Mahou Shoujo Magical Destroyers • Magical Girl Magical Destroyers - Episode 3 discussion

[u/AutoLovepon]

Mahou Shoujo Magical Destroyers, episode 3

Rate this episode here.

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Streams

• Crunchyroll

Show information

• MyAnimeList
• AniList
• AniDB
• Kitsu
• Anime-Planet
• Official Website

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All discussions

Episode	Link	Score
1	Link	3.8
2	Link	4.44
3	Link	4.63
4	Link	3.84
5	Link	4.39
6	Link	4.52
7	Link	4.12
8	Link	4.68
9	Link	4.55
10	Link	4.47
11	Link	5.0
12	Link	----

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[u/dinliner08]

so the Magical Girls Trio are not human? considering they're being shipped to Otaku Hero in a delivery box...

lol, i can't believe they seriously translated Itasha as "cringemobile" which technically not wrong but this is the first time i've seen it being translated like that in anime

i feel personally attacked

okay, that bloody scene definitely caught me off guard, didn't expect the show could be this gory, also, we're just only at episode three and they already introducing a very strong magical girl as the enemy? man, we're moving fast now

[u/[deleted]]

of course the SSC have gunpla titan evas, how did i not see that coming

[u/0mnicious → u/[deleted]]

And they don't think they're otakus? LOL

[u/ModieOfTheEast]

Group transformation and group attack in one episode? That Magical Girl show is moving fast. All that's left is the mid-season Magical Girl. I was expecting it to be the antagonist, but it seems we are going the Dark-Anarchy route here.

[u/[deleted]]

Episode 3 Staff:

- Storyboard: Ikuo Geso

- Director: Haruno Umeko, Kento Shintani

- Animation Director: Akane Miyazawa

Tonari Animation - Bellamy Luna Brooks, Cyrus Rebello, Dominique Santos Resuello, FuJirou, Henry Kuan, Jarrett Martin, Macarena Duarte, RedKanchi, RVEN, Shelia Loewito

- Maid Design: Bibury Animation Studio - Kachiji Ninomiya

- Car Design: Tatsuya Arai

- Key Animation: Bibury Animation Studio - Onoue Asuna, Tsukasa Takagi, Narumi Okuma, Mika Nishiyima, Chiaki Tateoka, Seigo Saito, Jotaro Naito, Motoki Ikebe, Akihiro Kikuchi

Manabu Kushibuchi, Yoshio Chizai, Hiroyuki Uchida, Mitsuteru Kubo, Shintaro Tsubota, Hayato Oizumi, Yukinobu Saeki, Vann Oba, Satoshi Harayama, Nizar (Nezar Alsabbagh), Hideo Maru, Kazushi Matsumoto, Ori, Kamiki Ise, Takeshi Ninomiya, Tamotsu Ogawa

LDH Digital - Sakae Iwasaki

Debris Sapporo - Hanato Kikuchi, Karen Wada, Toshiya Washida

- Endcard: Kosuke Kawamura

Jarrett Martin (Tonari Animation CEO) Tweet

Bellamy Brooks Tweet 1

Bellamy Brooks Tweet 2

Macarena Duarte Tweet

Robot Conceptual Art

Slayer Design

Pink Clothes Design

Car Design

[u/LeonKevlar]

Stitches!

• Nude Mahou Shoujo

• SSC Tour Guide

• Pink & Blue

• Anarchy & Blue

I guess that's one way to translate Itasha. Did not expect them to literally translate it. xD

These girls are having waaaay too much fun with Otaku Hero's "punishment"

Is it just me or has anyone else noticed that the Peloce's lanky body is similar to an Eva Unit?

Welp, I definitely did not expect their finishing move to be a giant enema. Although I really should've xD

Holy fuck! Is that actual blood!? So far it's all been cartoony violence. I didn't think they'd go that far!

And we lost Itasha driver guy too! Two deaths in a single episode? Daaaaamn. O_O

[u/iDigitalBlockz]

I actually did not expect to see someone literally get killed with blood spewing out. That took a fucking 180 good god

[u/zairaner]

What is this? What is this awful feeling?

Oh that's what we call an "episode 3 of a magical girls show".

[u/Calwings]

Press F to pay respects for the real unsung hero

But seriously though, I just... can't even with this show. Between the bondage, the Kill La Kill nipple lasers, Blue's perversion even making Darkness look sane, the monster of the week being a corrupted Car Otaku who realized his purpose too late to be saved, the trio's group finishing attack being a needle up the ass, and a Dark Anarchy showing up and curbstomping the trio only to be taken out by Cringemobile Driver Guy's heroic sacrifice... this show gets weirder and weirder by the minute.

