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NOVEL ActionMahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku
MANGA ActionMahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku
Not Available ActionMahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku: restart

REVIEWS

• 

  blaze9

  80/100
  (EN/PT) Don't worry, it's not bad and it's not a copy of Madoka.

  Review em português logo abaixo.

  English review:

  Introduction:

  So, this will be my first review, which means it’s also my first real opportunity to mess up. With that said, and considering I plan to do more of these in the future, i accept feedback about possible improvements. All my reviews will be done in 2 languages: English and Portuguese.

  I chose this anime for my first review because it gives just so much margin for critic, both in favor of it and against it. There are some things I like on it and some I don’t, which I will expose later.

  I took my time writing this, so it’s kind of a big review, but If you don’t want to read it all and just want a quick summary of the anime, I would say you should watch it if:

  -you don’t have problems with violence and blood.
  -would like to see a different take on mahou shoujos.
  -you’re not a kid.

  Really, it’s not meant to be watched by kids. AT ALL.

  I would like you to read the full thing though, as it took a lot of work into it. This review is more destined to people who didn’t watch the show yet, so I will try to give the least amount of spoilers possible. However, if you already watched it, then you know it’s very hard to talk about this anime without giving spoilers. Because of that, I will openly talk about the story until the end of episode 3, which is when the important stuff begins to happen. If I need to talk about something beyond this point I'll make a spoiler alert.

  Now, let’s begin this before the laziness attack me again.

  Overview:

  Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku (Mahou Shoujo Raising Project, in English) is an animated series adapted from the original light novel created by Asari Endou and Maruino. The series went on air between october 2, 2016 to december 18, 2016, in weekly episodes of 24 minutes. If you watch the trailer, you’re going to think it’s another cute mahou shoujo anime with cute girls, or at least that’s what I thought about it. However, this series has attracted some attention, first due to giving a different look at the Mahou Shoujo genre, and also for being violent, very violent.

  I know what you’re thinking. “But Blaze9, you said you weren’t going to give spoilers”. Well, I don't consider that a spoiler, because the show doesn’t do ANY effort to hide it. In fact, the very first scene of the first episode is very dark and bloody. Crazy stuff all the way around.

  The very first scene of the first episode.

  Before I return to this subject, let’s talk a bit about the story.

  Story:

  You see, there is a city and in this city there is a popular RPG game that is called “Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku”. Between the many players of this game, there is our protagonist, Koyuki Himekawa. She is a (elementary school?) student, and is a pretty good girl. She’s beautiful, very gentle, has a cute voice, really loves magical girls, and is also ridiculously innocent. No, for real, she’s TOO innocent.

  There is a rumor going around that says that some people between the many players of MSIK have the opportunity to become real magical girls. Doesn’t seem very right, but then our protagonist were playing the game as usual and then guess what? She receives an offer to become a real magical girl, and she takes it. And then the magical girl Snow White is born, and her main power is to hear the cries of help of people in need.

  The incredibly cute Snow White.

  Well, at this point, if you have at least a bit of awareness, you’re gonna think there is something strange going on here. And if you’re a paranoid dude like me, you’re gonna see something bad coming a mile away like a parade. But our protagonist, being ridiculously innocent, has no clue at all.

  After becoming a magical girl, Snow White gets to meet most of the other magical girls of the town, and everyone seems reasonable enough. Her main chores, according to Incub- I mean, “Fav-Pon”, are helping people and collecting “magical candies”. Everything seems to be fine and well for our protagonist, who loves her new job and managed to fulfill her dream that she once thought absolutely impossible.

  And then, hell starts breaking loose when Fav says he’s gonna “cut” half of the magical girls of the town, and the way to do so would be to remove the girl that collects less magical candies throughout the week. The girls soon find out however, that losing their magical powers is equivalent to losing YOUR LIFE.

  Stuff doesn’t get any better when Fav later announces that girls can now transfer magical candies to one another. Which also means they can steal from one another. You can already see where this is going, right? The thing is, everyone noticed that Snow White is a dedicated and innocent magical girl and in fact, she’s the only one between them all that fills the stereotype of “ideal” magical girl. Because of this, people start to think that she’s the easiest target of them all.

