muffinrecord

[muffinrecord]

Magia Exedra has been delayed to Spring 2025

More news on the game will be released on November 27

[muffinrecord]

Also I'm a little harsh on Magia Record's storyline being a little... soft? On the hostilities between characters. But I also understand why things are resolved the way they are.

Magia Record is ultimately a story about characters coming together and saving each other. It's baked into the gameplay-- the connect was a big feature that even made its way into the anime.

You can tell the vibe of the game just by comparing it to the anime in fact. In the anime, a ton of characters die. Iroha is unable to save Kuroe, Mifuyu and Momoko have to die as penance in exchange for saving the ones they mislead, Homura fails to save Madoka (and possibly other PMMM original characters) and rewinds time, Ui dies, Touka dies, Nemu dies. Alina dies. Alina's interactions with Karin amount to mostly fan teasing. We see magical girls in the background who are working together against Walpy, but Kanagi is barely present, which means she doesn't have her moments of grouping up with Yachiyo (and all that represents for the east versus west conflicts).

In the anime, the girls fail.

In the game, they succeed. Characters like Mifuyu, who lead others astray, try to kill themselves for redemption but are prevented from doing so because her friends love her and want her to stay with them. Kanagi gets to work with Yachiyo, showing that they have bonds and similarities beyond their differences. Momoko's group never fractures and joins the Wings of Magius, so their friendship continues to keep them propped up and saved. Kuroe is introduced late in the game but she obviously survives and learns to live on. Homura gets to save Madoka and stay her Glasses self, continuing to deepen her friendships with the rest of the gang. Ui, Touka, and Nemu get to be friends again. Touka and Nemu are put on trial but still get to work to try and save humanity. Alina fails to kill people and has Karin more prominently present to remind you of her softer sides, Nemu fails to get herself killed, and blah blah blah, you get my point. This isn't even getting into arc 2, where characters start off very hostile to everyone but smooth at towards the end.

I've got my own personal dislikes of how conflict ends in Magia Record sometimes-- I feel like it takes the easy way out and ignores more interesting routes. I think ending a story so that everyone gets along can be boring and lazy sometimes.

At the same time, I do respect the writing direction for it. I think there's value in saying that everyone (or damn near everyone) can be saved, that people ultimately want to help each other. People want to connect with other people. Friendship can save all. Your friend might be going down a dark path but you can save them through the power of subtextual yuri companionship, compassion, and understanding.

Like, it's a fantasy because you shouldn't be burning yourself to help others, but also fantasy isn't always bad. Sometimes it's nice to have stories where things work out for the better.

I do think though this is why the darker stories in the game really stand out as fan-favorites. Glasses Homura failing to save Kuro is such a gut punch because it feels like that should be impossible in the world of Magia Record, where you can march into a cult and make the leaders into good guys again. Mikoto's pain and suffering stands out because Hanna is never coming back and Mikoto isn't going to get better again. Ryo and Ikumi stay dead. Jun stays dead. Sakuya stays dead. They don't come back.

I'd wager that one reason the story "Girls in the Hood" and its follow up "Dependence Blue" are so popular (besides good writing) is because the fantasy fails and has painfully realistic outcomes in it. Jun isn't able to prevent Mitsune from contracting, despite trying her best to show that you don't need magic to be strong. The two struggle with communicating with each other, despite how much they care for one another. And Jun dies without their feelings being resolved. In a story where so many characters get happy endings (or learn to accept their circumstances), stories like this stick out and have a painful resonance.

I'm meandering again, but yeah. I wish Magia Record was more brave with its writing and that it wouldn't chicken out on pursing conflict at the expense of making characters unlikeable, but I also feel like that wasn't what it wanted to do either. We can say that it's because they wanted to keep their characters as loveable as possible given that it's a gacha and they need to market it to you, but it's also just a storytelling direction that they preferred at the end of the day. I don't have a link but I remember hearing that the writers wanted to keep the game light, that they didn't want people to log in and feel miserable playing a phone game (I could be very badly remembering this).

And you know what, sometimes that kind of cozy friendship-defies-all was very comforting. I dunno. Yeah.

[muffinrecord]

Blah blah blah, a bit of a ramble on my thoughts about Exedra based on which Homura we seem to be getting at the start.

In Magia Record, we got Glasses Homura. I wasn't active in the fandom when Magireco was first being announced in its original form (so not NA), but I feel like Glasses Homura is illuminating in what kind of story you're telling for Puella Magi.

Glasses Homura has a kind of optimism and silliness that allows for lighter storytelling, at least initially. She's not jaded yet, not so worn down that she's only focusing on saving Madoka and having given up on the others. That means her presence allows for stories where everyone can get along more easily. Of course, this doesn't mean that things won't go wrong-- Scene 0 starts with Glasses Homura to make the transition into Cool Homura more painful later on. But overall you see what I mean, I hope. Glasses Homura brings the idea that the Holy Quintet might get along. She and Madoka might be friends, she could possibly be friends with Sayaka, Mami might be in her leadership position, and Kyoko is the aloof ally who swoops in every once in a while.

