ivon - 2017-03-21 22:49:11

Again, we encounter a series when the characters are being drawn into the realm of the game. A magical girl game this time. They play a magical girls game and the coordinator there, named Fav (the mascot of the game), decides to turn them as real magical girls if they meet the needs or requirement from the company, then force them to stay as magical girls. They still can transform back to their human form and living ordinary life, but they must do their jobs as magical girls to help people in order to gain ‘candy’ (somewhat like points) for their rank. It is later becoming bloody fights as the game obligates them to not being in the lowest rank, or else they will be removed, both in real life and game.

The amount of bloodshed is escalating quickly right after new rules posted. The wickedness in some characters push forward the story as it should be. They begin to try any attempt to keep surviving. Magical girls figure got stained here. I don’t know why but I felt like watching the opposite of Maleficent movie. Maleficent is a dark themed movie and actually she is a good protagonist there, whereas Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku is using luminous figure of magical girls and stain that popularity. I don’t even know whether I should believe in magical girls later or not lol Magical girls are killing other magical girls. They’re “killing” them for sure. Don’t ask to me how many of them die here ( ´•̥̥̥ω•̥̥̥` )
P.S.: If you’re not ready to see them die, take your leave of this one. It’s not a spoiler, you’ll see them die within 2 or 3 episodes.

The new rules, which is already planned from the game, is not the only update. Other options unlock as their life at stake. For sure, those options make them even more stressful and forcibly make them more aggressive towards other magical girls. Well-framed fights, sometimes we find them not fighting and a few died (watch it by yourself) by others’ deeds. The coup de grâce happens here is softcore gore. I like it that way, they don’t hide it in a weird way like changing blood color or minimizing the blood splash. They cover up the gore parts if needed only, and it’s replaced with appropriate precision from different angles.
I like even simple thing they did to the girls. They put on girly things make them look more lively like putting on nail polish, eyeshadow, and lipstick for some characters.

The uniqueness of each character is shown by their characters design in appearance, they resemble different kind of individuality. It’s making them taste different and pleasing. The difference also applies on their abilities. Some with beneficial ability in combat and some not which is rather unfair. But looking at their characters once more, yeah they are being gifted suitable ability for them based on their real life. The character development is shallow. Every piece of them got their own time to show up and be in battlefield, some with much development because they can survive and we know more about them, but some vanish. The major changes sometimes there, sometimes not. Their depressing grown-up by the game is done well. With no other option, they must follow the rules to survive that affects them psychologically.

The OP has upper beat than the ED by nano but nothing special. It doesn’t seem apt with the anime. Why don’t make it more deathly like the anime itself? It is sung by Manami Numakura “Sakebe (叫べ)” [Full version]. The ED is sung by nano, one of my favorite female singers ever with her “DREAMCATCHER”. OMG last year she finally took off his mask /stahp/ People know her face already that she tried to hide before. This DREAMCATCHER doesn’t have the thumping beat like her previous songs. The ED’s title put in the word ‘dream’, kinda sad to remain Nemurin, the lovely character there. The sequence of ED scenes are more relatable to the anime than its OP [anime ver].

In the introduction phase, the purpose of this story is successfully hidden. I thought it was just another mahou shoujo, but yeah I did wonder why it felt so dark and not juicy like other mahou shoujo series. Far from typical moe mahou shoujo series. I interested to any kind of series which takes a side route lol I’m crestfallen because of witnessing my fav character here is died tragically. I give it 3.5.
Pros:
Art, of course
Enjoyment
Cons:
Lolis’ death moments. I don’t mind with the sad parts but.. sometimes I felt the death is unnecessary here or just too foolish to happen with such rationality. (FYI, I’m not fond of happy ending or sad ending, I’m neutral in which if the ending is corresponding with the story and characters personality who decide it, then it’s good to go. Forcefully making it good or bad is a big no-no.)
Poor character development …and ending (why Snow White why ┐(´ｰ｀)┌).

wschaefer - 2017-02-03 03:15:24

Mahou Shoujou Ikusei Keikaku is an okay show that had the potential to be good, featuring some amazing character designs and decent animation (though almost never where it counts). The premise itself, a magical girl battle-royale, while not terribly original, isn’t necessarily cliche, either, and there are enough moments of unpredictability to ensure it stays that way.
Still, with only 12 episodes and around 15 characters to introduce, provide backstory for, and kill off, the pacing feels rushed at best. There’s barely any time to grow attached to (or even care about remotely) most of the characters before they’re killed off. The pacing is also all over the place, with a few episodes almost feeling like filler immediately before several characters die within 5 minutes of each other. This could work if the show made any attempts to create atmosphere, but it doesn’t, so it’s jarring and a little annoying instead.
This is not to say it was a bad show. I mostly enjoyed it, and the end didn’t feel cheap like a certain other oddly paced dark magical girl show cough Yuuki Yuuna cough. It managed to remain fairly unpredictable, and its inclusion of different types of magical girls was actually pretty cool. Just don’t go in expecting a masterpiece.

dennis24 - 2016-12-21 21:13:26

It annoys me when people try and compare Madoka Magica and this show because it’s an injustice to Madoka Magica. Madoca Magica was a deconstruction of the magical girl genre in anime and never initially labeled itself as a dark show. Ikusei KeiKaku does not try and label itself as just another magical girl show. It lets you know that it’s dark within the first couple of minutes of the show, but tries to surprise you a few episodes later by saying “Hey Look We just did something messed up! Gotcha right?”
No.
We all knew what we were getting into and your few episodes of doing nothing and making it seem like every other magical girl show did nothing but waste our time.

Anyways, lets move on to the meat of this show.