  That does it for the story. After that, some interesting things happen and some of them are imprevisible, so I recommend watching the full thing if you wanna see where this will go. I will now do some commentary about the anime and some of these will contain spoilers.

  Opening and Ending: 10/10 - my favorite parts of the anime. The songs are great to hear and the dynamics of the intro are fine, considering the amount of characters we have. As for the ending, I love it for being simple. I could watch it the whole day.

  A frame of the ending scene.

  Artstyle: 9/10 - it’s strangely… cute? Actually, the art is the main reason why I decided to watch this, and i still love the art. I didn’t read the original light novel so I can't compare the works though.

  ‘-’

  Acting: 8/10 - good, nothing bad to say about the acting. Some of the characters are difficult to perform.

  Animation: 7/10 - It’s OK. It has some bad moments, sometimes it seems a slide presentation, sometimes the characters doesn’t have expressions and sometimes they have the wrong expression, but overall it’s nice and won’t bother you unless you are crazy over this matter.

  -SPOILERS-
  Soundtrack: 5/10 - weakest part of the anime in my opinion. Excluding the opening and ending, which are great, the soundtrack sometimes sound out of context, like putting a “funny” music during a death scene. Of course, there may be an artistic context to this, like trying to demonstrate how much of a psychopath a certain character is, but it doesn’t sound very correct to me.

  -SPOILERS-
  What I would change:

  if I had the power to change anything in this anime right now, first of all, without a single doubt, i would get rid of that damn intro scene. That thing just spoils 60% of the show and makes us watch the episodes expecting always the worse. The second thing I would do is to make it longer. If it had 24 episodes, the story wouldn’t be so cramped, it would flow better, and there would have more time to explore the backgrounds of the characters (some of them are really interesting) and the show would shine much more.

  Conclusion:

  Just for the record, i see that some people tend to say this anime is a “bloody copy of Madoka”. While I do agree that this anime sadly lives in Madoka’s shadow, i don’t think it deserves to be called this way. It’s true that the idea of deconstructing the mahou shoujo stereotype (in an animated series at least) came some years before with Madoka, but Ikusei Keikaku walks on his own feet, and I actually think that if the story wasn’t so cramped due to so many characters to work on with so little space, it would definitely achieve a bigger spot on our forums.

  This concludes this review. I hope it helped you have a better idea of this show and I hope you had a good time reading it.

  ---

  Review em Português.

  Introdução:

  Bom, esse será meu primeiro review aqui no anilist, o que significa que é minha primeira oportunidade de fazer besteira. Pretendo fazer mais desses no futuro então se alguém quiser me dar algum feedback eu aceito. Todos os meus reviews serão feitos em Inglês e em Português.

  Achei justo começar minha saga de reviews com um anime como este, simplesmente porque ele deixa muita margem pra comentários, tanto a favor como contra ele. Tem algumas coisas que eu gosto nele e outras que não, que irei expor depois.

  Demorei um tempo escrevendo isso então o review ficou meio grande, mas caso não queira ler tudo e queira apenas um resumo do anime, então eu acho que você deve assistir se:

  -você não tem problemas com animes sangrentos ou violentos, ou ambos juntos.
  -gostaria de ver uma visão diferente no gênero de mahou shoujos.
  -você não é criança.

  Sério, não é uma boa ideia passar isso pra crianças. ESTOU FALANDO SÉRIO.

  Apesar disso eu gostaria que você lesse tudo já que deu bastante trabalho pra fazer. Esse review é mais destinado para pessoas que ainda não assistiram a série, então vou tentar dar o mínimo de spoilers possível. Porém, se você já assistiu, então sabe que é muito difícil falar sobre esse anime sem dar spoiler nenhum. Por conta disso, irei falar abertamente sobre o anime até o final do episódio 3, que é quando as coisas mais importantes começam a acontecer. Se eu precisar falar sobre algo além desse ponto vou fazer um alerta de spoiler.

  Agora vamos começar logo, antes que me dê outra crise de preguiça.

