Anime Hajime Review: Magical Girl Site

***Warning, the following may contain spoilers for Magical Girl Site. Reader discretion is advised.***

Series Synopsis

Every single day, Aya Asagiri (voiced by Yuko Ono) wishes for death. For far too long, her life has been nothing except pain, suffering, and torment.  No matter where she goes, and no matter who she turns to, Aya only ever finds misfortune.

And that was exactly what they were looking for.

An eerie webpage appears on Aya’s computer. The mysterious site promises to heal an unfortunate soul by turning a person into a magical girl. Aya quickly disregards the suspicious offer, but sadly, this is an encounter that a person can't simply ignore. For poor Aya, she has just entered into a world of what seems to be assured death.

Fortunately, Aya doesn’t have to face the coming nightmare alone. She meets fellow magical girl Tsuyuno Yatsumura (voiced by Himika Akaneya), and the two form a makeshift alliance. Soon, though, this team-up grows into an unbreakable bond.

At every turn, Aya and Tsuyuno may have to struggle for their survival. Though frightening, they must push on because one thing is certain. If they do nothing, a fight will come for them regardless.

Series Positives

I went into Magical Girl Site (MGS) expecting it to be a knock-off of Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica. Not only that, part of me also thought this series was going to be a poor knock-off of Madoka Magica. Given how much I talk about trying to keep an open mind when starting any series, I am ashamed to admit this. But experience is, nonetheless, a hell of an influencer.

Both MGS and Madoka Magica were dark takes on the magical girl formula. Neither show told the happy, colorful, power-of-love type of story most might associate with this genre. For these two series, becoming a magical girl was the equivalent of a violent death sentence; emphasis on the word “death.”

In addition to this, MGS had many similarities to another shadowy-war-to-determine-the-fate-of-humanity anime: Mirai Nikki. Both MGS and Mirai Nikki showcased a bleak outlook on the world, and they each explored the uglier side of society.

Therefore, MGS didn’t have just one genre-staple series looming over itself, it had two. On paper, there was a lot to contend against. However, this is also where this show shone at its brightest.

Although MGS had elements that were in Madoka Magica and Mirai Nikki, this series was neither Madoka Magica nor Mirai Nikki. This show was its own thing, and it managed to carve out an identity for itself. And that identity was kind of intense.

If you are a fan of either Madoka Magica or Mirai Nikki, then you will feel right at home here. Conversely, this show is not for everyone, and MGS seemed fully aware of that fact. This series ran with what it set out to do. There was no attempt to make this a for-all-audiences anime.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but MGS was a lot more brutal than both Madoka Magica and Mirai Nikki. If you enjoy these types of shows, then that should be music to your ears. However, if you don’t care for these types of gritty stories, then you might as well stop reading this review now. But before you do, please allow me to say one thing.

Ignoring this show’s intensity, MGS thoroughly impressed me. This series was a lot better than I thought it was ever going to be. For those who want to explore outside their comfort zone, this may not be the best show to try that with. But if you do choose to give this one a shot, you’ll be in for a ride.

The setup to MGS’ story was basically the same as Madoka Magica’s. If you simply replace Madoka Magica’s creepy-cute cosmic cat creature that bestowed the powers of a magical girl with a website, you will have MGS. Where these two shows differed, though, was with why their magical girls were fighting.

In the former Madoka Magica, girls had to defeat entities known as Witches. In MGS, before the start of this story anyway, the characters didn’t have to fight anyone. The magical girls of MGS were free to do what they wanted with the powers they had.

If that sounds considerably less exciting, that’s because, on the surface at least, it is. But once you account for how one became a magical girl in MGS, things then take a much more depressing turn.

In Madoka Magica, a person became a magical girl in exchange for one wish. The state of one’s life, in theory, played no real factor in the process. In MGS, that’s not how things went.

The girls of MGS became magical girls because they were unfortunate souls. I’m not sure how you would interpret the word “unfortunate,” but I do know how this show interpreted it. Seeing the backstories of some of these characters, “unfortunate” is undoubtedly a way to describe what happened to them.

In a few cases, I think I would have chosen to go with the word “nightmarish,” but hey, some people say tomato.

Many of the characters in MGS had a vendetta against the world. Thus, when they got their powers, many had no reservations towards “fixing” the wrongs that were done to them. And by fixing, that usually meant eliminating the source of that misfortune.

For example, the lives of Aya Asagiri and Tsuyuno Yatsumura before they became magical girls were bleak. For Aya, I won’t go into any details here. For Tsuyuno, though, once she gained her powers, her one goal was to destroy the thing that destroyed her. Although I will say Tsuyuno’s motivations were understandable, they made her incredibly jaded.

Plus, if Tsuyuno considered you an enemy, she was extremely dangerous.

MGS didn’t pull any punches whenever it said "misfortune".

Unlike Madoka Magica, MGS gave people, with nothing left to lose, the abilities to act on a much more primal emotion: revenge.

This was before the magical girls of MGS started attacking each other. At some level, every character in this series had it in them to cause harm. And most had no qualms about escalating their bloodlust.

One of the more intense moments in this show was when a character named Nijimi Anazawa (voiced by Yu Serizawa) didn’t hesitate to try and kill someone who wronged her. And when I say she didn’t hesitate, she didn’t care that she was about to commit the act in a very public setting where all eyes were on her. The intensity of Nijimi’s murderous intent was a little frightening.

