Magical Girl Site, episode 1, “Magical Girl Site.” Directed by Tadahito Matsubayashi. Starring Yuko Ono, Himika Akaneya, and Aina Suzuki. Production DoA, 2018. 22 minutes. Not rated.
Available on Amazon Prime.
Speaking only for myself, I’m ready for the “dark” fad in magical girl anime to end. It’s been seven years now, guys.
Magical Girl Site is a twelve-episode anime series that came out this year and made a name for itself as one of the gruesomest and most depressing shows to appear during its season. The title has come up a few times during the controversy over the current (as of this writing) series Goblin Slayer, so I thought, given that I just recently finished up Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS, now would be a good time to give Magical Girl Site a look-see. I doubt I’ll write an individual review for every single episode, but having watched the first, I wanted to put down some preliminary thoughts.
My initial impression is similar to my initial impression of Magical Girl Raising Project: that is to say, not very positive.
This anime is based on a manga by Kentaro Sato. Although I have not read the manga, I have read Sato-sensei’s other major title, Magical Girl Apocalypse, which is a genre mashup of magical girls and zombie survival horror—and of which Magical Girl Site is usually described as a spin-off. If Magical Girl Site is similar to its predecessor, then we can expect a lot of blood and guts, a lot of tasteless humor, a lot of cringey fanservice, and a regular round of violence and sexual assault approaching the level of torture porn.
