Everybody Loses In A Magical War

Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka Episode 6 Review

There are two distinct parts of this episode that kind of overlap through a character Asuka encounters and gives directions to who later becomes significant in Mia’s story. I’m going to start looking at Asuka’s side of the episode because that is the less significant part of Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka this week.

We begin with Asuka and her school friends having a study session. There’s some very clunky exposition where Asuka is asked what her dream is, but otherwise the only up-shot of this whole scene is that Nozomi is bubbly as can be almost as if her whole torture didn’t happen… Oh wait, it didn’t because they erased her memory. They do decide to go to a festival which leads to the main girls in yukatas and Asuka running into the blonde girl she gave directions to earlier who tells her that her wish should be to be happy and everything else will sort itself out.

I’m not really sure why they bothered to bring the rest of the members of M squad to the festival and all and all this whole sequence just seems relatively like episode filler. I don’t really like saying that given it is still kind of fun to watch, but I can’t imagine this has much purpose other than adding to the overall contrast because Mia’s story is anything but happy filler.

Mia arrives in Japan to investigate the guy in the box we saw at the villains’ lair earlier in the season. She transforms and she and her team check out the apartment before finding the magical girls’ motto written on the mirror. Then the blonde girl who has been encountering Asuka all episode shows up and it turns out she’s a magical mercenary who wants revenge because her family were killed during the war. It all seems just a little bit over the top and Mia is completely cold. Why? Because her family were killed by terrorists. Turns out no one is winning in this war because the disas were a threat and the military used methods that killed civilians, terrorists have risen up but they also kill civilians and basically everyone is suffering from some kind of regret or trauma.

It isn’t the most deft handling of the themes but it does get the point across. I do kind of wonder what is going to happen when Mia, Kurumi and Asuka end up together because it doesn’t seem like Mia is really looking for a team to join and she has good reason to suspect one of the magical five is involved in her case. I guess we’ll find out.

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ITEMYA BOOK OF MAGIC BAG

• Series Review: Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka
• Episode 1: What Happens When a Magical Girl With PTSD is Drawn Back Into War?
• Episode 2: Not Brushing Aside Trauma Makes For A Better Narrative
• Episode 3: And The Award For Creepiest Visuals of the Week Goes To…
• Episode 4: This Is Not How One Puts Together A Solid Plan
• Episode 5: Magical Trauma and Political Intrigue a Plenty
• Episode 6: Everybody Loses in a Magical War
• Episode 7: It’s Raining Magical Girls and Deals With Other Worlds
• Episode 8 and 9: The Dark Side of the Magical Girl Myth
• Episode 10: The Battle of the Magical Girls Begins
• Episode 11: Bring the Pain; It Won’t Stop These Magical Girls
• Episode 12: Magical Torture, Pain and the Unending War

Images from: Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka. Dir. H Yamamoto. LIDENFILMS. 2019.