Magia Record Episode 1: Have You Heard? That Rumor About the Magical Girls

"Would you really like to know what your wish was?" ~ Kyubey to Iroha Tamaki

Have You Heard? That Rumor About the Magical Girls やぁやぁ、知ってる？魔法少女のその噂
First airing	4 January 2020
Script	name
Storyboard	name
Episode director	name
Animation Director	name

Summary

The episode begins with a train going through Takarazaki City in the afternoon at sunset. On the train Iroha Tamaki moves to another part of it to find a little girl crying by herself while the narration talks about magical girls and Witches. When Iroha talks to her the girl points to another room and after noticing her soul gem was glowing, Iroha goes to investigate. When she enters the next room it is completely dark save for the light in the previous room and she discovers a pet collar on the ground. She opens the back and finds that the end of the train leads to a Witch's barrier with several metal objects flying about. Iroha transforms and jumps off the train to fight the witch, Box Wood. They fight within the barrier when suddenly another magical girl named Kuroe jumps in and lands a hit on the Witch, breaking part of the metal structure and causing the Witch to start flying as it sics its Familiars on the girls. As Iroha readies to fire a shot, she stops and notices something falling from the debris: it turns out to be a white cat, presumably the one owned and lost by the little girl from before. She catches the cat right as Kuroe reappears by her side and the Witch attacks. The pair escape from the barrier without killing the Witch and return the cat to its owner.

In the next scene Iroha is walking downtown to her house. As she walks up the stairs and opens the door to her room, there appears to be a mysterious shadow of a girl sitting on the right side in a chair. As everything turns to static Iroha wakes up in her bed thinking it was a dream. The right side of the room is also revealed to look empty as though no one was ever there compared to the one in the dream. Iroha then goes to the kitchen and starts making lunch only to realize she has once again made two instead of one. She calls for her Mom, but stops when she remembers she isn't there. A scene flashes back showing her parents getting ready for a business trip abroad and leaving Iroha alone until the boarding house is ready for her to move into.

The next part has Iroha on her way to school where she thinks to herself if being a magical girl is something she wants to do. In class, her teacher talks about the Milky Way while Iroha looks over to Kyubey who is sleeping nearby. It then cuts to Iroha talking to Kyubey in a theater about her wish. Kyubey tells her he doesn't know what her wish was and that while he knows that she used it for someone else's sake, he doesn't know the wording of it nor of its nature as there are too many obscure parts to it. She asks him if there is anything they can do to help remember it, and Kyubey answers that it's unusual for the wish to be forgotten but also theorizes that maybe part of the wish was for it itself to be concealed. Iroha wonders if she would even make herself wish for something that she and everyone else wouldn't remember. Kyubey asks her if she would really like to know what her wish was and Iroha says of course as she is risking her life for it. She ends it with wondering why she just can't remember anything about it.

Next part cuts to Iroha's classroom where her teacher asks her for the answer to a question and she absent-mindedly answers "a wish" as she wasn't paying attention. During lunch Iroha sits alone with only Kyubey for company eating the two lunches she made in the morning. Next part has Iroha talking to her teacher, reiterating that her parents are going on their business trip this week and that it must be hard for her to live alone. The teacher tells her if anything happens for her to rely on her friends for help. When she leaves the room, three other girls speak to her about her parents being out of the house and state how jealous they are that Iroha can do whatever she likes while they're gone. One of the girls suddenly remembers that she has cleaning duty today but laments that she has somewhere else to go, so Iroha offers to do it for her since she has no plans today and that there's not much for her to do when she gets home anyway. While Iroha is mopping the floor and three other girls are taking out the garage, one of the girls talks about how Iroha isn't part of any club activities and doesn't appear to hang out with anyone after school, but also mentions that she's always busy and must be doing something with her time.

