English Dub Review: Million Arthur “Call Us Magical Girls”

Fighting evil by moonlight! Winning love by daylight! This song is stuck in your head now!

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

After a brief reminder of the show’s plot (in case you forgot), we find out that Dancho and Tekken are out sick because they fought in the snow naked, so Renkin, Yamaneko, and Kakka (and their fairies) head on another mission to Holy Bay and face three rogue Arthurs who fashion themselves after magical girls: Arthur Sunshine, Arthur Flame, and Arthur Aqua. These three have sworn to protect their city from Invaders (remember those guys from the third episode?) and won’t give up their Excaliburs while the threat goes on, not knowing it’s their power that’s attracting more Invaders.

After several misunderstandings and fights, both groups notice a massive swarm of Invaders incoming and are forced to work together to stop them. However, when the girls’ Excaliburs are destroyed in the battle, the people of the city come to defend them as thanks, showing the good they’ve done. Inspired to help, the main Arthurs help destroy the remaining Invaders and Holy Bay commits to help protect the city together.

OUR TAKE

Guess it was time for the show to dip into the Magical Girl parody joke pool, which is pretty much as popular to make fun there as superhero clichés are to us in the west. Also a little hypocritical since the Arthurs are practically Magical Girls (and boys) themselves but without the showmanship. Though as stale as these jokes can get, such as lampshading how it’s unfair to attack during a transformation sequence, it does allow for another episode where the protagonists go up against a well meaning enemy Arthur (this time as a group) that are just as dedicated to preserving life as they are. Throughout the episode, we get little moments with the Magical Girl Arthurs that flesh out their motivations and backstory, as well as how they’ve impacted the lives of others, giving us a different perspective of this conflict that isn’t necessarily wrong, just misinformed.

But while this is an interesting idea, it ends up feeling pretty half-baked due to how easily it COULD have been resolved, as well as what ended up happening. Before they even got there, the main Arthurs knew of the Invaders attacking the city, so I feel like there should have been negotiations to give up the Excaliburs in exchange for help against the Invaders…invading. I realize they’re kids, so talking might not immediately get through to them, but it was at least worth a shot. The other is that the Invader attack kind of ends up robbing the episode of what might have been an interesting examination of why the hunt for Excaliburs has to happen at all, which is still pretty vague. Yeah, time distortions and what not, but what exactly does that mean? Why are they happening and what do they cause? I’m probably expecting too much from a mobile game adaptation, but that’s what happens when this show tries to be good! It makes me ask more questions!

At any rate, we’re down to the final two episodes…at least in terms of this season, which is all that I’m covering. I’m honestly wondering if this will be leading into a proper season finale or if it’ll just be another Arthur of the Week episode followed by (what was intended to be) a break that would just continue the episodic stories for at least a little while longer. Still, the last few episodes have certainly been digestible, so I can handle that for a couple more weeks.