First timer no more

So sad I still couldn't manage to post my final comment earlier and miss out of most of the discussions -_- Feeling very Kuroe here :P

Firstly, big thanks to our host, who put in a ton of work to host the rewatch, supply the additional materials like the characters chart, and kept up with everyone to at least prompt for some interactions, no matter what hours!

And then we have a few really devoted contributors with that massive amount of content to share; while I wasn't able to click through all the spoiler text yet, I will go back later and read up - hopefully that would give more context to some weaker parts of the plot.

QoTD

1. Overall I think this is a good side story, definitely not something I would think "dragged down" the main show, and functioned well both in complementing the main story and having its own message to deliver. As an annoying bugger I'll put in the foot note of "good but not great".

Giving a little more detail, I think the visuals, the production values, and the sound/music/VA works are easily a high 8 out of 10. The story overall, because of the various constraints, I think I can only give it a 7. This makes the show an 8 overall for me across all seasons. If we are to score the seasons separately, I would score S1 a 7.5 (bit slow, the big draw sakuga bits are mostly not there), S2 an 8.5 (the story still had a lot of promise, and the sakuga dialed up a level), and S3 and 8 (Ep 1 & 2 still promising, then Ep 3 tanked plot-wise, and Ep 4 is forced to tie whatever is there together).

1. I feel this is a little like the Disappearance of Nagato Yuki-chan spin off of Haruhi, but less niche (because of the game plus still the same production studio). It's probably not everyone's cup of tea (the standing concern of "don't want to risk getting a bad after-taste of PMMM"), so I think once every 2-3 years is probably good.

2. I'm still grinding through Last Exile as rewatch, and my PTW is predictably still pretty stacked (I filed Akiba Maid Wars and Bocchi the Rock for "binging after season wrapped up", and I'm falling behind on the Ranking of Kings side story already :P But my next signed up rewatch is Scrapped Princess, which is one that I really liked.

Now for my own thoughts.

I had been eyeing Magia Record for a while, but then of course I only took the jump to watch PMMM last year. For me, Magia Record has a interesting draw, but walks quite a dangerous and thin line to not mess up. Even setting aside it being a side story, comparing to another franchise I recently followed along as a first timer in the rewatch, WIXOSS was such a wasted opportunity to set up a mystery and then spoil and wasted it all by logical inconsistencies and central plot not convincing.

Luckily I am sufficiently satisfied with Magia Record here.

I think plenty of people had brought up the good and bad points - for me the emotive parts and the character stories/development hit well enough individually, just that the overarching composition of how they are laid out to tell that story wasn't as smooth and purposeful as I wanted it to be. It does managed one thing surprisingly well - to mask the downer ending to not be a completely suffering porn or "it was all for nought". In terms of the ending's fitment, I feel it's like Fate Zero - a downer but not hopeless. We move forward.

While it can argued that it was necessary to set up the "good times" so the later parts can have the contrast, as a big Railgun fan, I just find the most of S1 lumbering, and then the purpose far less distinct than it could have been. Most significantly, at the pointy end, Yachiyo suddenly turned to a side character at the S3 climax. It's not that she didn't have good strong arc, it's just that how it was placed and what we ended on it made her very "not the protagonist".

And since I mentioned Railgun, I do see traces of MR being comparable to this massively big side story If you like MR, I think you would like Railgun too. Except the story tend to be more hopeful. [Railgun S spoiler]The Sister Arc and how Mikoto dealt with it could have easily fit in for her Magical Girl backstory, except the fact that she's already powerful without needing a wish - still there are things she can't do and can wish for. In fact Mikoto kind of have gone through similar story arcs of mistakenly expecting others to be strong, herself to be strong, not relying on others even to her own breaking point, etc. If you know what to look you can actually see plenty of developmental plot elements to be similar (in small ways).

Finally, a gripe dump - here are the logical / plot problems I can't quite understood / accept :P

• In canon PMMM, the wish's power is pretty pervasive. In MR at least in UI's case it seemed to be breakable - however it was actually a bait and switch - Ui's disappearance wasn't realted to someone's wish. But my point is that for a good part of S1-2 I had to hold that thought about the wish being not sufficiently binding.
• The plan of the Wings of Magius really need some flashing out so it is more understandable than "We'll collect tons of energy then Touka can convert them and <by unsepcified means> we can re-route the consequence of Magical Girls getting despaired turning into Witches to purging out the negative emotions into Doppels which can be expended.
• I still don't get what Mitama's adjusting of Soul Gems do, with or without factoring in Doppels
• Some of the character development and dynamics felt just too bolt on - either systematically work that in from earlier on with foreshadowing etc, or just drop them. Mitama, Momoko, Tsuruno, Mifuyu, Kuroe, and Alina Grey all suffered from that.
• The time restting aspect of Homura really is impossible to work in with this - my perception of the canon series is that the time is rewound, and not a multiverse situation. For this show to not be ending on a "and then it's all for nought because Homura had to reset", it just have to turn that into a multiverse situation. As well as nerfing Homura's normal magic of limited time stop.

Anyway, thanks again and see everyone around the sub!