  Visão Geral:

  Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku (“Projeto de Ascensão de Garotas Mágicas”, em Português) é uma série animada adaptada da light novel de Asari Endou e Maruino. A série foi ao ar de 2 de outubro de 2016 a 18 de dezembro de 2016 em episódios semanais de 24 minutos. Se você ver o trailer, deve achar que se trata de mais um anime mahou shoujo com garotas fofinhas, ou pelo menos foi isso que eu achei quando vi o trailer. Porém, essa série atraiu uma certa atenção, primeiramente por apresentar uma visão diferente de mahou shoujo, e também por ser violenta, bem violenta.

  Já sei o que você tá pensando. “Mas Blaze9, você disse que não ia dar spoilers”. Bom, eu não considero um spoiler, já que o anime não faz NENHUM esforço pra esconder isso. Na verdade, a primeira cena do primeiro episódio já é bem sombria e sangrenta. Bem louco mesmo.

  A primeira cena do primeiro episódio.

  Antes de eu voltar a falar sobre isso, vamos falar um pouco sobre a história.

  História:

  Existe uma cidade, e nessa cidade tem um jogo bem popular chamado “Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku”. Entre as várias pessoas que jogam esse jogo, existe nossa protagonista, Koyuki Himekawa. Ela é uma estudante (ensino fundamental?), e é uma menina muito boa. Ela é gentil, bonita, tem uma voz bem agradável, adora garotas mágicas, e é ridiculamente inocente. Tipo, inocente DEMAIS.

  Também tem um boato rolando por aí que diz que algumas pessoas entre os vários jogadores de MSIK tem a oportunidade de se tornar garotas mágicas de verdade. Não parece verdade, mas aí nossa protagonista estava jogando o jogo como normalmente, e depois adivinha só? Ela recebe uma oferta para se tornar uma garota mágica de verdade, e ela aceita. E assim a garota mágica Snow White (Branca de Neve) nasce, e o seu poder é ouvir os apelos de pessoas em necessidade.

  A linda Snow White.

  Bem, a esse ponto, se você tem pelo menos um pouco de atenção, vai pensar que tem algo estranho acontecendo. E se você for um cara paranóico que nem eu, já sabe que vai dar merda. Mas nossa protagonista é tão inocente que não tem a menor ideia.

  Depois de se tornar uma garota mágica, Snow White conhece as outras mahou shoujos da cidade, E todas parecem ser razoáveis à primeira vista. As suas tarefas, de acordo com o Incub- Digo, “Fav-Pon”, são ajudar as pessoas e coletar “magical candies” (doces mágicos). Tudo parece estar dando muito certo pra nossa protagonista, que adora o seu novo trabalho e ainda realizou o seu sonho que ela antes achava completamente impossível.

  E aí, as coisas começam a ficar esquisitas quando o Fav diz que vai “cortar” metade das garotas mágicas da cidade, e a forma de fazer isso será remover a garota mágica que coletar menos magical candies ao longo da semana. As garotas rapidamente descobrem, contudo, que perder seus poderes mágicos equivale a perder SUA VIDA.

  As coisas ficam ainda piores quando Fav anuncia que agora as garotas podem trocar magical candies entre elas, o que também significa que elas podem roubar os doces das outras. Já dá pra ver pra onde isso está indo, né? O problema é que todo mundo notou que a Snow White é uma garota mágica dedicada e inocente e na verdade, ela é a única entre elas todas que preenche o estereótipo de garota mágica “ideal”. Por conta disso, as pessoas começam a pensar que ela é o alvo mais fácil de todas.

  Vou parar por aqui com a história. Depois disso acontecem várias coisas interessantes, e algumas imprevisíveis também, por isso recomendo assistir o anime todo pra ver onde isso vai dar. Agora irei fazer alguns comentários sobre o anime e alguns desses irão conter spoilers.

  Abertura e Encerramento: 10/10 - minhas partes preferidas do anime. As músicas são agradáveis de se ouvir e as dinâmicas da intro são boas, considerando o tanto de personagens que tem. Sobre o encerramento, eu adoro justamente por ser simples. Poderia assisti-lo o dia todo.

  Um print da cena de encerramento.

  Arte: 9/10 - É estranhamente… fofa? Na verdade, a arte é o motivo pelo qual eu decidi assistir esse anime, e eu ainda adoro a arte. Eu não li a light novel original então não posso comparar os trabalhos nesse sentido.

