Mahou Shoujo Site [Review]
“Aya Asagiri is a middle school girl who has problems both at school with bullying and at home from physical abuse by her brother. While browsing online, a website pops up on her computer featuring a creepy looking person. This person appears to take pity on her, and announces that she has granted Asagiri magical powers.” -Official Site
Story:
If you thought every magical girl show is about sunshine and butterflies, well you haven’t seen this one. Mahou Shoujo Site takes the popular genre and flips it on its head showcasing a more twisted side of the genre, which we know and love from Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica. Featuring a variety of extremely dark themes, Mahou Shoujo Site creates a world of misfortune with interesting characters with even more interesting magical powers. Even though the show has ended there are still a number of mysteries left unsolved and hopefully, a second season comes around to give us some closure.
Artwork & Animation:
The color palette of the show had this dark and ominous tone, but in contrast, the hair color of the magical girls are bright and vibrant. The hair color is almost like a joke, showing these “happy” colors while the ones with the colorful hair are actually the saddest. I wasn’t a huge fan of the character designs, but what did stand out was the facial expressions of characters when they started to lose their minds. The sudden increase in the amount of detail is uncanny and fits well with the already dark themes of Mahou Shoujo Site. The opening animation could’ve been better, recycled scenes and animation (In moderation, mind you) are a good way to save some time, but to use the entire scenes in the opening is just lazy.
Character(s):
Asagiri and Yatsumura are the only characters that get a good amount of character development to make them meaningful to the story. The rest of the cast gets the short end of the “stick” (pun fully intended) and get only a sentence for their introductions.
Sound (OST & Voice Acting):
The soundtrack is one of the good things about Mahou Shoujo Site, the dark and ominous tone of the entire soundtrack sets the stage for the rest of the show. The chills I got listening to “Innocent murderous intent” were wonderful. The irony of having an innocent voice pair up with some minor melodies to create a surreal and uncanny atmosphere made the events in Mahou Shoujo Site more immersive than they originally were. The rest of the soundtrack includes slow orchestral pieces for the emotional scenes and a variety of glitches and unsettling electronic music which matches perfectly with Mahou Shoujo Site.
Enjoyment:
Mahou Shoujo Site was iffy for me, I enjoyed it but I also didn’t enjoy it. The dark elements were wonderful and had me on edge on what would happen next. But the lack of character development for the other characters and slack in the art in some areas were detrimental to my enjoyment of the show.
Overall: Score 6
While Mahou Shoujo Site is something we need more of, the execution could’ve been better. The great dark magical girl theme and the soundtrack is smothered by the lack of character development and a number of obviously recycled scenes.
Best Girl: Ringa Sayuki
While she didn’t get a lot of screen time, the time she did get showcased her skill with the sword. From what we’ve seen in the show she seems like a kuudere type of character, and I love kuuderes!
KiritoNarukami 