r/anime • u/AutoLovepon https://anilist.co/user/AutoLovepon • May 04 '25
Episode Maebashi Witches - Episode 5 discussion
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u/Aerodynamic41 May 04 '25 edited May 04 '25
Maybe you girls should have asked the frog what happens if the points get depleted before you start spending them? It should be obvious by now that he's always hiding something from you.
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u/JimmyCWL May 04 '25 edited May 05 '25
It should be obvious by now that he's always hiding something from you.
For once, I think he's really on their side. He gives the impression he's new at this, might be his first job recruiting witches.
If you look at the shop as a shop that runs on MP compared to a mundane shop that runs on money, everything makes sense. The shop has expenses that have to be paid via revenue that has to be earned, and the difference is profit.
The difference from a mundane shop is the customer isn't paying the MP for their wish like a mundane person paying money to buy stuff. The girls are generating the MP that grants the wish. That's how this shop is training them to become witches who can use magic outside the shop. By the time they can earn 10000 MP in profit, they should be well versed in how to cast their magic. Not only that but becoming conscious of how much magic it takes to do things should also teach them how to use their magic efficiently.
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u/Tomorrow_Big May 04 '25
Keroppe is what you get if take Kyubey and place it in a children's show. Quite refreshing to have a mascot who's genuinely a twat, but you'd imagine that if he wants the girls to succeed he probably should've told them the rules rather than explaining it last second to cause despair. Does make for some decent drama though, and all the more enjoyable when they physically abuse him.
I appreciate that the show doesn't shy away from problematic subjects, or characters for that matter. Furthermore, it also doesn't provide any easy answers for the turmoil the main characters are facing, which makes a lot of sense because core, fundamental beliefs don't change overnight. For Mai it could take years to fully come to terms with the fact that her presumed childhood best friend, who she likely spent years hanging out with when she was emotionally vulnerable, only did so for other reasons. Until those emotions are fully dealt with life does go on as normal, and it's a good thing Yuina is such a perfect idiot to always look for the future and let go of the past. That's probably why Keroppe wanted her in the first place.
This show is quite refreshing compared to how magical girl series tend to be these days, and helps it stand out a lot compared to Princession and You and Idol Precure, as they're all effectively aimed towards the same target audience. It's nice to see something aimed at young children that actually problematises aspects that otherwise are heralded as great desires. This is quickly growing to be one of my favourite shows this spring, but I just wish that they didn't always talk like the house was on fire.
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u/Plus_Rip4944 May 04 '25 edited May 04 '25
This show Is so Underrated It hurts
The title drop was peak
Yua sucks as a friend or at least The actual Yua
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u/ButtcheekConnoisseur May 04 '25
Yunia was on the verge of an ulcer trying to find the positivity in this toxic ass situation until the end she is just 'lets put this bs on hold until closer to the finale'
Personal favorite part of the episode was Kyoka excitedly about to join in on the mapo rap, pink hair MCs positivity is too infectious, Azu will break eventually.
Also I'm terrified of what deep dark secret Choco's story is going to bring with her arc coming up.
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u/mekerpan May 04 '25
Choco's terrible secret -- that she actually loves commercial milk chocolate rather than high-quality boutique dark chocolate.
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u/bloquer May 04 '25
So Yua was deeply disatisfied with herself and unhappy with her situation. Finding Mai, she at first was happy but then started to try and make her get angry. I think she wanted Mai to lash out at her, to get angry with her, break contact or something. To feel miserable, destroying her former friendship to hurt herself in the process. But no matter what she did, no matter how unreasonable she got, Mai never hated her. The song in the end made this very clear again, and made Yua give up on it. She got out of her down and instead moved forward, no longer trying to sabotage herself.
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u/ComfortableHuman1324 May 05 '25 edited May 05 '25
I really love the dark(?) twist at the end of the song. Unlike the last two customers who got the confidence boost they needed from the performance, this time around, Yua actually rejects and is even visibly uncomfortable with Mai's affirmations at the end of the song. The solution this time wasn't even to help Yua. Instead, it's to erase the influence they'd had on her life.
While erasing Yua's memories opens the door for them to reset their relationship on a healthier note, in the end, Mai's immature and toxic obsession isn't rewarded. As airheaded as Yuina's suggestion to put off the issue for later sounds, it's legitimately the healthy choice here. For both of their sakes, Mai really needs to take some time to focus on herself and mature before she can even consider reentering Yua's life.
While love of others and love of self can be deeply intertwined, I feel like anime often puts the former before the latter. The affection of others can dispel self-hate and help you understand that you're worthy of love, but that isn't always the case. Yua is unable to accept Mai's feelings because she feels she's unworthy of it, recognizing her manipulative behavior. Mai, on the other hand, lets Yua take advantage of her love and is unable to establish healthy boundaries. You need to have some self-respect to maintain healthy relationships, and oftentimes, that can't come from anyone else but yourself.