Cool Homura though-- starting off with her gives a different vibe. She's closed off and keeps her distance from people. If Cool Homura exists then it's likely that her interactions with Madoka are kept to a minimum. If the two interact, it will be more detached and cold. Sayaka might be a point of friction, as Homura will represent to her a darker side to the nature of magical girls that makes Sayaka desire to oppose, even if it means hurting herself and the ones around her. That friction means Mami will also be more closed off to others (to protect her team from perceived threatening magical girls). Kyoko will also become more ambivalent and can be a hinderance as much as a protective ally.

I'm not saying it's impossible for them all to be a happy friend group like in Magia Record, but that we're starting at a very different point. Many of the Holy Quintet-focused stories had less conflict and more slice of life, focusing on joyful moments and friendship over distrust and points of friction.

Now-- I don't think that Cool Homura is a bad thing*. I liked Magia Record and I liked seeing the Holy Quintet get to hang out and be happy and heal and whatever, but I also didn't like the lack of conflict between the girls sometimes. I think Magia Record tredded on the side of caution by making the girls all friendly with each other ultimately at the end, with minor bits of hostility that get smoothed over. For example, the end of arc 2 had all the different factions work well together with little-to-no hostility. On one hand it's great to see your favorite characters have friendships, on the other it feels like it reduces the characters and their issues to blank moments and smooths out their rougher edges-- and those rougher edges might be what attracted to you in the first place.

I'm going all over the place, sorry haha. Basically, I'm curious as to what kind of vibe the new game will have. Getting Cool Homura over Glasses Homura right at the start makes me think that it will be rougher between the characters, and I'm curious about it.

*My only issue with Cool Homura being the version we're getting first is that it makes me wonder if the story will be another rehash of the anime, which I'm tired of. I love the anime and I love the spinoffs but I don't want to see them endlessly reiterated in different formats (especially then the anime is always going to be superior to a live2d cutscene in a game). New stories are better than ones retold and retold. There's value sometimes in seeing a story redone if it adds new material, but I think at this point it's been done to death. I will say that I liked Scene 0 because it shows different looks to the girls and was more about Mabayu (and it gave interesting new character interactions between Mabayu and the others), but I also know that there are folks who hated Scene 0 for this exact reason of another rehash of the anime.

[muffinrecord]

Official art of the Holy Quintet from Magia Exedra

[muffinrecord]

I've assembled together all of my @magitober chibis! Seeing them all like this makes me happy haha, thanks again for hosting this event and providing prompts! <3

[muffinrecord]

How are the translations going? Can’t wait for the last Tart Magica event and Hagumu’s side story.

I haven't been keeping up with the translation discord. To be honest, I've completely lost interest in the series.

If you want to check in then here's an invite link to the translation discord:

This will expire in seven days, so November 15.

[muffinrecord]

Magia Exedra Sayaka Miki Character PV

[muffinrecord]

Magia Record: Links Masterpost (Post-EOS)

Here is the old link to the previous Links Masterpost. This new one excludes information on how to play the game, given that it is no longer in service. I've pruned a few other links to keep this one tight on information.

Wiki Sources

Magia Record Fandom Wiki: A fandom wiki where you can read about information from the game. It includes memoria, characters, past events, enemies, a list of items, and so on. This Wikipedia is more based in game information than the below one.

Puella Magi Wiki: The link to this wiki is to the Characters section for Magia Record. I find it to be a good source of learning about characters easily. It also is a total overview of all the Puella Magi Madoka Magica properties and an interesting site to browse. Note: because anyone can edit this wiki, sometimes some character entries are hilariously inaccurate or biased.

Story Content / Translations

Magia Record Master Translation Sheet: A Google Spreadsheet showcasing Arc Two fan translations. Here you can see what has been translated, where to find it, and also who has done the translation.

Google Drive: A google drive containing archived videos of both NA content and the fan translations of Arc two. You can see what is on there and what isn’t by looking at the aforementioned Master Translation Sheet-- there’s a special column on the right that notes if something has been uploaded or not.

Magia Union Translations: A youtube channel that hosts all of the translated content in the game for both arc one and arc two.

MagiReco Event Guide: A guide to all of the events in Magia Record, written and edited by several fine folk: Grox, LuminousSky, Ai, SerenDark, hobe, Amano Suzune, and Pinknoise. It orders the events by release, notes who was released, gives the genre, a short synopsis and ratings.

Magia Record Master Playlist: Organized by @scarfanon, this massive playlist lists everything in order of release. And I do mean EVERYTHING-- all main story, magical girl stories, event stories, quotes, transformation videos, doppels-- it’s got it all. This is the most definitive playlist for the game out there. If you’re feeling overwhelmed by how much story content out there exists, give this a look! Please note that this playlist is still a work in progress.

Magia Record - Doppel Encyclopedia Translations: Tumblr run by Gilde which translates Doppel entries! This includes Arc 1 and Arc 2 content-- peruse the links at the top of the post to access all the character entries.

