First Impression – Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku

Magical Girl Raising (8)

Koyuki- “Later bitches I’m gonna do kick ass magical girl stuff.”

winter15-foshWooooo! Time for my first impressions post on Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku or as most will probably call it Magical Girl Raising Project because its a hell of a lot easier to say, but did the first episode WOW you?! As for myself i’m really excited to see what happens next time.

Mahou Shoujo PVP

Magical Girl Raising (1)

This is the perfect song for this image

When I first read the synopsis for Magical Girl Raising Project the one thing that had me curious was this line “There are too many magical girls so they will be halved.” that left me wondering like alright so the girls are basically going to fight each other in some battle arena until sixteen remain? That and I wondered how violent would this series get, but we kinda got a preview of a that violence level early in the episode which was cool, but I wonder if that clip was just a hint at a possible future? And who was the girl standing among the other dead magical girls? Was that the main magical girl character Snow White aka Koyuki Himekawa or was it someone else? Just kidding i’m pretty sure it wasn’t Snow White standing there because the outfit of the mysterious girl is different looking, but part of me is holding out for Snow White to eventually become like that because for now she seems to be the simple happy-go-lucky type of girl who loves cute things and doesn’t look like the type of person who would kill anyone or anything. I guess we will see if she gets pushed that far because the way I see it eventually Koyouki will have to either fight or defend herself sooner or later. So what do you think? Will Snow White end up like that girl or will she find other ways to stay out of the fighting? If anything La Pucelle has her back as Snow White’s partner and the added bonus of being the childhood friend! Just kidding I sorta expect La Pucelle to sacrifice herself at some point to save her friend and also i’m guessing that short scene at the start of the episode was a hint of one possible ending for the series or was it added for shock factor? Either way I can’t wait to see when the girls start fighting.

Game Changer

Magical Girl Raising (2)

Totally not trying to be Saber from Fate Stay/Night 

While Magical Girl Raising Project might seem like another generic Mahou Shoujo series where average girl finds a magical creature or magical object and poof becomes a powerful magical girl! Yeah there are those classic elements in play here, but there are plenty of new things added! Like the fact that ANYONE and I do mean ANYONE can become a magical girl in their world even boys like Kyouki’s childhood friend Souta Kishibe! That was a interesting reveal for me even though I already know most fans of that trope are going to say what about I wanna be Twintails, Kampfer or Ranma 1/2? Sure those are some great examples of that, but with Magical Girl Raising Project the characters who believe the legend about becoming a real flesh and blood magical girl already know what they are getting into instead of typical method of switching genders through a bit of force or being tricked into it by someone else. Then again who knows i’m sure La Pucelle aka Souta isn’t the only boy-turned-girl that were going to see pop up and I wouldn’t be shocked if some of those guys aren’t happy about it. Besides that I liked the idea that each magical girl has their own unique power, but I’m probably not the only one who laughed after learning La Pucelle has the power to “create a giant sword” which really isn’t a power and i’m sure there are lots of other dumb powers to be seen later on. The last thing I don’t think was mentioned was the real ages of the girls? I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the girls are older which might give them a slight advantage because old anime characters usually tend to be the most badass! I guess it has something to do with life experiences and stuff like that? At least in most shounen-ish anime the old guys and girls seem to have more power than the main characters.

Extra Magical Fun

Magical Girl Raising (3)

Kyouki is going to be fine…maybe…ok probably not.

Magical Girl Raising (7)

Oh those Panzer girls be crazy.

Magical Girl Raising (4)

Congratulations!

Magical Girl Raising (5)

Naw its fine…

Magical Girl Raising (6)

I know right?

