Magilumiere Magical Girls Inc.

Episode 10

The nature of Magilumiere's whole deal lends itself to ancillary world-building expansions. The magical spell programming language just got its own spotlighting storyline, so now it's time to look under the hood of those mechanical BROOMs the Magical Girls ride around on. This is another incidental entry of an episode in the series in place of that broader storyline that Magilimuiere keeps hinting at. I would take a thousand more mostly low-stakes stories exploring the everyday work these magical girls do and the corners of their world that power it—the possibilities are endless.

This episode presses a little at the fantastical limits of what I find appealing about Magilumiere though, I will admit. To me, the central cool factor of the series has always been its simple, grounded realism within its magic-driven setting. They're called "magical girls," sure, but they are working adult women tasked with nine-to-five service jobs that happen to involve blasting monsters with magic while wearing frilly outfits. There are whole avenues for training, education, job interviews, and onboarding processes to make that work. It's an aesthetic mash-up that appeals because it courts the imagination about how these things might work in our world.

All that is to say that the introduction of Ginji, elementary-school-age child genius BROOM engineer, stretches the credulity of what makes Magilumiere's setting work. At first, I pondered the potential that Ginji was simply a diminutive, childlike adult (like I will always argue Kurumi from Lycoris Recoil is) but flashbacks promptly make it clear: this girl has been tinkering with BROOMs since she was at least a toddler, making her an eccentric presence rightfully remarked on as such by the characters in the show.

Child prodigies exist, sure. And to Magilumiere's credit, the writing mostly makes Ginji's presence work and plays her off well with Kana as a viewpoint character. I can very much look at this as a "You get one" indulgence for Magilimuiere. I just hope this isn't a precursor to the story slowly abandoning the stylings I initially liked so much about it. There is a whiff of potential about this idea; the series hasn't touched much on how the magical girls in this world interact with their inspiring genre's ostensible target audience, so Ginji's perspective could tie into that.

She's seemingly 100% a pint-sized fan of the technology powering the BROOMs themselves, with her appreciation for magical girls being a motivating accessory. Her love for the material is genuine, to be sure, and it makes sense that Shigemoto wouldn't seek her out if she didn't have it. Her love for magical girls is pure, but as someone behind the science of it all, she also prizes innovation within the space, hence her embracing of Kana's attentive abilities and how that lets her push the tech, and the use of it, forward. The multiple angles of the plot sort themselves out effectively to reinforce the value of Kana's approach to magical-girl-ing both to herself and the audience. Her engagement with properly learning all the features of tech like BROOMs and finding ways to utilize them means she can advance not just the extermination abilities of Magilumiere but the approach of the magical girl industry itself. This is something that Ginji recognizes and points just a little more toward that bigger storyline.

So despite my misgivings about some elements, this episode won me over in the end. Ginji herself turns out mostly endearing, with an adorable precocious crush on Niko (I get it) and a detailing of her morning "Routine-less Routine" in the omake that plays up her more childlike qualities. And there's still enough focus on the solid worldbuilding, and consciousness of Kana's place in it, that it doesn't feel like the series is losing its way or anything. Improbable child geniuses aside, it still feels like another day at the magical girl office.

Rating:

Magilumiere Magical Girls Inc. is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.

Chris would 200% work for a magical girl company if they were real, but he'll settle for writing reviews and ad copy instead. You can peruse more of his views over on his blog , or catch him reskeeting art of anime girls (magical and otherwise) on his BlueSky.