Two seasons down, one more to go. Fortunately, this season is only four episodes long. I wonder if Seasons 2 and 3 were meant to be one season together. Both seasons have a combined sum of 12 episodes and that’s the more typical number for a season of anime. This first episode of Season 3 even uses the same ED as Season 2 and chances are, it uses the same OP as well. Season 2 had a fair amount of unfinished animation and its finale got delayed by a week. It’s clear that the season ran into production problems so it’s possible the last four episodes were delayed and spun off into its own season. Mind you, this is all speculation on my part.
So thanks to Nemu (Sumire Morohoshi), we finally get a proper account on the past surrounding her, Ui (Manaka Iwami), Touka (Rie Kugimiya), and Iroha (Momo Asakura). We once again see Ui at the hospital with Nemu and Touka. To pass the time, they create the Uwasa and hang out with Iroha. When Ui’s illness becomes terminal, Iroha becomes a magical girl and uses her wish to save her sister. What was not previously confirmed is the fact that Ui, Nemu, and Touka did find out that Iroha is a magical girl by following the latter into a witch’s labyrinth located in a morgue (which is Grade A “foreshadowing”) and seeing her in action. The trio get approached by Kyubey (Emiri Kato) though before they make any kind of contract, they do some research and ask Kyubey some questions. While Kyubey remains as coy as ever, the trio deduces that magical girls are doomed to become witches and Iroha will inevitably suffer that same fate.
I find this plot to be a bit of a stretch. Everyone else in the show would never have suspected the true relation between magical girls and witches and yet, these three little girls managed to figure out with some deductive reasoning. Magia Record did establish Nemu and Touka to be very smart but that by itself is hard for me to take seriously. Also absurd is the trio’s collective wish. To prevent Iroha from becoming a witch, the three wish to take Kyubey’s powers for themselves. Ui can now take impurities out of a Soul Gem, Touka can convert the impurities into magic, and Nemu can physically manifest it as energy. This does explain how the Magius are later able to bend the rules of the magical girl system but it’s a little difficult for me to accept that these three got their wish granted. The original Madoka established that the feasibility of a wish depends on one’s potential and karma. Kyubey isn’t omnipotent but I can’t imagine his ability to manipulate energy is easy pickings. Considering that Ui, Nemu, and Touka are three average girls, I highly doubt they have enough karmic destiny to make their wish a reality. Maybe they have that much potential but that’s awfully convenient for them. That all said, I do get what the show is trying to do here. These are three girls who doesn’t want to see their big sister suffer a horrible fate so they try to take matters into their own hands. And in true Madoka fashion, their wish backfires horribly on them.
On paper, the trio’s combined powers could in fact prevent magical girls from becoming witches. However, Ui takes in too many impurities when she uses her power and she starts to transform into a witch. With assistance from Alina (Ayana Taketatsu), Touka and Nemu isolate Ui’s soul and Nemu transfers it into Kyubey’s body (which is now empty for whatever reason). I have to hand it to Magia Record in that it answers a couple of mysteries in this scene alone. As a result of the transfer, Nemu creates the small Kyubey and that somehow causes everyone except for her forgets about Ui. Embryo Eve is confirmed to be Ui’s witch-like body and now, its status as an artificial witch makes a lot more sense. Touka creates the Magius with Nemu and Alina, having completely forgotten about Ui (and by extension, Iroha) and only remembering her goal to save magical girls.
I am annoyed that it’s taken 22 episodes for Magia Record to finally explain what the deal is with Ui and her best friends, especially when I consider how sidetracked the show gets. With this episode itself, there are a couple things that I have hard time buying into. Conversely, there are a couple things to like about this episode. Ui, Touka, and Nemu’s backstory has an innocent tone that I find compelling and it also gels with franchise’s themes of naivety and deception. This episode does answer a lot of the remaining mysteries in the story and the way in which everything comes together is pretty engaging. So despite my issues with this episode, I still find this episode to be one of the better ones in the show. I can’t wait for Magia Record to take a step backwards from this.
Watch Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story Final Season -Dawn of a Shallow Dream- on Crunchyroll and Funimation
Xenodude Scribbles 
This was my favorite episode of the entire Magia Record anime, but it’s also where the anime’s lack of exposition for anyone other than the Mikazuki Villa residents really bites it hard. Touka and Nemu aren’t just smart, they’re bona fide child prodigies. Touka has mastered college-level physics and Nemu is the author of a commercially-published novel. If not for their illnesses, they would have had amazingly productive lives ahead of them. Ui on the other hand is just an ordinary little girl, which explains why she becomes the weak link in the chain and also why the other two turn to outright supervillainy as soon as she’s gone. She was the conscience of the trio, their link to normal human experience.
That said, I believe the Magius origin story (in particular, how Touka deduces the truth about witches) is considerably simplified in the anime compared to how it was presented in the game. In the game the Magius backstory is doled out in drips and drabs over multiple chapters of the main story and in side events, while in the anime it’s all crammed into an “episode 10”. The anime also doesn’t touch on Alina’s backstory at all.
As poorly as the story is presented in the anime, I thought the fundamental concept of the Magius was an interesting what-if. Touka is basically the anti-Madoka, a girl with a polar opposite personality to Madoka’s trying to do the same thing that Madoka did and save magical girls from their fate. Whereas Madoka was haunted by her lack of any particular talent and her perceived inferiority to her peers, Touka is very aware of her genius and how it sets her apart from the vast majority of human beings and especially other children her age. Whereas Madoka was desperate to find a way to make her “mediocre” self useful, Touka had to deal with being robbed of the chance to bring her talents to full fruition by her illness and impending premature death. And while Madoka both sets the plot of her series in motion and ultimately succeeds in changing the universe by her willingness to sacrifice herself, Touka immediately turns to sacrificing the lives of others once the tether to humanity that was Ui is removed from her.
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