Null Magical Girl Translation: The Null Magical Girl story is translated! Translation done by @nymphatix.

Useful Bookmarks

Rika Ren: This site has it all-- a news Mirror, File Mirror, APKs, sound and video viewer, Live2D Viewer, Background and CG Viewer, and other things I’m sure I’ve forgotten.

Mochi Magia Report: This is a link to Mochi's translations for both Magia Report and the new Exedra comic, "Ready Set Exedra!"

Madomagitransparent: A tumblr blog that contains transparent character art from Puella Magi Madoka Magica and its spinoffs. The linked post in particular is a Masterpost itself for image resources.

Magia Record Costumes: This site is a visual list for all the alternate costumes in the game.

Discord Channels

PMMM: Magia Record Discord: This is what I often refer to as “The Big Discord.” It’s a large and active discord with different kinds of people inside of it. It's pivoting to become a Magia Exedra discord now that MagiReco is over.

Magia Union Translations Discord: This is the Translator’s Discord. You don’t need to be a translator to join, and this is a friendly and passionate group for discussing the game.

Project Mokyuu: This is the Project Mokyuu’s discord, which is for a project dedicated to dubbing the game into English.

Other Places

Music Collection: A google drive containing a ton of PMMM music. Don your pirate hat and take a peruse.

MuffinRecord2: A channel I am curating that hosts all of the Transformation/Henshins, Magia, and Doppel videos.

Magia Record Anime Official Guidebook 2: Scanned by @silvermoon424, this post hosts several links, including where you can download/view the book, a link to purchase it, and links to other scanned Magia Record merch by the same author.

Walpurgis Raid Dialogue: An imgur album that was collaborated on by many players, and collected all of the dialogue characters made during the Last Magia event.

Event Side Dialogue Recordings: YouTube playlist made by the ever amazing Vivi! This is not translated but should be helpful for any translators looking for cross-reference material or for adding in future videos.

[muffinrecord]

Magia Exedra Kyoko Sakura Character PV

[muffinrecord]

[muffinrecord]

Alright, cleared queue and drafts. Gonna be quiet for a bit

Was going through my my 20k likes to find and reblog magireco stuff, but realized partway through that the og folks might not want me to reblog their older work. Additionally, I think it might be good if this blog is quiet until Exedra news comes out (or if I do something magireco related)

anyhow, hope y'all are doing well! See ya soon

[muffinrecord]

Mami Tomoe 💛

[muffinrecord]

I miss playing MagiReco.

The gameplay was stale and everything was powercrept to hell and back but it was fun to play something in the background. Watching a youtube video? Play some mirrors battles. I liked having Mondays/Fridays to look forward to announcements and new content.

It's the little things...

[muffinrecord]

Reblog for reach for your non-magireco followers!

[muffinrecord]

Recently went through my bookcase to reorganize it because for a while I was just stuffing random comics in there with no regard for titles ect.

While doing so, I realized... "wow, I haven't read like half of these graphic novels. ...Do I even want to read this? Why did I even buy it?"

I think a lot of them were purchased because I bought them for the sake of the dopamine hit but then never read them because I was either too depressed or I didn't actually care about the contents, I just wanted my collection to grow a little further.

Looking at them, I made the decision to sell some of them. Which is wild for me, because I like to collect and hoard things. I don't get rid of anything. It's my collection. But this will free up room on my bookshelf at least.

Apparently this is all worth 30 bucks, but at least they're out?

I still have a bunch of books though. The left bookcase is where those above books all came from. The right one is most of my manga, stuffed upstairs because I don't have room anymore.

I've got more scattered around the house too, like my Madoka collection,

...which I really want to get displayed. I have the boards and stuff. I just need to put them up. Which I haven't done for the past three years.

I went to the used bookstore with the old graphic novels, sold them for the aforementioned 30 dollars, and then turned around and bought two other books. Selling my books gave me negative seven dollars :)

I think I definitely have a book problem. At least this time I'm reading them-- the research phase is really fun for my story. But I wonder if I'm going into similar patterns as before. Am I getting things for the sole purpose of having them? Not even using them?

The reason why I'm posting this on my magireco blog is because I think this collection hoarding is why I spent so much goddamn money on the game. It felt like collecting books, but at least this time I used the characters and didn't just have them for display purposes.

...is what I'd like to say, but a lot of the time I would just get the character because they existed. For the dopamine hit of having the full collection.

I don't think gacha games are good for me. Not for my personality type.

I think the solution is to create things. I feel the same kind of dopamine hit when I add a video to my magia record google drive "collection."

Which is to say, I think I need to start writing/drawing and not just reading, because that will make me feel better than just buying books I never read. It's just hard to get started.

Anyways, that was just a lil ramble.

[muffinrecord]

just discovered that not only are there magireco witches present in the newest trailer for walpurgis rising, but they're all the witches of the girls who were involved in the factor of despair events that happened right before eos.....

chat what the actual hell are they cooking