Winter 2019 First Impressions – Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka

Three years ago, alien invaders ravaged the Earth–until they were defeated by a group of young women blessed with powers from a mysterious source. The girls went back to their normal lives after vanquishing the ghastly monsters, but that time of peace is about to end. The same malevolent creatures have resurfaced, which means it’s time for the Magical Girl Special Ops force to head back to the battlefront and defend mankind. – ANN

Streaming: Crunchyroll and Funimation

Episodes: TBA

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: Three years ago, alien life forms called Disas invaded Earth. An alliance was formed with a galactic entity, and magical girls (girls with the ability to join with spirits) became the planet’s best hope of defending against the alien menace. Asuka was one such magical girl whose efforts help to thwart the enemy. Though she’s left her fighting life behind she still feels the mental and emotional aftermath of the terrible experiences she had during battle.

High school is a different environment entirely, and while Asuka doesn’t quite fit in among her peers, she does eventually make a couple of friends who choose to help Asuka engage with her physicality (through track) and enjoyment of reading (through the literature club). Even when talks of re-forming a magical military squad start to trickle down to her, Asuka is adamant about living and enjoying this new, normal life – until a terrorist attack puts one of her new friends in harm’s way. The Disas may be long gone, but the world is still filled with crime, war, terrorism, and hatred; Asuka may have discovered a purpose worthy of bringing her out of retirement.

Impressions: Content Warning: This episode contains violence and some gory imagery, including gun violence and dismemberment.

After Madoka Magica came and went I discovered that my taste for dark, hardened magical girl entertainment disappeared along with it. While Madoka‘s highs and lows were at least in service to a narrative goal, copycats seemed content to feature emotional torture and violence for shock value without making them meaningful through strong, purposeful storytelling. I was ready to dismiss Asuka as yet another series in that vein, torturing its young characters in pursuit of edginess. While I can’t say for certain that the series won’t devolve into gratuitousness for its own sake, the first episode impressed me much more than I would have expected.

Asuka is an interesting character. She’s young, and she’s been through some tough experiences – learning that her parents were murdered in a grisly way and watching her comrades perish in battle, likely among many other horrors that children should never have to deal with. I find that it’s common for series with darker, horrific content to feature that content as an asset without addressing the aftermaths of the characters who are affected by it. They often bank on cheap shock value without doing the legwork to show why it’s necessary to the story being told. When we meet Asuka, she’s actually living in that aftermath and doing what she can to cope with it.

This episode does an especially good job, I think, of giving the audience a taste of what PTSD can be like. Though I’ve never been in the military and faced the prospect of a violent death, I have had traumatic experiences that sometimes resurface in my psyche in unexpected ways. Sometimes it’s a sound or a smell that suddenly recalls a long-buried traumatic memory. Sometimes it’s just an intrusive thought that comes to mind unexpectedly when I’m exhausted or feeling unwell in some other way. But just the act of going about my day can occasionally bring me back to a traumatic time and place – it’s sudden, unwanted, and it takes a lot of work to develop tools to cope with it.

I found myself actively upset during a scene early in the episode where Asuka sees a young child asking for a balloon from a mascot character. The cute costume resembles some of the Disas aliens, and Asuka has an intrusive thought of such a creature murdering the child. She knows that this isn’t something that’s happening, but the emotional effects of the thought are realistic to the point that I had a sympathetic reaction. This might not ring true for everyone, even those with trauma in their pasts; everyone’s experiences are different. For me, though, Asuka’s unexpected flash of violent half-memory felt very visceral and real.

I think the look of the series is sort of an interesting aspect that I haven’t quite settled into one way or the other. Overall the episode is pretty average-looking, with mid-tier animation quality and standard character designs. The magical girl costume designs are an interesting mix of anime character excess and military functionality that fits the story and aesthetic pretty well. I did notice an underlying hyper-focus on larger chest sizes and while that alone isn’t really a problem, Asuka’s costume in particular exemplifies the misunderstanding many designers seem to have regarding how breasts fit into and interact with clothing. It’s one of those “comes with the territory” sort of things that I feel like most people don’t notice anymore (or if they do it isn’t a problem to them), but to me it still distracts from other aspects of some scenes.

I have a litmus test that I rely on sometimes when I’m feeling conflicted about character representation. To elaborate, the issue in this case is not so much how I view Asuka; despite her being presented as a Strong Female Character™ who can beat the crap out enemies wearing a sexy/mildly fetishy outfit, I actually think her characterization and backstory is interesting. Rather, it’s more focused around how the creators and the narrative seem to view her, and whether my perception and the anime’s perception are likely to be at war the entire time I’m watching (which is frustrating, tiresome, and not very fun). The litmus test is basically “what do we see while the character is fighting (or in a less action-oriented series, going about their day)?” Is the camera focused on the character’s body and positioned in a way that their cleavage, underwear, or other faceless body parts are featured? Or is the focus on the whole character, what they’re doing, and the results of their actions? Do we see their face when they’re talking, or is it all cheesecake imagery? At least throughout this episode, the answer seems to be that Asuka’s visual representation is a good match for the seriousness of the story and the violent actions that occur. Obviously your mileage (and tolerance level) may vary.

I described this episode to a friend of mine as “anime junk-food” and while that’s not entirely accurate, I think it does a decent job of capturing the mish-mash of very good and mediocre aspects of this opening episode. The representation of PTSD is better than most, the action is pretty fun, the protagonist is interesting enough to avoid certain criticisms that might be levied against less-successful incarnations, and it seems like a more interesting twist on the typical gore-nography and existential suffering that’s come to define the dark magical girl genre in the last 6 or 7 years. It doesn’t, however, look the prettiest and the costumes have their… issues, but overall I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this episode. It was the kind thing I needed to see after having a rough week.

Pros: The episode presents a decent representation of PTSD. Thus far it doesn’t seem to entirely subscribe to the “being meguca is suffering” school of dark magical girl storytelling. Fun (if gory) action.

Cons: The overall visual package is fairly mediocre. Asuka’s costume doesn’t really obey boob physics.

Grade: B-