Gushing Over Magical Girls

Episode 4

Gushing Over Magical Girls has enacted a reverse "three episode rule" situation. Its opening triad of episodes came across as naught but a hot, sticky wad of nothing that most had noped out of before this point. That leaves only the most titillated (and yours truly) around for this fourth episode. Color me surprised that Gushing Over Magical Girls has, against all odds, actually started becoming about something. This is good news for everyone, least of all me, since I already used up the lion's share of my best fake-outs and pithy gags in that first review. Worry not, dear readers, I'll soldier on somehow.

Now, the show's only showing trace amounts of ideas at this point, and there are still enough issues in its material and presentation that it's hardly risen to the level of "great." That's fine by me; I don't want to become known as "The guy who gave the magical middle-schooler BDSM show more than four stars" (yet). But it's still noticeable that my eyebrows were raised by the end of this episode for reasons different from usual for this series. For one thing, the second segment in this entry actually doesn't end on a ribald punchline of graphic fanservice. Instead, the writing recognizes that it's laid out a potentially compelling mystery, leaving the characters and the audience to sit with it as it finishes. Though maybe that technically counts as some neglect play, I promise you I ain't googling this.

Gushing Over Magical Girl fuels this by focusing more on Tres Magia, specifically their reactions to their dustups with Utena/Baiser. Sayo seems to be going the expected route of "realizing she might be into it," which isn't nothing. Meanwhile, Haruka is still trying to meet her enemy in legitimate combat, finding out how difficult that is. It's tough when your preparations in a barely-disguised hentai series just set you up to mine new fetishes for the viewers (both at home and in the series, if that woman snapping photos of Haruka's pasted-on getup is any indication). But then there's Kaoruko, who is cool enough and, alongside Kiwi, makes me think that the author here miiiiiight have a thing for short, mean, sharp-tongued blonde girls. But Tres Magia's yellow-est member also drives the angle I found most compelling about these inappropriate interactions, mainly because her thoughts lined up rather neatly with my own.

See, early on in this episode, I clocked a unique element of the setup of this anime (I mean apart from *gestures*), which is that the magical girls and the villains don't really do anything apart from confront one another. Utena and Kiwi haven't attacked any civilians or enacted any plans against the town—they've just antagonized Tres Magia, who seems to exist entirely to show off in battles against their enemies. The whole thing is less akin to the earnest, plot-based setup of a proper magical girl show and more like professional wrestling. Complete with trash-talk between rounds of combat.

This is key to Kaoruko's perception as she's ever-so-slightly questioning the group's magical mascot managing the squad more like a local idol group than a team of peace-preserving do-gooders. It's even indicated that the already-sus little critter is promoting other teams of mahou shoujo nationwide. This episode also recalls attention to the officially produced merch Tres Magia hawks (of which Utena owns plenty, natch), which…seems a bit odd, in context, even alongside the show's pastiche elements. It plays into the possibility of my earlier jokey theorizing that the whole magical melee happening was just elaborate roleplay that might have a kernel of truth to it. However, it turns out, it makes apparent that Gushing at least won't be riding on raw fanservice for its entire run.

Not to gush too much just because the show had an element that prompted that many paragraphs out of me. Rest assured that the flavors of the rest of these Gushers are still of the expected variety. While I can conceptually be impressed by the show's dedication to depicting a variety of fetishes instead of defaulting to the well-known tied-up standbys, I think the animators put more energy into rendering Magia Magenta's indecent new outfit than they did animating her actual fight with Baiser. The same goes for the second half's battle, though I don't know where else I'm expecting this series to allocate its priorities by this point. But among all that wet, sloppy, "whatever," I've at least found something sizable I can lovingly grip onto in this show, though we'll see if it can hold out that long.

Rating:

I hope you all enjoyed my little joke with the bonus image last week. Fear not, though, as I know exactly why you're all here. For all those searching for "that" kind of uncensored material in these write-ups, I'm happy to oblige you with a bonus review image.

Gushing Over Magical Girls is currently streaming on HIDIVE.

Chris is hoping that following this series at the same time he's keeping up with Precure won't result in him being put on a special list. Please direct any call-out posts to his increasingly decaying Twitter, or whip him into writing more quality material for his blog.