Soul Gems. In other words, she’s just there for the food and that’s hilariously in-character of her to do. I don’t know how Kyoko managed to get to Hotel Faint Hope considering how hard it was for Yachiyo but it doesn’t really matter.
I don’t recall liking Felicia all that much. Her short temper can be pretty entertaining and she had a couple of good scenes with Iroha but I didn’t care for her backstory or her bloodlust against witches. I have a much softer spot for Sana. Sana’s two featured episodes are one of the better ones in Season 1 and she’s one of more unique members of Magia Record‘s cast.
With that in mind, I went back and forth whenever this episode cuts to these two. Sana still worries about everyone else at the villa. She also sees firsthand what the Magius are doing such as raising captive Witches to farm Soul Gems and kidnapping civilians to their emotional energy to the Witches, causing her to feel more disillusioned with the organization. Meanwhile, Felicia decides to be the stupid one by brushing off Sana’s concerns and focus more on helping the cult she’s already left once. I’m rooting for Sana here but at the same time, I’m annoyed with Felicia. I sort of get where Felicia is coming from. In the long run, finding out how one can avoid becoming is Witch is most important. But is that more important than finding out if your friends are okay? Also, we now know that the Doppel system is full of crap so Felicia looks like an idiot for sticking with the Magius. At least Felicia comes around by the end of the episode, especially when her group stumbles upon Embryo Eye and they learn that the Magius is feeding real Witches to power it. It’s still dumb that Felicia ignores the egregious stuff Sana mentions to her earlier but at least something as horrifying as that opens her eyes.
At Embryo Eye’s chamber, Sana and Futaba run into Mifuyu, who is there for whatever reason to drink some booze. That alone is a funny image but I can see a magical girl drinking if they’re old enough. Given what we know about magical girls and witches, coping with alcohol ought to sound mighty appealing. At the beginning of the episode, Mifuyu sees Tsuruno (Shiina Natsukawa), who is still in a bit of a daze, exhibit some strange magical effects and change her appearance to a blue and green color scheme. I don’t know what Tsuruno’s exact deal is but it’s enough to make Mifuyu break out the booze. It’s kind of dumb that Yachiyo denouncing her and almost killing her didn’t do the trick but whatever. Through Mifuyu, Sana and Felicia learn about what happened to Iroha. Frankly, the latter two’s reaction at the news feels way too downplayed. I expected Sana to sound a lot more shocked and Felicia to angrily bust out of her hammer on Mifuyu.
Parallel to Sana’s group, Iroha ventures further into Hotel Faint Hope by herself, while everyone else in her group sleeps at the ward. Why any of them are sleeping is beyond me. I get that Iroha doesn’t want to involve anyone else, having already done that enough, but there’s no denying that she’s making things harder for herself. Kuroe does accompany Iroha for a bit though she does part ways with her at the end of the episode to fend off some jobbers and buy the latter some time. For the ensuing fight, Kuroe summons her Doppel, which should sate anyone who was curious about it but it is surprising to see considering that Iroha purified Kuroe’s Soul Gem last episode. Given the recent revelation surrounding Doppels and the show making a big deal for Kuroe to not use her Doppel last episode, I worry that Kuroe will suffer the same fate as Kaede after this fight.
Among the Witches that get drawn into Kamihama is good old Walpurgisnacht, the final “boss” of the original Madoka. Since Magia Record takes place in a version of the same universe, I figured Walpurgisnacht would still be around. I’m not sure how I feel about its inclusion however. On one hand, the Magius is too stinking weird for me to take seriously so I wouldn’t mind seeing a more familiar threat. On the other, it’d be boring to have Walpurgisnacht as the final boss again. I have a hard time believing it’ll be intimidating again. In the original show, barely anyone could fight it alone and they needed another magical girl to fight alongside them. Magia Record has a bunch of magical girls at its disposal. Even if most of them suck, I’d be shocked if Walpurgisnacht is still difficult to beat this time around.
Watch Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story Season 2 -The Eve of Awakening- on Crunchyroll and Funimation
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