English Dub Review: Magical Girl Raising Project “Notice of New Rules”

No one mourns the wicked (but I will mourn a couple other magical girls).

Overview (Spoilers!) 

Ripple and Calamity Mary battle it out. Top Speed helps a bystander and her injured baby. Ripple’s prospects look bleak when Mary throws a grenade, but Top Speed swoops out of the sky to save her. Ripple begs to be taken back to the battle because Mary will keep killing civilians until then. Top Speed joins the attack by ramming her broom into Mary at, dare I say it… top speed.

Mary shoots Top Speed’s broom, but the two of them don’t give up. Ripple rains a shower of glass down on Mary from above, and when she’s distracted, Ripple throws her shuriken directly onto Mary’s skull. Mary is dead, but their triumph is short-lived—Swim Swim appears out of nowhere and stabs Top Speed.

In a tormented rage, Ripple attacks Swim Swim, who utilizes her ability to turn her body into the water in order to avoid Ripple’s shuriken. Eventually, Swim Swim phases through the floor and escapes. Ripple discovers why Top Speed had to survive six more months—she was three months pregnant.

Minael shows up to the disaster scene. Alice shoves Snow White aside so that Alice can take the brunt of Mina’s attack. Snow White hears the thoughts of Tama, hidden under the invisibility cloak with plans to attack her. Tama and Mina runoff, and Snow White and Alice continue to help others.

FAV announces that, although the number of magical girls has been whittled down to eight, he still needs to cut that number in half to four. Swim Swim plans to use the energy pills to take out Cranberry, and perhaps someday Ripple. Out of nowhere, Mina bursts into the room and announces that she’s decided who they will kill next.

Unable to cope with Weiss’s death, Nana hangs herself.

Our Take 

This episode is mostly made up of battles, and they’re actually pretty exciting ones—easy to follow, creative, and surprising. I loved watching Top Speed use her broom as a weapon, and Ripple’s idea to throw thousands of glass sharps (utilizing her power to always hit her target when she throws) is genius. There were a couple cut corners that I wish we’d been able to see—I’m not sure how Ripple escaped that grenade, for example, or how Top Speed was able to save her. But these battles had me on the edge of my seat for twenty minutes straight.

There are some surprisingly sincere emotional moments in this episode, too. Ripple gives a speech about being honest to herself and her duty as a magical girl, which Top Speed jokingly rates “four out of five.” I have to agree with Top Speed’s assessment—although Ripple doesn’t say anything mind-blowing that we haven’t heard before on this show, it’s pretty moving to hear such a taciturn character frankly announce that she cares for others and herself. When she and Top Speed decide to take down Mary together, their friendship glows with charm. When they finally succeed, I almost cheered out loud. In a show that’s based on watching our favorite characters get brutally murdered, it was rewarding to see good people actually succeed for once.

Of course, the whole episode isn’t sunshine and roses. Top Speed’s death is particularly brutal, coming just as she high-fives Ripple to celebrate their victory. God, am I starting to hate Swim Swim. I wish we knew more of what her motivations for murder are—is she just that dedicated to protecting Mina and Tama? Does she just want power, as Ruler taught her to? At the moment, Swim Swim feels like a blank slate that the writers can use whenever they want a character to murder someone, and I’m disappointed that we don’t get to see more of her.

And Top Speed’s death is just a little too sad. Media doesn’t have to be perfectly pure and joyful, but at some point, sad storylines stop being entertainment and start being torture for masochistic viewers. In moments like these, there’s also a disconnect between the tone of the show and its content—the pregnancy reveal makes my stomach twist in a way that’s hard to reconcile with the slapstick tone of characters like Mina and Tama.

And boy, Nana’s death is sad. It’s a quiet moment, but it hit me harder than any battle death in this series. It’s a reminder that there are plenty of ways tortured young women die even in the real world. It’s a reminder of the torment we inflict upon ourselves.

I don’t have many complaints about this episode because, despite its decadently sad storyline, it’s well-made, emotionally interesting, and absolutely kept my attention. I only request, once again, that in the future we get more of Snow White. I’ve never seen a show so dramatically forget about its main character before. What’s going on in her head? Her friendship with Alice is certainly fascinating (Alice says that she’s decided to help Snow White because she’s “special” and offers no further explanation. What’s going on there?). It’ll make for great material for future episodes.