English Dub Review: Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka “Each of Their Deadly Battles”

Go home, Asuka, you’re drunk.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

War has come to Asuka once again, as the Disas led by Giess raid the JGSDF in their effort to kill General Tabira. The JGSDF forces do their best to hold down the base, while the magical girls are scattered throughout the base and the city trying to keep everyone alive. Mia is out in town, fighting off Disas where Nozomi and Sayako are also fighting for survival. Her Russian counterpart, Tamara, is using her flamethrower to great effect against the Disas back at the base.

The non-magical girl forces are insufficient to keep up a front against the Disas, and are soon routed by the Disas reinforcements that show up, leaving the battle to the magical girls to finish. Asuka, who is in the base’s underground with Kurumi, listens in on the radio, hearing the deaths of many soldiers, which triggers her PTSD. With Kurumi’s help, she’s able to overcome that, however, and gets ready to defend the base. While Mia escorts Nozomi and Sayako through town, Asuka and Kurumi face Giess, the big bad cyborg leader of the Disas forces. Giess is accompanied by the new evil magical girl, Chisato, who takes on Kurumi personally.

Giess ties up Asuka with magical ropes and moves forward through the base to find the general. He comes across a wolfman bodyguard who’s protecting General Tabiya, but makes short work of him. After that, there’s nothing left standing between him and Tabiya. Asuka, meanwhile, gets released from her bonds by her fairy familiar and rushes to save Tabiya, who’s been brought to the ground by Giess.

Our Take:

There’s a point while you’re watching Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka when you just have to wonder what the people making this show were thinking. This is the sort of anime where the mind can’t help but wonder, “Surely someone thought this was a bad idea?” Somewhere between the magical girl murder porn, the awkward writing, and the often embarrassing voice direction, one has to wonder why nobody pulled the plug on this project. The sheer terribleness of this anime lends credit to the idea that this show is actually a deeply meta joke, an ironic prank on the anime-viewing public that wants to see just how far into the world of schlock this medium can go.

There’s nothing new to bring up about the show here, just a re-iteration of the things that have made this anime terrible from the start, made exponentially worse. When bad shows decide its time to “get serious” and try to bring in some kind of drama, the result is episodes which are not only bad but infuriating. You feel insulted that this series thought it could get by you, that it thought there was any chance of it amounting to something more than a waste of time. You just want it to stop, to give you the punchline that no one could be so ridiculous as to think this episode is anything near worth watching.

If it wasn’t bad enough that the writing is embarrassing to endure, the animation doesn’t even bother to exist at times. Far too often, the show uses the cheap trick of showing the beginning of an attack and then cutting to something else without actually showing it happen. This is a move clearly used to save money on the animation budget, but all it does is make the action sequences of this episode, of which there are many, boring to watch. If they weren’t already miserably forced by the existence of a tank shooting at giant teddy bears with pink SMGs.

The only thing that makes me a little bit happy about this episode is that it has the potential to make a good abridged series if any well-to-do Youtube comedians want to take it on. It’s already on the verge of self-parody, but if anyone wanted to find some ammo to ridicule the world of anime with, they’ll find it in spades here.