  ‘-’

  Atuação: 8/10 - boa, não tenho nada de ruim pra falar sobre a atuação. Algumas das personagens são difíceis de interpretar.

  Animação: 7/10 - É boa. Tem alguns momentos ruins, às vezes parece uma apresentação de slides, às vezes as personagens não mostram expressões e às vezes mostram as expressões erradas, mas geralmente é bom e não vai te incomodar a não ser que você seja muito exigente com isso.

  -SPOILERS-
  Trilha Sonora: 5/10 - parte mais fraca do anime na minha opinião. Tirando a introdução e o encerramento, que são muito bons, a trilha sonora às vezes fica fora de contexto, tipo colocar uma música “engraçada” durante uma cena de morte. Claro, pode haver um contexto artístico a isso, tipo tentar mostrar o quanto uma certa personagem é uma psicopata, mas não soa muito correto na minha visão.

  -SPOILERS-
  O que eu mudaria:

  Se eu pudesse mudar algo no anime agora, primeiramente, antes de tudo, removeria aquela cena de introdução. Aquilo ali “spoleia” 60% do anime e faz a gente assistir a série esperando sempre o pior. Ela basicamente destrói todo o elemento surpresa que o anime poderia proporcionar. A segunda coisa que eu faria é torná-lo mais comprido. Se tivesse 24 episódios, a história não ficaria tão apertada, o anime correria bem melhor, e teria mais tempo pra explorar os backgrounds dos personagens (alguns são muito interessantes) e a série brilharia muito mais.

  Conclusão:
  Só pra registrar, eu vejo que algumas pessoas tendem a dizer que esse anime é uma “cópia sangrenta do Madoka”. Apesar de eu concordar que este anime infelizmente vive na sombra do Madoka, eu não acho que mereça ser chamado assim. É verdade que a ideia desconstruir o estereótipo de mahou shoujo (em séries animadas pelo menos) veio alguns anos antes com o Madoka, mas Ikusei Keikaku caminha com as próprias pernas, e eu realmente acho que se a história não fosse tão prensada devido a tantos personagens pra trabalhar com tão pouco espaço, ele ganharia um espaço de mais respeito nos nossos fóruns.

  Isso conclui nosso review. Eu espero que tenha ajudado a ter uma ideia melhor sobre este anime, e que você tenha se divertido com a leitura.

  Continue on AniList
• 

  Byorne

  72/100
  Why become a magical girl? A simple question to all appearances but that contains many implications.

  Why become a magical girl? A simple question to all appearances but that contains many implications.

  ---

  To obtain powers is something wished by many, but that comes with the responsibility of using them properly — or not? Why not use them for one's own benefit after all? Why should a magical girl serve the common good and not rather realize her own dreams? This decision does not come nobly land on the recipient of said powers, as we see often see it in most works: it depends of everybody's character. That is this crude reality that works on showing us 『 Mahou Shoujo Isekai Keikaku 』 (『 Mahouik 』 for short) — and if it gets through a large number of points, it lacks in doing so for some elements that are unfortunately central for it.

  ---

  A variety of characters

  Something very peculiar about Magical Girl Raising Project is the variety of depicted profiles.

  A normal highschool girl, a recently fired executive, an old alcoholic mother, … the show is close to the level of a Durarara!! in terms of variety. Age, social status, job, story, reason for playing the game (even gender!); no character looks like another on these basic criteria. That being said, more than the half of them share a deeper particular feature: they are "failed" people, having a sad or little blooming life, like Tama who is just a good-for-nothing. Their life condition is sometimes due to their particularly dark story — and in this point, one has to admit that 『 Mahouik 』 proposes darker stories than its peers (amongst which the famous Madoka Magica): school harassment, sexual touching, suicide are within the most disturbing themes shown by the work.

  

  Fucking frightening…

  Because of these differences of personal story whose psychological impact is deep, each character has different "motivations" to be a magical girl: noble motivations as Snow White's, or psychopathic like Cranberry's. In my view, two particularly interesting characters concerning these motivations are Hardgore Alice who fundamentally just wants to find a place in a world that has given her none, and Swim Swim whose ambition ends up, for varied reasons, to isolate her completely.

