Anime: Mahou Shoujo Magical Destroyers 1130b

Disclaimer: This review discusses the flaws within the biggest plot twists of the series, so yeah it has spoilers in it.

Since Mahou Shoujo Magical Destroyers is universally considered to be crap, I would instead like to start with its aspects that I half liked or appreciated:

1-The visuals. Although not great in any particular aspect, it was such a joy to watch an anime closer to twenty years ago in its looks. Darker colours, actual changes in lighting and shading according to the scenes, unlike the vast majority of anime nowadays that are bright all the time. Motions and the rest of the special effects aren’t amazing, but still pretty good. The backgrounds are done well, it’s just that the whole series takes place in two or three cities, so they end up being somewhat repetitive. The character designs are very limited and generic, like a poor man’s versions of the style of Hiroyuki Imaishi’s anime.

2-The ending song. It’s just a pop song in English but it gives a very pleasing feeling while listening to it, I don’t like the visuals however, as it feels like a self-insert harem situation. The rest of the music is not amazing but still pretty good. And that does not include the infamous opening of this series, which gained certain popularity for starting as a typical jrock intro, while turning into something experimental with completely random visuals and sound midway. I firmly believe that just because something is different it doesn’t mean that it is good, it stands out for sure, but it can still be bad. And in my opinion, the second half of the opening is just annoying noise with nonsensical visuals that do not reflect the series at all, it’s just weird and different for the sake of it. The voice acting is ok as well, but one of the girls literally only says gobo, and the sound effects are very weak for a 2024 anime.

3-The motif behind the magical girls is literally sex, drugs and rock & roll, as one is called Anarchy and is rude and fights with fire and her fists, another is a pervert and masochistic, and another one injects herself to power up and fight, and also to produce illusions. That creates a decent contrast with the typical magical girl aesthetics, as the makers clearly intended. It still wasn’t really used to its full potential in any aspect in their characterization or fighting style, nor did they lead to any theme of any kind.

4-Despite there being an important character like the blue magical girl, it is more like limited to jokes like with Darkness in KonoSuba, there’s no actual perverted content in here. In fact, this series is arguably tamer than even that comedy. There is, however, a lot of violence, especially at the end of the series.

5-There’s a minion antagonist that tries to rebel and pursue her own thing and identity. Not that the series really did something worth mentioning with it, as said character was just in the background the whole time before not even finishing her fight, but there was an attempt there.

6-The sketches from the previews end up being a part of the plot.

The rest of the elements in it were a complete disaster. Starting with the premise, as equally ridiculous as it was in similar anime in the past like Shimoneta (but with ecchi) or Rumble Garanndoll (which was the same but with mechas instead of mahou shoujos).

It was already stupid for Shimoneta to have such premise in the same year that Monster Musume, Prison School, Bikini Warriors and, if I correctly, Valkirye Drive Mermaid were airing, and it only became worse with a lot more perverted stuff since there, like Redo of Healer, World End’s Harem, or that reincarnation dog of a zoophilic teen girl owner anime, among others. Yet at least such a stupid premise could lead to a somewhat interesting theme exploration if handled properly, not that it did.

It was extra stupid for the anime about oppressed otakus, at a time where anime is more mainstream and accepted than ever. I did not watch the other series, but this one tries to go for a message about people having the right to enjoy whatever they want, and like, that’s exactly what happens nowadays for the most part. Thus, while watching the anime, I found myself agreeing with the old school otakus that appear on one episode, that also enjoyed their stuff but without embarrassing themselves in public and making everyone around die inside of cringe.

The series could have made a proper point about it, but the side of the argument coming from the protagonist was very naïve and simple, he was repeating the same redundant catchphrase the whole time, without backing anything with proper arguments.

Even if you ignore the shallow messages and premise, the script is a directionless mess. The characters are supposed to be part of a famous revolutionary army, yet almost nobody recognizes them out in the public, they are supposed to be oppressed and in a crisis, yet they fool around and have fun most of the time. The protagonist doubts himself in the very first episode, without the series establishing something about him or the army first, all for the sake of a weak attempt at drama with the fire magical girl, but who could even care? It was the first episode and nothing was established yet.

As it is revealed later on, the antagonists were far stronger and controlling everything the whole time, making the whole show feel pointless and just happening for the sake of sadistic pleasure. It doesn’t even make sense for the main villain to try and stop the protagonists at first, why do that when everything will inevitably play out however the fuck you want it to?

As the series is about to end and the big plot twists are presented, making the whole thing about a butthurt loser manipulating everyone else just for the amusement of himself and another creature that was always around yet nobody asked how, why, or where it came from. Not that the series bothered itself with any of that either, as it didn’t bother to explain it in the least. It appeared, it manipulated the villain, it gave him powers, and then proceeded to do nothing but be amused from the shadows, even at the very end it does fucking nothing.

The series could have been still be saved somewhat if the finale was one of those humanity overcoming everything, even fate or whatever, but no, the whole thing was for nothing. I’m not against endings where the protagonists don’t achieve what they wanted, I would be glad with less idealistic scenarios, in fact, but the way it was done here took every bit of agency and individuality of every character. So by the end not only nothing makes sense, it also was for nothing.

Supposedly, the protagonist kind of ruined the whole thing for the antagonist, but it doesn’t feel like that at all, the characters are trapped within a pre-established scenario without being able to break it and without retaining what little personality they had.

And yes, there is nothing worth to say about the characterization either. The characters stand out a little for one gimmick but that defines their whole characterization, they barely have a backdrop and when they do is something really silly, the three magical girls are amnesiac and have no backdrops whatsoever, and because of the plot twist taking away whatever little individuality they had, they don’t get any development nor catharsis.

So in the end this anime felt like watching someone attempting to do something similar to the titles made by Gainax or Trigger, yet being one of those people that thinks that everything they do is just random nonsense. It only half nailed the aesthetics and presentation, but other than that the whole script and characterization was a complete mess, and everything even turned out to be pointless at the end. A complete waste of time, really.