That uncompromising attitude stemmed from one of MGS’ most enduring elements. No one in this show was just talk. Everyone had the means, and more importantly, the drive to carry out any threat they made. There was no peacocking in this series.

Every magical girl in MGS felt essential to what was going on. Or, at the very least, they all contributed something to the broader mission at hand. None of the girls felt useless or came off as dead weight. Nowhere was this truer than with our main protagonist, Aya.

If I showed you a clip of Aya midway through this series, and assuming you knew nothing about her, you would see a quiet, timid, and self-deprecating girl. Due to her lack of self-confidence, Aya believed every terrible thing that happened to her was her fault. I have seen plenty of characters like this, and nine times out of ten, I would say such a person was needlessly wimpy.

Aya was that special one exception where that couldn’t have been any further from the truth.

Although Aya didn’t have faith in herself, that mindset didn’t come from nothing. It made sense why Aya would think she was worthless, despite that not being the case.

I’m not going to quantify a person’s misfortune. It’s not right to discredit what someone has gone through by comparing their experiences with someone else’s. This is especially true between the girls of MGS. With that in mind, seeing what Aya had to endure every single day of her life made me sick to my stomach.

When we met Aya, she was on the verge of broken. It was no mystery as to why her confidence wasn't high. This was what I liked most about MGS. This was a story about someone coming back from the absolute edge.

Aya’s journey through this show wasn’t always easy to watch. However, where she ended up was incredibly satisfying. More so than usual, I’m happy to say Aya was my favorite aspect of this series.

That notwithstanding, Aya’s story resonated as much as it did because it was so painful. The endpoint that MGS reached was an endpoint I imagine most people can appreciate. That said, how this show got to its endpoint might be a bit too much for some.

Series Negatives

I want to start this section off with a warning to the people who kept reading this review despite not being fans of the aforementioned Madoka Magica and Mirai Nikki.

I don’t know if I can adequately explain how rough the first episode of MGS was. This opening episode wasn’t rough in a this-is-boring sense. No, the first episode of this series was just hard to watch. Even with everything I’ve seen, the this show legitimately upset me.

I have come across the depiction of bullying in anime before, but I’m having trouble recalling anything that was this awful. Poor Aya had no place that was safe.

While at school, Aya was the victim of absolute sadists. Even if I wanted to ruin someone’s life, I would never dream of going as far as these sickos went. And to make things even worse, Aya’s real nightmare commenced when she got back home.

Aya’s older brother, Kaname Asagiri (voiced by Nobuhiko Okamoto) was scum, and I still think that’s too nice of a way to describe him. He made for a horrifying antagonist, but god damn, he was demented.

I’m leaving a lot out about what happened to Aya, but trust me, it was bad.

And although I said this was a warning, there is a reason why I brought this up in the Series Negatives section of this review.

MGS was heavy-handed in how it showed the abuse Aya was going through. That in itself wasn’t the issue. However, it was excessive. One because becoming a magical girl seemed to be an improvement on Aya's life, and two, this series had an atonement problem.

There were tons of nasty, mean-spirited characters in MGS. There was no shortage of people in this show who committed horrible acts. Given enough time, any character, no matter what they might have done, can find redemption. For some, this is not an easy thing to do, and sometimes it's not the best way for a story to go. Nevertheless, this is still not an impossible thing to do.

All of the characters of MGS could have had redemption; even the worst of the worst. And although this series did try to play it off as if some of its worst had turned over a new leaf, saying someone reformed is not the same as having someone actually reform.

There were a few times in this show where it ignored past atrocities and sort of forgave people's actions without any consequences.

There was an episode where the main group of magical girls decided to spend the day together to enjoy themselves. This may have been a nice idea, but it should be known, some of these characters were not friends. A few of these girls only an episode prior would have killed each other if they had the chance, and they never came close to burying the hatchet. Despite that, here they were having silly-goofy fun times together. The atmosphere should have been a lot more volatile than it was.

Speaking of characters, this was another area where MGS shot itself in the foot. Like I said before, every magical girl in this show felt necessary.

Regardless, only a select few of these characters had any semblance of a backstory.

There was not enough time in this series to give everyone enough screen presence. In addition to that, if we consider the misfortune of some of the other girls, that begs the question, “What did everyone have to go through to become an MGS magical girl?” This series wasn’t long enough to answer that question.

Finally, MGS did a little bit of sequel baiting.

I don’t feel like there is a need to know what happens next right at this moment. But eventually, I would like to find that out. There is definitely more to this story; as indicated by the last shot of this show.

Hopefully, MGS will earn a second season. This show definitely had the quality to warrant a continuation. Should that never come, it would be disappointing. Luckily, the series we have now is self-contained enough.

Final Thoughts

This series is not for the faint of heart. On more than one occasion, this story got a bit intense. However, that intensity resulted in something worthwhile.

This show was great. Not bad for something I was expecting to be a limp knock-off of a far better anime.

Although there were certainly elements of past shows here, this series managed to form its own identity. Unfortunately, twelve episodes simply weren’t enough to do this story justice. But in the time that it had, MGS still managed to do a lot.

I can’t say this show is for everyone. Nevertheless, it would be wrong of me not to recommend Magical Girl Site.

But these are just my thoughts. What are yours? Have you seen this show? What would be your advice concerning Magical Girl Site? Leave a comment down below because I would love to hear what you have to say.

And if you liked what you read, be sure to follow me on my social media sites so that you never miss a post or update. Also, please share this review across the internet to help add to the discussion.

I’m LofZOdyssey, and I’ll see you next time.

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