End Thoughts

header-winter15-fosh

Holy crap that was a fairly amazing episode! I loved how fast it went from YAY I’M A MAGICAL GIRL to OMG WERE ALL GOING TO DIE! I mean sure Koyuki didn’t really think about it coming down to that, but the audience knows eventually these cute girls are going to be killing each other soon. Besides that plot point which we all kinda already knew about from the synopsis I liked the new features like anyone being allowed to become a magical girl despite gender and age which I’m totally assuming about was interesting, but of course I’m also super curious about the people behind the game! How are they actually turning people into real magical girls? And for what purpose? To create superheros because the world is full of evil or to create weapons? Also what about the “candy” what is it even for? I’m betting the “candy” is actually the soul of the “defeated” magical girls or to get even more gruesome maybe the “candy” are the hearts of the girls?! Watch out girls Snow White is going to be pulling off some Mortal Kombat level Fatalities on you! I kinda would love to see that honestly; however we probably should expect to actually see the violent scenes because they are going to be censored…ah well…anyway the only negative thing I can think of so far would be the character designs namely the space between the big-ass-omg-eyeballs which are a bit strange; however as an artist I tend to screw up on part too so it doesn’t bother me too much, but i’m sure most of us don’t really care what the girls designs look like as long as the story is somewhat interesting. So what did you think about this? Are you going to watch more and what are you most excited for? The mystery side of things ie the game creators or are you patiently waiting for the fighting to start? I know I’m ready for it all! One last thing to note Nano doing the ED is great! I love them.

About

Is huge anime fan from Florida! who loves to watch anime and also enjoys drawing and collecting pictures, my favorite genre of anime has to be Mecha, there is just something awesome about giant robots beating the crap out of each other! Other than that type of show, I love a good comedy or action series :D
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20 Responses to “First Impression – Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku”

  1. zztop says:

    How are they actually turning people into real magical girls? And for what purpose?

    A source LN reader (Mahou Keikaku’s an LN adaptation) says the answer to the above question should be revealed around the end of the series. At this point we’re only seeing a small part of the bigger picture.

    The source LNs currently span 8 volumes, but the anime writers confirmed they’ll only be adapting Vol 1 – the magical girl battle royale only occurs there. Vol 1’s events do serve as the basis for the events of future arcs.

    PS. Happy Mahou Games, and may the odds be ever in your favour!

    • Foshizzel says:

      That works and I suppose the series will set that whole mystery up for us and it sorta reminds me of the whole “whats in Erens basement” plot from AoT which was only just recently revealed, but good god did that take FOREVER and honestly wasn’t that OMG at all…

      Sounds good I kinda don’t want this one to be one giant magical girl battle every week which is pretty much what 90% of any magical girl series aka fighting monsters weekly while collecting parts of some end game item, but I can’t wait to see some of the fights! Also setting up future events works too.

      I will have to choose my favorites very carefully.

    • skylion says:

      …this makes it sound like “anime as source material advertisement”…

      • zztop says:

        Well, 90% of anime adaptations are just glorified ads for their source materials – we’re lucky some even get continuations until the end, like Assassination Classroom.

        • Highway says:

          I have to quibble with this a bit, especially if we exclude obvious kids shows. My reasoning is to think about where the money is. Selling books or magazines is not making a big profit. Merchandising is, but that only happens if there’s something to merchandise. And I would say that the merchandising opportunities really only come AFTER most anime take something into the realm of a tv show, moving and talking and living characters.

          The TV show is the big move. It’s not as dire as a ‘moon shot’, more like “put half your chips on black”. But it’s where you’re hoping to make the big splash, and make the big profit. You’re hoping to launch from that to the merchandise and licensing. Or maybe just to get the discs to pay for the production of the anime. But as advertising to sell low-margin books? Not so much.

          I’ll go along with that to a larger extent if it’s a mobile game or RPG franchise, but also note that *most* of those anime happen after the game has been out for quite a while. So it’s a situation where other advertising avenues have already been exploited, and you need to open up a new path, and new awareness.

          • zztop says:

            You make good points.
            I suppose I should say that ultimately the anime decision mostly depends on the publishers of the source material – like how Hataraku Maou-sama still doesn’t have a S2 despite plenty of material to adapt and decent Bluray sales; and the apology from Magical Index’s publishers that they still haven’t gotten around to thinking of commissioning another anime sequel yet.

  2. BlackBriar says:

    I must confess to not being wowed by this entry episode. Excluding the short and eye-opening bloody scene at the start, the rest was rather “meh” with the overbearing moe element and didn’t do well enough to hold my interest to the point I couldn’t remember most of the events or even put names to the characters. The one surprise was the main girl’s male childhood friend turning out to be a “magical girl”. If that’s not a curve ball, I don’t know what is. Then thoughts of Gonna be the Twin-Tail!! started flooding in.

    That corpse filled scene was the only saving grace so I’ll give this another try to get a handle on things. Though I’m not expecting much. If it doesn’t impress, well, it won’t be said I didn’t give this series a chance.

