I am really starting to dislike how this show is killing off the characters I grow remotely interested in while leaving only the dullest characters to carry the show. Don’t take that to mean I cared about the remaining twin angel that got killed off because her death was pretty deserved. But this cements the twin angels as characters whose only function was to kill off more interesting characters. No, my grief goes to Hardgore Alice who in typical fashion was given some development only to get offed by Swim Swim. What rubs me the wrong way is in how utterly contrived her death was. First with Snow White getting that Alice doesn’t mean her harm only to throw a hissy fit at her after hearing that the death game was going to continue. Then you have Swim Swim take her out in human form were she is knocked out by an arbitrary rule that no one can see her transform and basically not being able to become a magical girl because she couldn’t focus after being mortally wounded. I call bull on that second one as if you are lying in an alley about to die I think that’s the time you would be most focused on saving your own life. I have heard of a couple of things from the light novel which makes these events more sensible. For one, Snow White is supposed to be much more mentally unsound as this whole magical girl battle thing takes a pretty heavy toll on her.
Other rather depressing detail is that before becoming a magical girl, Hardgore Alice planned to kill herself and was regularly stealing her Uncle’s sleeping pills to use to overdose but changed her mind when Snow White helped her find her key. This makes her ability as a magical girl rather ironic as someone who originally wanted to die is given a body that can never die. The last detail makes her death a little more tragic that was in the manga but not the light novel was that it was her uncle that found her in the alley. Because her uncle was around Alice couldn’t change into a magical girl. As sad as it is, that feels like a much more devastating emotional gut punch. Overall I just don’t like how Alice was sacrificed for the sake of Snow White’s development, especially when she was becoming a much more interesting character than her. I get that Snow is supposed to be the archetype of the stereotypical magical girl but she just isn’t doing anything about the situation or showing anything interesting about her character. I think the more interesting road would be for Snow White to get killed off and for Hardgore Alice to carry her torch.
With this the only characters I actually care about are Swim Swim and Ripple. Cranberry is just a bit too one dimensional at the moment to really interest me and I already pointed out why Snow White isn’t particularly compelling. As for Tama, well she’s a background decoration likely not long for this world. With Cranberry’s talks with Fav we at least have a better grasp on what is going on here. Seems Cranberry is the one in charge of this whole game and Fav is acting as an observer. Thing is that Fav and Cranberry are in cahoots and have decided to turn what is normally a selection process that discourages fatalities into a full battle royale. With this we can at least establish that the organisers of the game aren’t malicious but instead it’s those who are running the game that’s turning it into something twisted. It’s a bit weird that the magical world isn’t keeping tabs on her but I guess that was supposed to be Fav’s job seeing as he’s is sending back false reports. If it comes down to either Swim Swim or Cranberry going down next episode I hope it’s Cranberry but Swim Swim just has much more presence as a villain. If this show keeps killing off everyone I somewhat care about this is just going to end up with a final battle where I won’t really care about the outcome.