Magical Girl Raising Project Restart

Episodes 1-3

When it comes down to it, Magical Girl Raising Project Restart is built around one thing: unintended consequences. In defeating Cranberry and surviving to the end in the first season, Snow White and Ripple exposed the magical girl death games to the magical world. And then, in the time since then, Snow White has made it her personal mission to hunt down any magical girls using their powers for evil. All this has marked her as the ideal magical girl—kind, pure, and driven to do good that she could survive a death game without killing anyone. This leads us to Keek, a magical girl who, upon seeing the ideal, wonders how many other magical girls actually live up to it—taking it upon herself to test them.

It's from this that we get Magical Girl Raising Project Restart—the story of 16 magical girls brought into a virtual world for a death game (though they are initially unaware it is one) that is fashioned in the likeness of a classic JRPG. Some girls are combat-focused; others are not. Yet given the chance to get out, none of them do. Perhaps it's for the monetary prizes Keek is offering (and delivering on)—or perhaps it's because none of them are willing to give up.

These first three episodes are centered around three characters. The first is Magical Daisy, the veteran among veterans—so famous she has an anime about her exploits. Despite this, she is the first of the magical girls to die—and in doing so showcases that even the most experienced can fall to their own ego.

The next viewpoint character is Pechka. Rather than using her powers for good, she uses them for her own self-interest—though that's not to say she acts maliciously in any way. She simply transforms to look beautiful for the boy she has a crush on and uses her magical cooking ability to try and win his heart. In the death game, she is the ultimate fish out of water—completely unsuited to the tasks they are faced with. But through her experiences both inside the death game and out, she comes to see that even magical cooking is an exceedingly valuable skill to have—and starts to gain the self-confidence she never thought she'd be able to have.

The final central character in these three episodes is Shadow Gale—and she and Pfle are a package deal. Unlike the other magical girls who are all strangers, Shadow Gale and Pfle are companions in real life as well. Or, to be more precise, Shadow Gale has been raised from a very young age to be Pfle's servant and friend. Through Shadow Gale, we get a novel view of Pfle that shows us the true person underneath. She is manipulative, arrogant, and utterly brilliant—exactly the person you want to be on your side in a death game.

This first arc of the story ends with all involved learning the truth—that if you die in the game, you die in real life. But even more interesting than the revelation is the mystery looming on the edges of the story. While Daisy died due to her own hubris, Masked Wonder died to a rock to the back of the head. Masked Wonder was murdered for some unknown reason—and Shadow Gale is the only person we know to be 100% innocent.

All in all, Magical Girl Raising Project Restart is off to a strong start. The characters are deep and varied in both personality and backstory. And while the enemy designs so far leave more than a bit to be desired, the murder mystery cliffhanger is perfect for drawing you in for the next act of the story.

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Magical Girl Raising Project Restart is currently streaming on OceanVeil.

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