English Dub Review: Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka “The Lid of Hell”

Put the lid back on, please.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Asuka and Kurumi have been reunited with the former members of their magical girl squad, working together to make sure the conference between Earth and the spirit world goes smoothly. Meanwhile, Asuka’s friends continue to have their fun day at the beach, wondering where Asuka and Kurumi have gone off to. Nozomi and Sayako run into Chisato, who’s masquerading as a normal girl at the beach.

Once Asuka and the rest of her crew are settled in, they are greeted by a special guest, the representative of the spirit world, General Tabira. She’s ecstatic to see Asuka reunited with her magical girl comrades, and offers them a mysterious weapon that can apparently amplify their magical girl abilities an incredible amount. Of course, this comes after nearly suffocating Asuka with her ample bosom.

This wonderful reunion is cut short, however, when Chisato’s forces begin opening fire on the military base and the surrounding metropolitan areas. Asuka’s classmates are caught in the crossfire while she’s stuck in the military base, trying to gain vital intel on the Disas attacking them. Eventually, after some discussion, the girls agree to keep Tabira at the base while sending Mia to go deal with the Bisas out in the town. Tamara, meanwhile, heads topside to deal with the troops attacking the base, leaving Asuka and Kurumi to defend General Tabira.

Our Take:

What is there to be done with Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka? After its embarrassing run so far, the show is left without a unifying theme or creative direction to keep its ramshackle assembly of characters and ideas afloat. It doesn’t work as a serious show, yet it’s too serious to work as a comedy or some kind of novelty anime about military-based magical girls. Having no sense of identity to rely on, Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka delivers an episode that has as much flavor as a six-pack of La Croix. It does nothing except to try to deliver a couple of giggles while wiling away 22 minutes of the viewer’s time, hoping they won’t notice just how pointless all of this was.

We’re introduced to General Tabira this episode, who is the first major character we meet from the spirit world. Instead of being a character be the de facto representation of what the spirit world actually is, Tabira is just another excuse to shove more sex appeal into the show without having anything of value or consequence happen. Tabira is a pointless addition to the show and doesn’t do anything except being an excuse to have another gigantic rack on the screen that gets to sexually harass Asuka. By the way, it seems like everyone and their mother has the hots for Asuka, so one has to wonder if this show is trying to spread itself even more thin by branching out into yuri territory.

The action didn’t really do it for me this episode, even though there was an attempt to try and insert a little bit of excitement into this preposterous exercise of a show. The action is so underdone I worry it’s going to give me salmonella. There isn’t any actual fighting that goes on, just a couple still images to “imply” fighting, as if this show has a strong enough track record that it can hold tension without earning it.

Apart from the meager action scenes and the uninteresting introduction of General Tabira, the rest of the episode is occupied with fluff and bad dialogue. Don’t expect the direction of the show to try and keep you interested in the fish-lipped lines being delivered on-screen. Get ready to fall asleep as boring old men in fatigues babble on about military jargon and obvious exposition. There is nothing to see here, folks, just an increasingly disappointing show flailing about until the end of it’s season, which can’t come soon enough.