Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story is a Japanese role-playing video game developed by f4samurai for Android and iOS, which was released by Aniplex in Japan on August 22, 2017 and in North America on June 25, 2019. The game is a spin-off of the 2011 anime seriesPuella Magi Madoka Magica, and features a new protagonist named Iroha Tamaki, who arrives in Kamihama City to search for her missing sister. A manga adaptation has been serialized in Manga Time Kirara Forward magazine since August 24, 2018, illustrated by Fujino Fuji. A stage play adaptation was also produced in 2018. An anime television series adaptation of the game produced by Shaft aired between January and March 2020, with a second anime season in production.
Plot
A white creature named Kyubey has the power to grant girls any single wish. In exchange for that wish, however, they must become magical girls and fight against creatures known as Witches. A rumor soon begins to spread among magical girls that they can be saved from their duty by going to Kamihama City. Iroha Tamaki, a girl who had originally forgotten the wish she had made to become a magical girl, one day encounters a smaller Kyubey and remembers that she made a wish to cure her younger sister Ui of her illness. Realising that Ui has become missing somehow, Iroha travels to Kamihama City in order to find answers, encountering many other magical girls along the way.
Gameplay
Magia Record is a turn-based tactical RPG that features battles with magical girls on the right side of the screen and witches/familiars on the left side. The player must attack enemies on the left side with magical girls that they have collected and chosen onto their team by choosing three of five attack disks found at the bottom of the screen. There are three types of attacks that the player can use: "Accele", which boosts Magic Points ; "Blast", which can target multiple enemies in a row or column; and "Charge", which boosts the impact of the attack following it. Attacks are automatically boosted if all three disks chosen are of the same type of command or are from the same character. After a magical girl attacks three times, the player can use an attack disk associated with that character and drag it to another magical girl on their team to "Connect" and add special effects on the receiving character, such as healing them. Magical girls are also able to use skills and "Magia". The game's main story is separated by chapters, which are further separated into episodes. Once an episode is completed, the player receives rewards, experience points for each magical girl in the team, and rank points from the battle and can replay the episode as well as move on to the next. If the player loses a battle in an episode, they can continue by using Magia Stones, one of the in-game currencies. One magical girl is automatically put onto a team, but the player can select up to four additional magical girls, which can be received from the game's Fate Weave feature. The Fate Weave feature can also be used to gain Memoria, Enhance Gems, and Destiny Gems.
Development and release
The game was officially announced at the Shaft 40th anniversary "Madogatari" event in September 2016. The producer of the original anime series, Atsuhiro Iwakami stated, "Since it seems that it will take some more time until the anime's new work, the idea that I want to make a title that "Madoka Magica" is active will work. Ume Aoki, the character designer of the original anime series was also responsible for the game's character designs, in which she designed more than 10 new and original characters for the game, including the main protagonist Iroha Tamaki. The opening animation and magical girl transformation scenes was produced by Shaft. The game is produced by Yusuke Toyama and Masaki Sato. Magia Record was originally scheduled to be released in May 2017. However, it was pushed back to July and then again to its current release date, August 22, 2017. Aniplex of America produced an English version of Magia Record that was released in North America on June 25, 2019. A pre-registration campaign was held for its release, where at least 25,000 people pre-registered for the English release of the game.
Other media
Manga
A manga adaptation based on Magia Record illustrated by Fujino Fuji has been serialized in Manga Time Kirara Forward magazine since August 24, 2018.
Stage play
The game also inspired a stage play adaptation that was produced from August 24 to September 9, 2018. The characters were portrayed by the Japanese idol group girl Hiragana Keyakizaka46. The Blu-ray and DVD for the stage adaptation was released on February 27, 2019.
Anime
An anime television series adaptation by Shaft was announced in September 2018 and was originally scheduled to premiere in 2019, but it was delayed, instead airing between January 4 and March 28, 2020 on Tokyo MX, GYT, GTV, BS11, and MBS. The series is directed and written by Gekidan Inu Curry, with Yukihiro Miyamoto serving as assistant director, Junichirō Taniguchi serving as character designer, and Takumi Ozawa composing the series' music. Akiyuki Shinbo serves as animation supervisor. The cast reprise their roles from the game. TrySail perform the series' opening theme song "Gomakashi", while ClariS perform the series' ending theme song "Alethea". Aniplex of America has licensed the series, and will stream the series on FunimationNow and AnimeLab from January 4, and on Crunchyroll and Hidive from January 11. In Southeast Asia, the series simulcasts on Aniplus Asia. The first season ran for 13 episodes, with a second season announced at the end of the first season's final episode.