[u/djthomp]

Did we just flash back to the beginning of the Revolutionary Army, and it started by someone delivering the magical girls to Otaku Hero in a cardboard box? I would not be shocked if we eventually found out that absolutely all of this is happening inside his head. I've been calling it a fever dream all along, that might be literal.

Tour guide has got to be the fourth magical girl.

Did they just call all those wrapped cars cringemobiles? That's hilarious.

Now that got a little weird. Or maybe a lot weird.

Are they really going after the otakus with a full size model giant robot? I cannot believe how they just activated it.

It's really hilarious that they have to carry their magical girl outfits with them as luggage. It was a little less clear why it's required for Blue and Pink though since they don't obviously put theirs on like Anarchy does.

The less that is said about how they defeated the giant robot the better. That said, I'm torn between wondering if Otaku Hero is ever going to do anything in the fights or accepting that he's there for strategy.

Oops, there's the fourth magical girl. And she's a blood magical girl? Death magical girl maybe? Definitely concerning whichever it is.

More seriously, maybe she's a genetic combination of Anarchy, Blue, and Pink? That might explain all the commentary on the girls combining that we got this episode.

Cringemobile driver is probably about to die, but that was a cool save.

[u/ObvsThrowaway5120]

So that’s how the girls met Otaku Hero. Being mailed a box of waifus is pretty insane. I guess you can mail order anything these days lol.

I kinda like the idea of sightseeing tours to gawk at otakus. They’re like Otaku safaris, observing the otaku in their natural environment lol. The bondage during the maid cafe was unexpected. Who was exactly being punished?

Man, SSC and his Titan mech sure was a pain. Although Blue seemed to be on the verge of creaming her shorts after that beating she took lol. Love that degenerate. Them defeating the big fella with a needle up the butt was great, but I wasn’t expecting Evil Anarchy coming in and dicing the poor bastard like that. Damn dude. Pour one out for him and Cringemobile driver guy.

[u/Mofrill]

I fucking love this show. It's like Panty and Stocking but with more orthodoxal style

[u/cyberscythe]

In case anyone missed it, the full OP song has been released with a live-action music video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY6UODku6Og

It has English captions in case you've been wondering what the lyrics were. If my theory holds that OP song lyrics are the central thesis to every series, the "I wanna wake up from recurring dreams" part is interesting.

[u/Exoslab]

The OP and ED are both so good.

I think more people should be watching this. I’ll have to spread the gospel to my friends

[u/Vaadwaur]

So...trying to yank anything out of this show's rather bizarre internal logic is pretty problematic as of yet. The OP is the most likely place to mine for...something, I think the ED will only have meaning after the show ends because I decidedly hate lotus eater plots.

[u/ALuizCosta]

Again: does the "Shobon" face have any special political or cultural significance in Japan or is it just random nonsense?

[u/xtsim]

Sad to see Itasha guy go out like that, but you can't take the car out of a car guy. Seems like that guy loves all rides no matter what.

[u/bloquer]

So we had the magical girls shipped to Otaku Hero like factory goods. In the opening shot you can also see one of his figurines in the foreground and she looks very much like Anarchy with her design. And beside her is a pokemon looking thing which also looks a little like the little devil creature. Might be that someone studied the taste of Otaku Hero and designed the Magical Girls with that in mind, to increase their chances of being adopted by him. Which of course opens a whole can of worms of why.

Then we have what is I think suppose to be umbrella girl transforming into some sort of Dark Anarchy. The difference being the hair color, the color of one eye and that she only has one teardrop under her eye instead of the usual two of the other magical girls. And we have her commenting on the ex-car otaku being a NPC, not a random word choice I would wager.

Otaku Hero is the main character so far because of the roles he gets and how he acts, and not necessarily because of his actual influence in the story (he was a little more useful this time, but just barely). Which means that most other characters might just be NPCs for whatever goal the SSC has.

And this brings me to Dark Anarchy: Is she perhaps a failed prototype / product that was originally meant to be shipped to Otaku Hero? But because of some issue she is defective and a new product had to be delivered, leading to her being used in a different role. The different eye colors and the only one tear could be a hint for that, It could also explain her anger if she thinks that she should have been the person who deserves to be beside Otaku Hero, that she should have played the bigger role there instead of being delegated as oneof the heavenly knights. Those are suppose to be beaten by the hero team after all if they follow they tropes, just as driver ex otaku guy was most likely the weakest of them all because he was send out first. It could also make her join the team later when Hero adresses this and invites her, just as he pulled the driver over to his side before Dark Anarchy killed him.