Afterwards Iroha gets am incoming call from Kuroe on her phone where they meet up on the train to discuss some important information. Iroha asks her what happened and talks about how they encountered a Witch yesterday and notes how their numbers have been dropping lately either because of their efforts or something else, but says that while getting more grief seeds is a problem it's better than any more Witches causing damage to the city. She also mentions that she's glad that someone like herself can be of use in some way. Kuroe asks Iroha if she's heard of this: that magical girls can be saved if they go to Kamihama City. Iroha asks her what she means and Kuroe answers that it means they don't have to fight Witches anymore. Iroha asks if that also means that there are no Witches in Kamihama, but says that if there are Witches in other areas and magical girls don't work hard then those cities will be in danger. Kuroe doesn't know the exact details, and when Iroha asks her who told her all of this she mentions its a rumor everyone is talking about. Iroha thinks it's rather suspicious and Kuroe says a girl had that dream of the rumor and that many others also had a dream where a little girl told them to go to Kamihama to be saved. Iroha asks if everyone is supposed to just believe that and Kuroe believes it because she too also had the dream happen to her last night. Kuroe then asks if she never thought about wanting to be saved from being a magical girl and Iroha doesn't answer. Kuroe goes on asking what Iroha wished for to become a magical girl and tells her that her wish was "I want to go out with the person I like." She states that they have broken up since then, but at the time it was the only thing she really wanted and that there was nothing else more important to her. She also says that if she knew it'd be like this, then she would have never become a magical girl in the first place and that it would've been better if her wish didn't come true, and that even if you become a magical girl it becomes meaningless if you die. Suddenly Iroha notices that the train passed her station and she missed her stop. She then asks Kuroe how far she is going to which the other girl answers that she is going to Kamihama City. The rest of the passengers suddenly look over to them, revealing them all to have been witch kissed by the same Witch from yesterday. The girls find themselves getting stuck in the crowd until water comes surging in and flushes them all out, leaving Iroha and Kuroe on the train with the Witch. Iroha transforms to begin fighting off the Familiars and make her way out and into the barrier. She attacks the metal structures to lure the Witch and they suddenly form all around her into a sphere as the Witch swims by. She keeps shooting at it but none of her shots hit it and Iroha wonders if she's being carried by the Labyrinth. She takes aim again, but stops when she realizes that if the Witch dies and takes the Labyrinth along with it, then she will fall straight through wherever its going. Instead Iroha and the barrier are carried across the city until they eventually land with an explosion elsewhere. When she wakes up, she finds herself in some other city at night with Kuroe knocked out a short distance away. Iroha rushes over to Kuroe to see if she is alright, but just then another Witch's barrier forms around them. The Witch from the train starts coming at the girls when another Witch, Zenobia, pops out of the ground and attacks Box Wood, killing it instantly by tearing it in two. Iroha attempts to take down the new Witch but finds that her shots are ineffective no matter how many she fires at it. As the Witch gets ready to attack them, it suddenly turns it attention away to a small Kyubey on top of a sand block, appearing to be singing about Uwasa. The Witch attacks the small Kyubey as it runs to dodge the attack and jumps into Iroha's arms. The moment she catches it, Iroha feels a shock go through her as memories of a girl in a hospital enter her mind. Kuroe recovers and approaches Iroha, who is still holding the small Kyubey and is in a state of shock. The Witch comes back ready to attack them when someone else appears and cuts off one of its arms to disable it. The person is another magical girl named Yachiyo Nanami and she jumps in to finish off the Witch before it can hurt them. She catches its grief seed and also retrieves the grief seed of the Witch from the train hidden in the sand. The barrier fades and the girls de-transform, with Iroha noticing that she no longer has the small Kyubey in her arms.

Yachiyo turns to the two girls and asks them where they came from, to which they answer Takarazaki City. Iroha was about to thank her, but Yachiyo interrupts and informs them that they are in Kamihama West territory and that hunting Witches without permission in other magical girls' territory will lead to hostilities. Iroha tells her that they didn't mean to intrude, but Kuroe interjects that they heard the rumor that magical girls can be saved if they come to Kamihama. Yachiyo says that she heard of the rumor before too, but tells her that Witches in this city are stronger than ones in other areas and that there are a lot more of them, and that being saved here is the exact opposite of what will happen and that they shouldn't have come here. Yachiyo then tosses the two girls the grief seeds from before and tells them to stay away from Kamihama and leave. However Iroha asks her if there's a small Kyubey in Kamihama, but Yachiyo says she's never seen a small one before and that there is also no Kyubey in Kamihama anymore. She says that she doesn't know why that is, but the collection of used-up grief seeds can be taken care of elsewhere so they don't really need him. Iroha says that in the Labyrinth that the small Kyubey had helped her and Yachiyo answers that if she happens to find it again she will pass on her thanks to it. As Iroha and Kuroe prepare to leave, Yachiyo stops them one last time and asks about where exactly they heard the rumor about Kamihama from. Kuroe simply tells her she dreamed it and that other girls have had the same dream. Yachiyo tells Kuroe to pass her message along to those other magical girls to keep them out as she doesn't intend to allow anymore magical girls in Kamihama, and that if they still come in anyway they will be considered enemies.

Back on the train ride home, Iroha talks to Kuroe about how strong that magical girl was and thinks that magical girls that aren't as strong as her probably won't be able to survive in Kamihama. She also notes that it seemed to be very dangerous for magical girls like themselves. Iroha restates the rumor about magical girls coming to Kamihama can be saved and wonders what it's really all about. The next scene cuts to show numerous girls with their bags going to the trains at night, all seeking to go to Kamihama in order to be saved. Iroha also appears here running towards a strange girl whose face is distorted. The next part shows the many wishes of other magical girls as Kyubey narrates about granting wishes and the duty of magical girls to fight Witches.

The last scene shows Iroha on a roof with Kyubey begging for him to grant her wish to cure Ui's illness. The memories from before flash back and Iroha awakens from her bed, seemingly from a dream. She utters Ui's name in question and then the scene fades to black.

Runes

Screencap	Notes
	*These runes appear in Box Wood's barrier. They relate to the duties of a magical girl. Lesson 1 Become a puella magi
	*These runes appear in Box Wood's barrier. They relate to the duties of a magical girl. Lesson 2 Kill the witch
	Box Wood
	The only Good Witch is a Dead Witch!
	*These runes appear in Box Wood's barrier. They relate to the duties of a magical girl. Lesson 3 Save lives
	Zenobia
File:MagiaRecord Anime Ep1RunesMagius.png	*These runes appear near the end where several magical girls begin traveling in mass to Kamihama. They may be the Wings of the Magius' manifesto, or simply a declaration of those who went to Kamihama for salvation. We escaped From the Ordinary We do not care What others think We do not glorify The past We do not Tolerate anger We do not Rely on blood ties We affirm ourselves at Expense of our neighbors
File:Ep1 Ending Title Card Runes.png	Puella Magi Madoka * Magica Side Story Magia Record Episode 1

Observations

• It is shown that when one witch (Box Wood) enters the barrier of another (Zenobia), they will fight and kill each other, ignoring any magical girls that happen to be there.
  • A witch killing another witch will still result in them dropping a grief seed.

Speculations

• Iroha rescuing the cat on the train could be a reference to Madoka's wish to save Amy in the first Drama CD.
  • It is also notable that while Amy was a black cat, the one on the train is white.

Images

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