Magical Girl Site Complete Collection Blu-Ray Review
Warning: this anime, review and screenshots contain themes of violence, self-harm, abuse, transphobia and more. Please proceed with caution.
Aya Asagiri’s life is full of misery and hopelessness; she’s bullied by her classmates, violently abused by her older brother, and no one – adult or someone her age – seems to care. When Aya wishes to end her life, she stumbles upon a strange website that promises to make her a magical girl, and the next morning she finds a wand, in the shape of a gun, in her school locker. Her first use of the power ends up killing two people by accident, but it’s not long before other magical girls approach her, and that’s when the real misery begins. One magical girl is killing others and stealing their wands, but for what reason? And what’s the true purpose of the Magical Girl site anyways?
Magical Girl Site debuted in Spring of 2018, and I actually did a mini review of its pilot episode for this site. Admittedly, I never went back to finish the series, but I have enough curiosity to check out this Blu-ray release. The series is based upon the manga of the same name by Kentaro Sato, which has apparently been licensed by Seven Seas Entertainment since 2017, however it doesn’t seem to be in print anymore (at least it’s still available in digital in the UK). The manga concluded at 16 volumes, and the anime only spans 12 episodes, so it should be noted that the anime ends in a incomplete state. More importantly, the anime is extremely dark, containing themes such as suicide, sexual abuse, physical abuse, graphic violence, animal cruelty, transphobia and more. This is a grimdark series that isn’t for the faint-hearted, so please proceed with caution if you’re sensitive to any of the subject matters mentioned.
The series opens up with its very dark tone from the get-go, and lays it on very thick so there’s no build up or warning of the subject matter the series deals with. Aya’s life is shown to be as miserable as they come; the bullies aren’t just girls calling her names in the classroom, they leave blades in her school shoes and nearly drown her in the toilets. The same goes for the home life; her brother violently beats her up, and even ties her down at one point, and heavily implies that this has happened multiple times before. The cherry on top comes when the one spark of hope she has, an orphan cat she looks after on her way home, ends up dead the next day. There’s no room for hope or reprieve in this opening episode, and it continues to lay it on thick throughout the series. All the magical girls have had super awful lives, from watching their family die to suffering as a result of another magical girl’s actions.
The series is going for a ‘cycle of violence’ angle here, in both realistic and magical ways. In terms of a real life example, we have the Asagiri family. Aya is abused by her brother, who excuses his actions as him ‘letting off steam’ so he can focus on his exams, then in a later episode we see him being physically abused by their father. It’s a clear sign of continuing the cycle of abuse that some of us can relate to, and that said abuse only breeds more abuse down the generations, rather than making ‘strong’ people as a result. The same goes for the other magical girls; many of them were traumatised in their childhoods, and then get given powers to deal with that, often using their powers to either exact revenge or outright kill the people who made their lives miserable. Meaning they’re stuck in a cycle of violence/abuse themselves, despite trying to ‘fix it’. The cycle continues because even though the wands granted to them may have made their immediate situation better, in the long term, they’re only traumatising themselves in new ways, and they end up making excuses for their actions as a way to ‘get back’ at the world who made their lives miserable in the first place.
This all plays into the overall plot, where the event called ‘The Tempest’ is coming, and the site encourages the girls to absorb more ‘misery’ in order to survive the upcoming apocalypse. This is further empathised by the bleeding the girls suffer with whilst using their powers, as well as the fact that their life span is shorted every time they use it. Obviously making the point that violence and abuse is not the answer, only serving to further hurt themselves, so nothing good can come from it. It’s on the nose, but the effect of seeing the girls bleed, and the uncertainty of when their lives will end, does add additional stakes to each battle scene. I do think the overall theme works within the show, and the message it goes for in the final episodes, is clear enough. It could have worked better if it didn’t lay on the dark subject matters so thickly and often clumsily, to the point it felt like the anime was voyeuristic in the girl’s suffering, but what we do have it clear enough for what they’re going for.
It’s not hard to see the Puella Magic Madoka Magica influences in this series: the main protagonist is a reluctant magical girl, her best friend has time-influence powers, the Tempest event looks very much like the Walpurgisnacht villain in terms of shape and what it represents, and there’s also a twist in what happens to some of the magical girls once they die. That seems unfair, as Madoka Magica came out over a decade beforehand, but I couldn’t help but notice it. So if you like your darker sides of magical girl shows, you might find something worthwhile here, but be aware that the writing in Magical Girl Site isn’t as strong, and not just because of its heavy reliance on dark themes. For example, the second half of the series feels quite rushed. We’re introduced to a bunch of new magical girls, who come to help Aya and others in their cause to stop the Tempest, however outside Aya, her friend Tsuyuno, and Rina (introduced early on), none of them are given a lot of screen time or character development. Each of them are given significance in the battle scenes, mostly for their cool range of powers (from flying, to super-enhanced strength, to healing others with their blood) but their backstories and the bonds they form with the protagonist, are either never explored or are given the briefest of glances before we move onto the plot itself. So the big group of them fighting together in the second half feels shallow in places, and some of the emotional beats don’t hit like the series wants it to.
One girl I did want to mention especially is Kiyoharu Suirenji, who is actually a transgender girl given the power of telepathy, so has significance in the story’s plot later on. However it should be noted that in her debut episode, she’s surrounded by others calling her homophobic and transphobic slurs, including the ’t’ word. Granted, most of the name-calling is from the actual bullies (aka the bad guys, who play a part in her choosing to be a magical girl) but she’s also called a slur by one of the protagonists, and one mentions that the site ‘may have gotten confused’ when giving her gifts. Not great, but past her debut, it doesn’t happen again, thankfully, but it also never dives into her transgender identity either (probably for the best in this anime’s case).
Animation is provided by production doA, whose only other credits are Is the Order a Rabbit?? Dear My Sister special and Sing for You OAV, which is a shame because their work here is pretty good overall. The colour grading and dark tone of the series carry over very well visually, including the slit pupils when the powers are activated, the blood running from the girls’ faces and the tired marks under their eyes – it really sells how much the girls are suffering and the toll it’s taking on them. The designs of the site ‘admins’ are also creepy, inspired by the likes of Babadook; they are black and white and shaded very differently from the rest of the cast, making them more supernatural and alien. The ending themes also mix live action and animation together, creating a unique and eerie look overall.
Music by Keiji Inai is also good, very creepy and darkly appropriate for the series, often having tracks that wouldn’t be out of place in some horror video games, such as Fatal Frame.
It’s important to note that this Blu-ray set ONLY comes with a Japanese dub with English subtitles, so there’s no English dub to comment on. The Japanese dub is excellent across the board, the subtitles are readable, with no obvious errors, and all the extras have been translated too. Interestingly, for the extras, we don’t have clean opening and endings for this series, instead we have disc credits, and we’re treated to two music videos for ‘believe again’ and ‘Only Look at Me’ (performed by the voice actresses from the show) and also have ‘making of’ clips for them both, which is nice to see!
Magical Girl Site is hard to recommend, as its dark subject matter and often clumsy implementation of it, will either turn off audiences or make them laugh to the point where they can’t take it seriously. Also the poor writing in the second half and clear skips of manga chapters to get to a semi-satisfying ending doesn’t help its case. However, I did end up enjoying my time with the series overall and I’m glad I got to watch the whole series eventually, even just to say that I did so. If anything about the series appeals to you, the 12 episodes go by quickly and are worth a go if you have the stomach for it.
Our review copy was supplied by MVM.