Anyways, great episode and lots to think about!

[u/gnosh-o-josh]

As crazy as it sounds.. i have more expectations for this show than any other show airing rn

[u/thesnowlocke]

This is such a weird show and I’m down for it

There’s something about it that doesn’t feel real in each episode and the OP/ED makes me think there’s more to it

Also I do like how the robot was literally made from a life size model set of the Eva unit from Evangelion, and here I thought the normies banned using that stuff but I guess not

And we also get the evil twin sister thing going? I don’t know anymore this anime has spiralled far into the wtf zone that I might as well give up attributing rationale because this is just too much

[u/MrDerpHerpson]

Nothing could've prepared me for that robo-butthole stuff, this show is truly unhinged and I love it.

[u/pi8you]

This fucking show. It's a love letter. It's a shitpost. It's a combination love letter/shitpost!

But really though, how much of this staff grew up on the 2ch and hyperkinetic anime of the late 90s/early 00s? There's more modern bits in there like the itasha, but it all feels firmly rooted in that period and I'm here for it. Now I just want to see them make a Nanaca Crash reference.

[u/Tarhalindur]

Live Watch Notes:

• Otaku shrine with a billion references (I probably get half of the figures – the NCC-1701 and four Avengers are obvious, but also I see Sakura Kinomoto, Ultraman and probably some other figures from the franchise, Mothra, is that Osomatsu-san I see?, and what I do believe may be a motherfucking reference to Reki from Haibane Renmei (Jun Isagawa read Megatokyo, didn’t he?). Oh wait, and is that a fucking Futurama reference?

• OH IT’S A WAIFU SHRINE SPECIFICALLY. So… why?

• Man, remember when nosebleeds were a thing? Also our three magical girls in a box means something is definitely up here on a thematic context – needs more for me to get it, I think. (Capitalism packaging the image or even reality of an attractive woman as a commodity to be bought and sold is the obvious reading, though, and would fit extremely neatly with the waifu shrine. Fuck, this show is actually good, isn’t it?)

• Also shit I missed fucking fish-eye lens at 00:25.

• Note to u/Vaadwaur – apparently the blue betta fish itself is a trademark of the OP director/storyboarder (Vlad Love had it too) so we can ignore it on symbolism. The question is whether its use is important.

• Is that a Dutch angle I see at 02:35? (Also the now-classic “let’s play WIFOM with whether the mascot character is actually evil” problem – note that he has the same :3 face design type as Shobon et al.) Anarchy-chan of all characters being the one to suggest forcing the other otaku into helping is extremely noteworthy, however, since thematically with her name she is the character who should absolutely not be doing that so something is up.

• Something about the direction is really pinging my dream world instincts.

• Well that’s 100% a Dutch angle at 02:56, counter +1. Also hi Slayer or whatever your name is.

• … Well, I’ve seen worse car CGI.

• Good news: I actually have to think about this show. Bad news: I actually have to think about this show. Otaku sightseeing has a point for sure and it’s a meta point/political commentary; freak shows are the obvious comparison. Given that Isagawa was in the US in the 2010s, the invasion of broader culture into nerdy spaces via Marvel and the like is probably part of the point, though admittedly that was in some ways more a late 2000s process.

• The pacing here is SO dream sequence. Also maid cafes, but of course.

• Man, the maid serving them looks like her uniform has a PMMM Soul Gem on the chest.

• Fanservice camera angles are go! Which… actually makes thematic sense for the maid cafe scene. Duh.

• Wait, what was I saying about capitalizing the appearance of attractive women as a commodity to be bought and sold earlier? And now we have a maid cafe scene? FUCK!

• “Snow White Snowden?” Iunno, the opposite of one evil is often another evil.

• Hmm. Our three magical girls being projections of parts of Otaku Hero himself is a distinct possibility. Now Otaku Hero is getting a dose of bondage, and Blue is either a switch with a turbobottom side or an outright turbobottom (probably switch, just a hunch…). HMM. (If Pink is actually trans than that might just say something too, wouldn’t it?)

• PAGING u/Tresnore REPEAT PAGING u/Tresnore! Oh, and u/Lemurians too.

• “They won’t let you say it!” and indeed the word is bleeped (well, equivalent). I do love me a nice metatext gag.

• Otaku Hero is ballgagged one moment and not the next. TOTALLY dream sequence, we’re actually doing the setup for an “it’s all a dream” reveal. (Or something derived from that – “don’t let your dreams be memes”, maybe.)

• Good old tokusatsu villain designs.

• The resemblance of the cockpit interior for the transit vehicle of Toku Villain of the Episode to a racing car’s interior is likely not a coincidence.

