On the Reveal in Magical Girl Raising Project Episode 10

Warning: Contains spoilers!

A lot of things happened in the last episode of Magical Girl Raising Project, but I’m going to be focusing on the big reveal at the end. Both Cranberry and Fav are from the World of Magic, with Cranberry in charge of the selection exam aimed at finding talent from the human world to bring to the magical girl world. At this point in the game, it looks like the folks from the World of Magic really did have good intentions, and never meant to incur violence amongst the girls. Most likely, the Magical Candies competition was their idea. Now, it’s come to, well, this. Cranberry and Fav are lying to the administrators so that they don’t find out what’s going on.

So, it turns out, Cranberry’s been twisting the rules according to her own, twisted machinations. The bloodbath, the murders? All her doing. The World of Magic doesn’t want to interfere with the human world that much.

I initially thought this reveal was lackluster, and still do to a lesser extent. With a reveal like that, it felt as if all of the deaths really didn’t have any purpose whatsoever, save for the amusement and bloodlust of one specific higher being amongst probably many more. Said higher being was one that, I might add, was only concerned about who the strongest person was, beat-em-up speaking, from the beginning, and nothing else.

At the moment, I don’t feel very satisfied at all. This is a storyline that’s been used to great effect time and time again, but right now the series feels like it’s winking. Sort of like, yes, you should have taken all of the events as literally as possible, even though you were hoping a different revelation was forthcoming. Magical candies? Definitely the plan before. When Cranberry said she was vying for the strongest person? That’s definitely her changing it. Don’t think too hard, because what’s actually happening is what’s actually happening.

I’m invested, and still strangely have some hope. One of the strengths of this anime is the way it keeps its viewers guessing. Surely something has catalyzed Cranberry’s ways of thinking. There are some more secrets in store for us, and I hope Cranberry’s past will reveal the answer.

Ironic consequences

Right now, we’re closing in on two girls/sets of girls: the girls that Cranberry wants (the strongest), versus the girls that the other people from the World of Magic want (the uh, most conventional magical girl?) Snow White would have been the #1 pick, and ironically she may find herself as a chosen magical girl even though she’s probably one of the weakest.

An alternative reality, another series

Let’s say the girls had just gone on with their magical candies competition, transforming the series into a boring and happy-go-lucky anime with a very clear winner from the get-go. The selection of girls may have been very different if that were the case—imagine 12 super helpful and nice people trying to see who’s the nicest and most helpful of them all. That would make for a very passive-aggressive comedy series, I guess! I’m also assuming that the no-interference rule means that none of the girls were supposed to die, and though that hasn’t been confirmed yet, the girls would just go back to leading normal lives.

Without all the twists, including this one, the admins of the project would probably be very bored indeed.

A winner who doesn’t want to win

I’m curious as to what the winner(s) will win after all of this, given that we’ve finally confirmed there’s another world at stake, and given that the girls were all just sorta forced into this contest in the first place. Getting whisked away to another world that they don’t even want to go to? Serving as ambassador for said world that they don’t want to go to?

Actually, that last part might lead to some pretty traumatic consequences. Hm. I wonder if it’s related to Cranberry. Too much speculation.