  The two final manifestations of this variety are the powers and the charadesigns. As for the powers, each magical girl possesses a different power sometimes very peculiar, like for instance to dig instantly a big hole — here again something original in comparaison to other pieces of work about magical girls. As for the charadesigns, each character owns a unique appearance that goes so far as differentiating the eyes themselves (even though we shall regret the use of melon-boobs).

  Unfortunately, this variety of characters comes at the expense of a very weak development; and that is a real shame, on the one hand because their dark (or happy) stories would be interesting to show in details, on the other hand for it is crucial for a piece of work where characters kill each other that the audience ties a bond with them. In the end, due to this lack of development, 『 Mahouik 』 shows more a variety of different stories than a variety of a different characters — which is not a bad thing in reality, as long as the story-telling is not lacking…

  ---

  A handful of bad main points

  And there's the rub: for this variety of characters does not rule out very bothering bad sides, notably for they are present throughout the whole work.

  There is an attempt of universe in which we learn that there were other magical girls selections in the past who were looking diffferent, that's true; but this explanation increases even more the lack of understanding: why did the inhabitants of the Magic World accept to change the rules? By sheer sadism? Come on…

  Speaking of sadism, another negative point is Fav, that is the overused mascot. The cute thingy that adds onomatopoeia at the end of its sentences and that in fact is omniscient and Machiavellian in line with — would you believe! — its black and white colors akin to some Two-Face… It looks like a poor combination of Kyubey from 『 Madoka Magica 』 and Monokuma from 『 Danganronpa 』.

  

  Kill it with fire

  In addition, the common thread is lame: inhabitants from another world come on Earth to choose new magical girls? Why? They possess a very powerful magic allowing them to make the magical girls almost invisible, but at the end they settle for sending emails? A magical weapon can break the "transmetteur-maître", but not the magical girls themselves who are magical too? The worst is the disappointing end: Snow White, whom it is said literally has not done anything to win, is the only "real" survivor and chooses to fight to be a strong magical girl… just like she has always wished it. The sole character development is that she now is now (almost) alone to fight — that is, a pitiful clichéd end.

  Finally, the question central to the anime "why become a magical girl" is a question so interesting that is unfortunately not enough looked deeper into. Yet the variety of profiles offers a huge amount of possibilities of answers, each one having one's proper vision of the thing; but since the characters either are not developed or die too soon, the general answer given the most clichéd: to help others.

  ---

  A good technical direction

  Except for those bad points though, 『 Mahouik 』 shows a technical direction surprisingly very good.

  There are very good shots from many angles; for instance, there is a beautiful high-angle shot from a distance when Snow White and Hardogre Alice are introduced to each other in a warehouse.

  

  A dark night for dark knights

  Another nice shot is in the 12th episode: while Ripple is stumbling and her eye is seriously damaged, we have a shot through her bloody vision which puts ourselves in her place — not a very nice feeling, honestly.

  

  The world has turned red…

  There are also very nice animations sometimes, like when Snow White looks up the purchasable items in the 6th episode and that we see in the reflection of her pupil the movement of her gaze.

  

  Truly magnificent

  Overall, the facial expressions forward very well the emotions (notably the dark ones by the way): sadness, disgust, death… Through them, 『 Mahouik 』 succeeds a lot in delivering the emotions felt by its characters to the audience and in creating a certain empathy for them.

  

  The drawing feels so 3Dish here

  There is even sometimes good directing, like in the 6th episode when the music stops at once while Calamity Mary says « I want that you kill someone ».

  ---

  Conclusion

  Overall, 『 Mahouik 』 is a big wasted potential.

  The characters's profiles so different and their stories sometimes sordid really make this work stand out from the other magical girls. On the contrary, a lot of scenaristic elements make 『 Mahouik 』 closer to its peers, elements sometimes too clichéd that overhang the whole work and give it a shade of nanar. Fortunately, its technical direction surprisingly well-made (even sometimes impressive) make the piece of work very nice to watch, putting it for that above your average anime. It is thus a bittersweet taste that 『 Mahouik 』 leaves — a frustration that does not conceal its good sides at all but that does not manage to mask its bad ones. A definitely interesting experience, in the light of the Magical Girl Raising Project: maybe it will pull through better during the next selection.

  

  Well said!

  Continue on AniList

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