Characters:

The characters were weak in this show and had little to no depth and are easily forgettable. Also, there is hardly any development with the main character. The side characters were more developed then the main one. Also, character motivations make no sense at times(some do though). So in short, theres nothing good here.

Music:

Nothing rememberable from the OST. Pretty average stuff, but I enjoyed the ED because I’m just a NANO fan haha.

Art:

Nothing really wrong but nothing spectacular. Some of the fight scenes were entertaining and they did a fine job with it overall. It’s really hard to be picky about art nowadays unless you really want to be picky about a certain scene, which I’m not that pretentious. However, some shows still will fail in this category.

Plot:

Ehh It starts to make less and less sense why this is all happening as the story progresses, but I do enjoy battle royales and it did deliver on that front. There’s also a lot of shock factor so if that’s your thing you’ll probably like it. It’s pretty predictable though if you’ve been watching anime for a while though. Also, this show tries way too hard to be dark. Like we get it ok? You’re only ruining the show by trying to be extra edgy.

Overall, the show isn’t very good and easily forgettable, but I couldn’t help but watch because it’s just cheap entertainment. I enjoyed watching the mass amounts of bloodshed and the fight scenes. It’s not the worst show on the planet, but not something you ever need to watch. If your bored and feel like digging up some shit from your toilet and eating it. I recommend this 2.5 star meal.

roslyn25 - 2016-12-20 19:20:31

While a lot of people wrote this show off as being a worse Madoka, I say it had some very strong emotional moments near the ending. Furthermore, most of the cast are very relatable and feel real. Unfortunately, it suffers from having a terrible MC and a weak ending.

friesen.major - 2016-12-18 07:23:51

Every season has those average shows that nobody will remember after it airs. This is one of those shows.

First things first, if you expect something that has some depth like Madoka, don’t watch this. If you’re still interested then read on. Review will contain some spoilers, but I believe not enough to warrant the spoiler tag. This is also my first review of anything ever, so keep that in mind. Overall, I just hope this is a casual review for a casual reviewer. If you want something more in-depth check MAL or some website.

Story:
This show is Battle Royale, or “Hunger Games”. At first they collect “candies” to figure out who’s the best magical girl for the week. The person in last place is revoked of their magical girl powers, because there can only be so many at a time. However, they soon learn whoever is last place dies. Eventually collecting candies becomes irrelevant, because as long as someone dies they still get to live, for that matter.

It uses “cute” magical girls as “shock value”, but it’s really just another action anime. It also has a fair amount of gore, take that as you will. It sometimes got “2edgy4me”, but nothing too crazy. That is with me ignoring the “cute girls doing violent things” though.

The premise is what hooked me in, but the way it was executed was decent at best. After a few episodes I began to realize the show has very bad foreshadowing issues. Because of this it’s much more predictable that it already is. The pacing, personally, felt a bit too fast and wonky at times. Fights would come out of seemingly nowhere sometimes, and subplots in episodes felt crammed sometimes. Also, some deaths were either very “anticlimactic” or just played as shock value. Despite this it was a pretty fun ride, like riding on a kid roller coaster for fun as an adult fun.

As a side note one thing that bugged me a little was the inconsistency with the character’s durability. One dies by simply smashing their head against the wall, okay fair enough. However, another character gets smashed all over the place and only comes out bleeding. Granted it was a fair amount, but what?

Characters:
Nothing special, they’re all some kind of trope, so that’s up to you what you think of that. Their backstories also aren’t that great. A brief flash back or two is all you get to get attached to most of the characters. The show also tries to force you to sympathize with the characters. Which I did for a few of them, but admittedly it is forced.

Art:
I personally liked the design of the characters, Magicaloid 44 and Nemurin being my favorites. They’re not entirely original, but most of them I thought were pretty cute. Top Speed, for example, is a simple little witch with nothing to really critique or praise. I’m just a sucker for moe in general, and well aware it’s a love it or hate it thing. What I didn’t like was some of the skimpier character designs, common in anime these days, like Ripple. I give Calamity Mary a pass because “skimpy cowgirl dominatrix” is her motif. Ripple, on the other hand, is skimpy for no real reason.

Backgrounds vary, they’re nothing special but they’re decent. It can get dull sometimes, since most of the time they’re dimly lit streets, but I personally don’t care too much for these things. Every now and then there’s an above average still frame of the night sky or something.

The animation is adequate, nothing amazing, but nothing too horrible. Sometimes a character in the distance looks bad. However, it didn’t bother me too much because it’s usually for a second or two. If things like this bother you then don’t watch it. The action is also a mix bag, some fights are pretty cool others are like watching 10 year olds play sword fight.

Sound:
The background ost is nothing too memorable or noteworthy, but it does its job. Although it kinda gets repetitive at times.

Voice acting seemed fine, nobody seemed out of character, and they fit their tropes well.

I really liked the OP, it’s very catchy and upbeat. I also like the ED, but there’s a part or two I don’t like. From a “What makes an anime OP?” perspective, I’d say it does an adequate job as a typical OP. It shows you the characters, out of context fight scenes that may or may not actually happen, reaching out of the hand, etc. The ED in terms of cinematics, though simple, also does an adequate job as an ED. It serves its purpose of showing the characters, and some sort of metaphor for blossoming hope via a plant in a pot. All of it being tied together with a fitting song. I’m not a music expert, so I can’t say much about the songs in-depth.

Conclusion:
I enjoyed it a decent amount, then again I’m easy to entertain. Was it good? Hell no, but I thought it was decent and I enjoyed it. It was wasted potential and left a lot to be desired, but if you’re interested and/or a “casual” viewer check this one out.