    • Foshizzel says:

      Meh for you and others but quite fun for me! I’m always happy to see the magical girl genre try new things even though it borrows elements from past magical girl series.

      The whole guy-turned-girl thing was a very interesting reveal and i’m glad they addressed that tiny detail about anyone being allowed to become a magical girl even guys.

      lol I hated Gonna be Twintails so much until I shut off my brain while and watched just to see how over the top things would get and honestly I feel that series is obviously aimed at a certain crowd ie the fans of things like Power Rangers/Kamen Rider with touches of Kampfer and Ranma 1/2.

      That was a great scene and I’m sure some people didn’t want this to be a dark themed magical girl series, but I find it to be somewhat interesting and I can’t recall the last time i’ve seen magical girls fighting other magical girls since Nanoha seasons one and two.

  3. skylion says:

    So, that grimdark opening with the scary monster? Then the next scene is an app game with a chibi version of the same monster? Which one is “real”? Why does this show start of making us aware of the grimdark right up front? I’m calling a rugpull (and if you go by my prediction for Re: Zero, I am awesome at predictions!) and things not being what they seem.

    La Pucelle for the win!

    • Namaewoinai says:

      Show ▼

    • Foshizzel says:

      I sorta wish they saved that scene for the end of the episode much like Gakkou Gurashi saving their WTF moment for the end of their first episode instead of at the start, but ah well it still works! Now were going to see HOW that whole thing actually goes down.

      La Pucelle is cool but god what a horrible magical girl name or is her childhood friend a fan the French? Then again my favorite magical girl is Cure Peace which isn’t that WOW of a name either…

      • skylion says:

        La Pucelle is a name for Joan of Arc (man she creeps up in anime an awful lot). I’m hoping they aren’t foreshadowing with that name, not cause of the burning at the stake thing, but because that would be silly foreshadowing. This wouldn’t be the first time I’d watch any sort of show and go, “yeah, use the obvious thing and then do the opposite”. So I hope Souta can be a hero/heroine and like not die?

        • Foshizzel says:

          Lol yeah? I had no idea! No wonder she has a Saber look going on and it makes me think about Caster from Fate/Zero always calling Saber Joan of Arc…

  4. Highway says:

    I’m gonna pass on this one until there’s more of a reveal about what its angle is. I’m not interested in a story that’s just going to be getting its jollies from putting people in despair.

    There are ways to have magical girl shows that get away from that, and have a much better message and feel. A show like Sekirei was essentially about magical girls fighting a tournament to the ‘death’, but the feel wasn’t about celebrating the bad guy getting his kicks from watching people get destroyed. In a different vein, Yuuki Yuuna wa Yuusha had magical girls going through tons of hardships and was very hard on the girls, but again, didn’t go hard with the feeling of triumphalism at the breakdown of the main characters. So there are ways to do it well, but there’s also the easy way, which I’m not interested in.

    • skylion says:

      I think the angle is already there, as I pointed out, but will admit that it might not be the clearest of views.

    • Foshizzel says:

      I dunno how much “despair” were gonna actually get from this I bet we wont see the first death battle until three or four episodes in.

      Well lets be real here for a moment there is only so much you can do with the magical girl genre as a whole and with the amount of magical girl shows I’ve watched over the years or season of new precure the only thing that has kinda revitalized the genre and is creating new fans of magical girls is adding dark themes and yeah do I like that? Nope not really I’m totally on your side with the genre being about the girls going through trials, saving the day and working as a team instead of random suffering and sadness.

  5. Namaewoinai says:

    “Totally not trying to be Saber from Fate Stay/Night”

    Nah For me she(?) is…Some sort of Dragoon if you ask me!

    And this…Critter Yeah i should like to call that… It’s Kinda bit a hybrid of This Peace Loving Creature and this Prototype Hybrid Bear

    Show ▼

    • Foshizzel says:

      Lol well the creature is a bit of both even though I don’t get the same vibe from him as that peace loving creature quite yet! For all we know it’s just an AI type of thing.

      The only one I saw with any guns was the cowgirl xD

      • Namaewoinai says:

        Bah, it doesn’t matter if some had guns or not, it actually a matter of a bloodfest or sort, that a point…

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