English Dub Review: Magical Girl Raising Project “Sudden Event in Session!”

It’s not a game anymore.

Overview (Spoilers!)

Sister Nana begged Calamity Mary to stop using her powers for evil. Mary pulled a gun on her, but Weiss was able to protect Nana and escape. Later that evening, Yunael and Mina ignored Ruler’s speech in favor of gossiping about the fight. Ruler huffily stormed off; the twins explained that Mary had once been Ruler’s teacher.

Now, with the goal of surpassing Ruler, Swim Swim determines to defeat Weiss in battle. Yunael transforms into Nana to get close to Weiss; when Weiss’s guard is down, Yunael stabs her. Weiss cracks Yunael’s head against one of her stone walls. Not to be outdone, Swim Swim sneaks up from behind and slices Weiss’s arm off.

Before she dies, Weiss recalls some tender memories with Nana. Nana is inconsolable, and wears Weiss’s scarf as she reminisces. Mina and Tama mourn Yunael.

We now skip to Top Speed’s human life! Her husband is an overworked public servant, but she helps him stay positive. When he forgets his lunch at home, Top Speed cheerfully uses her magical girl powers to deliver it to him.

Mary is an alcoholic, and her husband left after she hit their young daughter. When FAV announced that Mary would become a magical girl, he said he needed different personalities in the group in other to cause friction. FAV assured Mary that becoming a magical girl would make her strong enough to break anyone she wanted.

Top Speed confides in Ripple that she used to belong to a biker gang, but cleaned up her act when her future husband moved in next door and started nagging her about her behavior. Ripple has agreed to meet with Mary, but gunshots are fired, and she realizes it was all a trap to kill her. Ripple and Top Speed escape on Top Speed’s broom.

Reminiscing about her meeting with Alice, Snow White hears a commotion outside the window. Mary has caused an explosion by shooting an enormous pile of cars, and Snow White and Alice team up to save bystanders. Swim Swim and crew decide to kill all magical girls that rush to the disaster scene. Cranberry chooses not to get involved.

Our Take

As I’ve said a couple times, I don’t usually mind that this show doesn’t have a deeper point to it, because I enjoy just seeing what the quirky and lovable characters will do. But even I have a limit when it comes to senseless violence for the sake of senseless violence. I like a dark storyline as much as the next guy, but the point of putting death in fiction is to usually to explore the outcome. How does a character’s death affect the people around her? What effect does it have on the world of the story?

“Sudden Event in Session!” is interested in none of this. Sure, we see Nana and Mina mourn their fallen compatriots, but we don’t get to see how grief changes them or the outcome of the narrative. They just weep—which of course is an expected and perfectly human reaction, but it isn’t all that interesting to watch. Seeing the effect that Ruler’s death had on Swim Swim—and even the way Magicaloid’s passing changed Mary—was much more exciting.

This episode isn’t effective at evoking strong emotional reactions in me. It’s sure trying to—the flashbacks to Weiss and Nana’s sugar-sweet past makes this evident—but I’d have a lot bigger reaction if we spent more time with Nana after the fact, exploring what the reality of her life is now. And sure, I’m sad that Weiss died, but I was also expecting it. I mean, at this point, it’s obvious that magical girls are trying to kill each other, right? I know Nana is naïve, but why would Weiss walk right into such an obvious trap? And why would Ripple agree so easily to meet with Mary?

What I’m trying to say is that this show spends an awful lot of time on backstory, which is perfectly fine in theory. But I want some development at the moment. This whole show can’t be about what happened to its characters in the past.

Part of the problem here is that MGRP doesn’t really have a main character anymore. In episode 1, it was pretty clear that the story was going to be focused on Snow White, but she barely features in this episode. I don’t know what the main plotline is anymore, either. This show could do with a bit more focus because all the bits and pieces of this episode feel pretty disjointed when they come together.

There are some heart-wrenching moments, though, don’t get me wrong. My heart goes out to Ripple when she shyly asks Top Speed, “How do you learn to live a normal life?” because it’s something Ripple has never experienced. And Swim Swim’s cold assertion that she needs to do better next battle makes me wonder when she’s finally going to crack and show her own emotional vulnerabilities.

But why did Mary decide to kill Ripple? We’re told she wants to take down a magical girl, but why Ripple in particular?

I’m also deeply concerned by some text relayed to us via eye catch. If you’ve been reading my weekly review of The Master of Ragnarok & Blesser of Einherjar, you’ll know how frustrated I’ve been that it tends to reveal major, plot-relevant, spoilerific info in the text that flashes by before the commercial break. Now MGRP is doing it too, apparently: the eye catch this week reveals that Cranberry’s human form… is FAV? What? We frequently see the two talking to each other, so I’m now sure what this means. Cranberry’s human form controls the game? Does Cranberry know she’s FAV? I feel like I’ll need a lot more information before I can buy—or even understand—this development.

“Sudden Event in Session!” has decent animation, and it still features the exploits of characters I know and love. But a disjointed and emotionally dry plotline means it isn’t one of MGRP’s best.