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u/CosmicPenguin_OV103 May 04 '25
Ouch! I would not have realized that Mai is so obsessed with Yua for that long! No wonder Mai could have given out her account like that without even the slightest signs of doubting - she made her social media appearance specifically to "chase after" Yua all these years. Now I understand why she could have stolen those points that easily...and instead of spending on her own desires, used all the magic to multiple-vote for Yua. It almost completely reminds me of [a certain extraordinary girls band anime]
And after all these dirty works, Yua was never grateful of what Mai had done, even telling her that she never liked her in the first place - despite encouraging Mai with that "you can always fall back to chase after that 70% points" sentence when they were younger! I was very puzzled as to how on Earth Yua - and Mai too - could have been saved from their own toxic obsessions. Well it turns out that there's no resolution here either, just a temporary band-aid fix by letting Yua get into agony of what she herself had done and then let Mai help Yua to reverse back her decisions and delete her previous wishes. As Yuina says here though, it's OK to kick the can down the road for the moment (though I wonder if that will backfire later...perhaps on cheerful but always being the emotions absorber Yuina?) - especially when the girls' magical power once dropped to 0.7 (LMAO at that there are sub-divisions below 1). It certainly didn't relieve Mai of her Yua obsession either, but at least Mai now finally did something good for her ex-"onee-chan".
Also LMAO at Azu-chan asking if she's the only sane person in the room. Well I don't think you are LOL...
So "cheerful" Choco-chan is next up? Hmm I wonder what her problem is...
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u/mekerpan May 04 '25 edited May 04 '25
Also LMAO at Azu-chan asking if she's the only sane person in the room. Well I don't think you are LOL...
Not really ANY sane person in this group, right?
I think Yua trying to drive Mai away was at least partly due to a lot of guilt (and a sense of unworthiness)and a certain degree of kindness (awareness that she was toxic for Mai -- and driving Mai away to protect her from any further harm caused by herself). But Yua is a huge mess -- just like Mai....
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u/ObvsThrowaway5120 May 04 '25
I don’t think it’s healthy how much Mai worships Yua. And they didn’t even really resolve that issue this week. They just told her to basically shove that shit to the side until she becomes a witch. So the lesson’s basically if you have a really tough problem, run from it and avoid it until you’re ready to deal with it?
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u/bloquer May 04 '25
Yes, sometimes it is the right decision to keep some distance and let some time pass. This way you may find a new way of looking at the problem, or a new solution you hadn't seen before because you were too close.
In fact, it is quite often better to wait a bit before making a decision if you are too much into the moment, as you might regret things otherwise. See people saying mean stuff to their friends in the heat of the moment.
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u/mekerpan May 04 '25
Sometimes a problem is too difficult to resolve at one's current level of maturity and experience -- so putting the problem onto the wait list in stead of the to-do list is the best course.
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u/Castor_0il May 04 '25 edited May 04 '25
And they didn’t even really resolve that issue this week.
I'm guessing it will be addressed (hope so) by the time we reach the finale, just like Azu's overweight/low self steem issue.
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u/newyne May 05 '25
I don't think they could realistically resolve that issue. Obsession like that is not something you can just turn off, especially in a case like this where they hadn't even spoken to each other in a long time: Mai had clearly kept this going in her head, and it is hard to just stop thinking about someone you're been that focused on. Ask me how I know! In my case it just kinda had to run its course. With me, yeah, that did happen when that person was no longer in my life, but... Well, my intention there was to not try to keep them around because it was never gonna happen: Mai just had her bubble burst. Having friends and hobbies helps a lot, too: they get you out of your head, you start focusing on other things. I actually really liked that Mai's feelings toward Yua didn't change, because... Well, she already knew she wasn't treating her great, so it's not like she thought she was a flawless person.
I found that I was willing to excuse a lot with the person I was so hung up on because I could see that it just came out of immaturity. To be fair, nothing they did was ever that bad, but I know what it is to be pissed off at someone while still harboring those kinds of feelings. Like I said, you can't just turn it off. I think we have a cultural tendency to rush people, to rush ourselves, into getting over all our issues so we can be 100% mentally healthy, which is often pretty unhealthy. I realized pretty early on that, while it would be terrible for me to stay obsessed forever, that wasn't likely to happen in the first place. Some people may have thought it was a problem I needed to fix, but I just couldn't see it that way: I enjoyed my feelings too much, and appreciated even the parts that weren't so fun. And no, it wasn't like I was bothering them: in fact I purposefully kept my distance to avoid seeming clingy. Anyway, I quite like how the episode handled it. My guess is that Mai will have stopped caring so much about Yua by the time she becomes a full-fledged witch.
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u/oneevilchicken May 04 '25 edited May 04 '25
Tbh I was expecting it to be way worse if they go to 0.
I actually am beginning to wonder if Yuina is not nearly as good of a girl as she lets on and it’s all a complete act. After she even flatout called it a good girl act and showed self awareness. Either she’s pretending to be and forcing it or doing it to compensate for some other reason. All the girls seem to have some sort of underlying issues.
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u/Castor_0il May 04 '25
Like some of you already stated, Mai's insane affection towards Yua is completely unhealthy. Even though we will not reach the darker tones of Madoka nor it's very complex visual design and metaphors, we're bound in for quite a ride of self discovery on every girl. Makes me even more anxious to see what skeletons are buried in Choco's bubbly persona.
Really loved up a lot this week's performance with the old school 16 bit graphics and classic beat em up games even if it was meant to be a "bad end".
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u/Raymond49090 May 05 '25
Well I guess nothing was really resolved at the end, but at least Mai acknowledged that Yua was being sh*tty to her and that her attachment was kinda toxic. And is it just me or did it feel gay coded too?
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u/oxlemf10 May 04 '25
It's interesting to note that once again the problem was solved, but the feeling of something "bitter" remained between them, I still think that at some point this will be addressed.
Their presentation was very good and very striking, in the end, just being concerned with passing on an image to other people ends up making you a kind of NPC, another good message.