One of my guilty pleasures is subversions of Magical Girls or "Dark" Magical Girls. There's been quite a few of these recently, some of which are: Magical Girl Raising Project, Yuki Yuna is a Hero and Puella Magi Madoka Magica. But there's a limited number of these, so I'm having to drop my requirements slightly. That's how I ended up here, watching an anime about schoolgirls playing card games.
Wixoss (pronounced "We cross"), is a card game similar to Magic: The Gathering, which all the cool kids are playing. However, this game is a little different, in that a very small number of players are "Selectors". For these girls, the game is much more serious. Each Selector is given a special card, an LRIG, which contains a small woman who acts as their avatar in matches. This avatar moves, talks and fights on the Selector's behalf when they become immersed in the magical world in which fights happen.
Each Selector is told that if they win enough matches, they can become an Eternal Girl, and get their wish granted. They're not told what happens if they lose too often. Each Selector gets their own deck, which they can improve with other cards, and again in an MtG homage, is one of the five possible colours. These line up as you might expect with MtG, and perhaps unsurprisingly, the Selector who plays blue is probably the biggest dick of the anime. (I know, I know, my bias is showing. I'm a red-green or red-white player.)
To be honest with you though, you're not going to be watching this for the game mechanics. Which is a good thing. They're generally simple, and I suspect wouldn't stand up to serious analysis. All you need to know is that if you challenge another Selector, you get thrown into a magical realm, and take part in matches which are decided partly by tactics and partly by some more indefinable element that is perhaps best described as "fighting spirit".
Our main character, Ruko, has fighting spirit in spades, mainly because she's something of a sociopath. She's got this weird desire to defeat others, even though she doesn't actually have a wish to drive her forward to become an Eternal Girl. It's all just for the thrill of victory. Which is "blasphemy". Our first hint that something deeper and more horrible is going on here.
Luckily, she's not alone in her craziness, as her compatriots Yuzuki and Hitoe each have their own problems. Hitoe is wildly afraid of people, such that her greatest wish is to have some friends, and Yuzuki's is that her twin brother will be her boyfriend.
You know that weirdly persistent trope of sibling love being okay? This show isn't that. Instead, all of their classmates have a rather more realistic response to the situation, and Yuzuki spends most of the series being utterly miserable. It makes quite a nice change.
This show's raison d'etre appears to be misery though. With the exception of Ruko, who has her bloodlust, everybody playing the game to achieve their wish is acting out of desperation. We've got the incest and the social fear, but we've also got narcissism, insecurity and psychopathy. None of them are normal, and that's what makes it fun. Each episode has further depravity, and it's a very thrilling ride.
There's apparently another three seasons of this, and it's looking like a long-running plot throughout, which I'm rather looking forward to. It's an excellent suggestion for fans of grimness and monkey paws.
Tagged: Anime Horror Contemporary Supernatural Antagonism DVD Dubbed