This is definitely not your stereotypical Magical Girl anime.
And, oh boy, where do I start to talk about this one?
A social game called The Magical Girl Raising Project allows one in tens of thousands of people to be a “magical girl” — possessing extraordinary physical capabilities and looks, as well as special magical powers that set them apart from the rest of the human race. But one day, in a district containing 16 magical girls, the administration announces that it must halve the number of magical girls to solve the problem of magical energy. At first, the 16 magical girls race to collect more “magical candy” than their competitors, but the rules quickly become twisted, and it quickly becomes a murderous battle for survival among them.
Let’s talk about the most important thing, here; the characters. The variety of characters in this anime is unbelievable. You have the cute ones such as Nemurin, Snow White and Tama. You have the ones you’re not so sure about such as Yuna and Mina, Sister Nana and Top Speed. And then, there are the badass ones such as Winterprison, Ripple, Cranberry and Swim Swim. This lot will make you want to cry, they will frustrate you, but you will love them. Just words of warning, though; don’t get too attached to them.
The story, based on a light novel, has been adapted beautifully; even if the series is a little slow to begin with (I found that Episode 4 was the big ‘I want to watch this anime every week’ moment for me, personally). The animation in the fight scenes is spectacular – my personal favourite fight being between Winterprison and Yuna halfway through in the series – each fight and battle getting better and better as the series goes on. The characters, despite there being many, are extremely developed, to the extent that you will be routing for them based on their backstories – a feature which is more prominent that I originally anticipated, but one that I won’t dive into here.
MagiPro itself isn’t just one story. It’s actually a series of light novels. Will I read the rest of the story? Of course I will. Am I willing to wait until Summer 2017 for the official English release? Not really, no. Luckily for me, and any of you who want more Magical Girl goodness – if you can use ‘goodness’ to describe it – there’s one dedicated fan who is translating all of the light novels and making them available to us here. Of course, as soon as they’re out officially, I will be buying copies, but for now, it’s time to appreciate the time, skill and dedication someone is putting into this project. See what I did there? Hm? Okay, let’s move on…
Another thing to quickly mention is that this is not a pink, fluffy bunny type of magical girl. If you’ve watched the show, regardless of how many episodes, I’m sure you know what I mean. However, without giving away any spoilers, I need to say that this show contains an awful lot of blood, gore, murder and death. Some of the topics involved may be triggering to some, so please bear this in mind when considering to watch it.
The way the last episode of the anime ends suggests to me as if there could be a second season on the horizon. However, I could also be wrong. As Crunchyroll point out, the director of the series, Hiroyuki Hashimoto, tweeted that the future of the anime is ‘undecided’. Personally, I can’t blame them. MagiPro wouldn’t have been cheap to make – the amount of detail in the fight scenes, for example, can show this – and with a lack of marketing and, until recently, a lack of merchandise being available, it doesn’t look too promising for a second season, which is a shame, because I believe this could have done really well as an anime that lasted more than one season.
Rating: 7/10
