Episode 03 – “Girl Meets Girl”

It wouldn’t be a proper mahou shoujo series without a mysterious rival transfer student, would it? The stoic girl reveals herself to be Miyu Edelfelt who, like Illya, was chosen by a talking stick to become a magical girl. She takes the place of Luvia and suspiciously, they have the same exact last name. I’m not sure if we’re supposed to know this bit of information yet, but MyAnimeList is all-knowing, after all.

Miyu more or less fits all of the stereotypes that a mysterious transfer student rival magical girl should. She’s calm, serious, and talented to at everything she does. She can prepare a five-star meal, dabbles in Cubist modern art, and even bests Illya’s specialty of track and field. Miyu does all of this much to the surprise of the teacher, who is actually Shirou’s teacher from Fate/stay night which is really funny. Miyu might be able to do all of this, but can she draw steamy boys’ love fan art like her classmate can?

The mysteries continue as Illya discovers a giant mansion next to her house, with Miyu moving into it. Just who is this girl, and why can she make large houses appear out of nowhere? And what is her connection with Luvia? Hopefully, these questions are answered in the episode, as Miyu and Illya have another midnight rendezvous ahead of them. Judging from the episode preview, it looks like comical times involving Illya teaching Miyu how to fly. A reversal of the roles that I would normally expect. I’m really liking Illya as a mahou shoujo lead too because I feel she isn’t too optimistic or too uncertain about her desires either.

Fate/kaleid is really hitting all of the typical mahou shoujo tropes right on. Of course, that could be a good or bad thing depending on who you are. Even though the series is a spin-off of Fate/stay night, I guess you could also think of it as a spin-off of every traditional mahou shoujo series just with Fate characters. I think that’s where the magic (no pun intended) happens. Where something like Madoka deconstructs the genre, Fate/kaleid embraces it in the completely opposite direction. The fun parody nature of the series is what drives up the enjoyment value for me.

B.W.