![]() However, the rise of magical crime forces Asuka to take the mantle of a magical girl once more.Ĭlassification: Human, Magical Girl, Spec-Ops Operative, former leader of the Magical Five Now, 3 years after said battle, Asuka has retired from being a magical girl and struggles to live a normal life. Holding the codename Rupture, Asuka was the leader of the Magical Five, the 5 surviving magical girls who defeated the king of the magic beasts during the final battle of the war. Her wish came true when she was one of the 11 girls chosen to become magical girls to fight in what would later be called the Distonia War against the invading magical beast from the Spirit World. Asuka had wished since she was little to become a magical girl. If you dare to commit evil in places where my hands can reach, then be prepared to take the price.Īsuka Otori is the main character of Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka. Then there’s the transitions between these moments and the moments that fall completely flat, and the end result is a mixed viewing experience to say the least.My claws can slice anything to pieces. There are definitely character moments where you really feel the writer just got inside the head of the character and conveyed them perfectly and there are action sequences that very nicely put together. Some things and some scenes Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka gets spot on. ![]() ![]() The problem is, Spec-Ops can’t really handle Asuka’s emotional journey, plus delving into the emotional status of the other magical girls, look into the impact of tragedy on Asuka’s human friends, and deal with the reignited war as well as the various politics between worlds in the 12 episodes it has and it doesn’t actually balance these elements particularly well.ĭon’t get me wrong. The enemy are goofy looking but incredibly deadly and the juxtaposition really adds to the tragic feeling this series seems to be going for. The enemy? Creatures called Disas who take the form of walking plush toys and yet are incredibly nasty and hard to take down. Instead, after establishing this premise the anime immediately feels the need to disrupt Asuka’s life again by having the enemy return and attack Japan. You know, if the series had focused on that point and actually looked at her ongoing struggle and transition this would have been a much better story. No, this is not how you deal with matters as a civilian Asuka. Obviously things aren’t all sunshine and roses for her and she’s very much suffering from PTSD and struggling to make the adjustment back to civilian life. Asuka’s family were tortured and killed, her friends died, and she fought in a war when she was a very young girl. For once we see the toll on young girls of being thrust into such difficult and dark situations. We are following Asuka, who has chosen to return to a ‘normal’ life though she’s carrying around a lot of emotional baggage from her time as a magical girl. The series begins with the end of a magical war and then our surviving magical girls go their own ways. Fortunately, Spec-Ops takes a different approach and in theory it has a fairly solid idea. Even before Madoka they existed and after Madoka they flourished giving us a range of hit and miss stories of deranged magical girls fighting each other for various contrived purposes. If ever a title deserved the dubious honour of being celebrated for its concept but questioned about its execution, Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka is definitely one of the top contenders.
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