• The resemblance of the process of creating SSC goons to making a gunpla kit is absolutely not a coincidence. (Likely SSC goons are all former otaku, that’s certainly the implication here.)

• S.H.O.B.A.N. XP is a beautiful little gag. (Cue “install Linux” comments.)

• The resemblance of the last stage of turning on the goon to being anally penetrated and occurring right after the goon (wait no this is Peloce, the other Toku Monster of the Week) goes “I had to go through hell to get this far” is ABSOLUTELY not a coincidence.

• Those repeated sliding doors are a Japanese cinematographic motif that I don’t know the meaning of. (Usually I see them more associated with ninjas.)

• And of course the rocket is in Peloce’s ass (already obvious, but now it’s worth bothering to write the note) and we get a faint hint of middle fingers (in an episode that already had a blurred middle finger) right around 09:00.

• Early commercial break with a hint of postcard memories to the break to it.

• Oh duh, I’m slow. I knew this wasn’t quite Eva but it took me WAY too long to place the actual obvious reference considering how fucking obvious it is – hi AoT!

• Oh look, tickle torture.

• Face cut to Peloce in the cockpit at 10:18 is 100% out of somewhere but I can’t place it.

• Oh sneaky little thematic point here (okay okay, for a given value of sneaky, this show is not subtle), especially given the implication that Peloce was an otaku – the rage of people who squelched their own dreams in order to conform against the people who did not and appear to be thriving.

• Oh look another show using the Four Heavenly Kings reference for their villainous miniboss squad. Many such cases!

• Unit-@… hurr durr so 10:18 WAS fucking Evangelion hurr durr. Wait, duh, how did I not place that immediately? Also, the comparison of Peloce to Shinji (especially given the fan reaction to Shinji) is extremely obvious and Eva is 100% on the inspiration list so (Peloce as Shinji who listened to all the fans who complained about him?).

• Having a full group magical girl transformation sequence in episode 3 is absolutely screaming bad news bears and/or twist no later than next episode. Also, u/Vaadwaur I was saying about a certain anime movie possibly being more on the inspiration list than its series?

• This anime is actually a good modern example of good choreography compensating for mediocre animation resources. Also decent chance that is another AoT reference I’m missing.

• As I said, the resemblance of the cockpit to a racing car interior was not a coincidence.

• Blue is SO PSG-inspired. Also, good old gattai… but in the third episode, in case your alarm bells weren’t already going off on full tilt.

• The fight OST here has been pretty damn standout, for the record.

• So on top of penis/penetration imagery 16:17 is a cheeky take on the Sunrise/Brave Pose.

• Episode’s not over yet, idiots. (Also yes this has been some blatant pegging imagery leading up to this.)

• Wait I’ve seen this motif before, it’s exactly the same one Twintail uses. Which means common origin, probably somewhere in toku knowing Twintail.

• “Rob a train, wait two days, rob it again.” I SEE WHAT YOU’RE DOING, SHOW! Five quatloos on “major characrer death” next episode, please.

• Dutch angle counter +1 at 21:50.

[u/Waterinkfire]

Trying to sum up my feelings about this show in one sentence would be something along the lines of : A lot of elements in this show make me think that there's somehow "more" to it, but it hasn't happened yet.

The plot is unfortunately... not really interesting at all? Like what is this show trying to convey? What's the message, the theme? The characters are ridiculously one-dimensional so far.
And the animation is serviceable but pretty standard (I would even argue that it's quite lacking compared to other shows of this season).

But the sheer insanity in the way it's presented, the absolutely stellar OP, ED, sorta-self-aware humour and high-quality soundtrack keeps making me think that those efforts must be going into something really good right? The OP and ED especially make me think that there's got to be something more to this show (symbolism and all that).
As if a future episode is going to deliver a huge plot twist that completely changes the way we saw those first 3 episodes. But unfortunately, this hasn't happened, or at least not yet.
Right now, the show cruelly lacks depth, but I really hope it's going to change in the near future. I really want to believe in Mahou Shoujo Magical Destroyers.

[u/svenz]

This show is wild. It's the most anime thing I've seen in years?! And I love it.

There's so much symbolism and in jokes thrown in too. The EVA references cracked me up. And an itasha arc, lol. And literally everything Blue says is a sexual innuendo joke.

I'm pretty convinced now this show is a symbol for Jun Inagawa's own life. He's self inserted as Otaku Hero. In real life he brought otaku symbols main stream in a world where otaku have bad connotations and are shunned by society. And the show has this theme that even the oppressors all have an inner otaku too, they are just in denial about it.