Kara Dennison
June 28, 2021 
Puella Magi Madoka Magica spinoff Magia Record will, in fact, return for a third season after its upcoming second. Based on the mobile game of the same name, it expands the world of the original series in many ways. We learn about doppels: the witch-hybrid forms magical girls can take in combat. We travel to Kamihama City, full of both magical girls and rumors. And, of course, we meet more heroines — and discover their wishes.
Every puella magi gets her powers in exchange for a wish. Protagonist Iroha can’t seem to remember hers at first, but others still remember theirs. And, we’ll be honest, some of them are the same kind of wishes we’d make. These, for example:
Tsuruno Yui wants to win the lottery.
Let’s be fair to Tsuruno — this isn’t as self-serving as it sounds up front. While the motivations of the heroines of Magia Record are all over the map, this particular girl has her eyes on one prize: helping her family’s restaurant regain its former glory. But she has a very specific way of going about that: winning an 800-million yen lottery.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t go quite as planned. Wishes are always messy, and wishing for something as open-ended as “success” would have carried its own perils for sure. But fair play for attempting to lock in a straightforward plan.
Momoko Togame wants to ask out her crush.
Never forget that the stars of Madoka Magica — and thus Magia Record — are teenage girls. It’s how the whole system works. And while these heroines can make noble wishes, they also have very straightforward teen desires. Take Momoko, who literally just wanted the courage to ask her crush out.
Of course, the monkey’s paw strikes again. (It’s almost as though these wishes have a catch or something.) She got the courage she needed, but another girl zipped in just ahead of her with a confession of her own. The boy said yes, and… well, now Momoko kind of burned up her soul for nothing. In fairness, being meguca is suffering, so it’s on brand.
Alina Gray wants you to go away so she can do art.
Artistic genius and major antagonist Alina Gray wants to make a world where no puella magi ever has to become a Witch. But that’s not how she used her wish. Rather, she burned that up for the one thing any creative mind wants: a place where no one can disturb her. (Frankly? She can have it. We’ve seen what her Doppel is about.)
Alina is just wild about art, especially Witches in art, especially art that explores life and death. As much as we can’t really relate to Alina as a person, though, we absolutely feel the need for that escape to hide away and make things happen… Probably not the same sorts of things she’s creating, though.
The puella magi are back in play when Magia Record returns on July 31.
