Uh, Pieta faces off against Pieta and then a giant flame-wielding moth girl shows up to throw down against a sculptor and the handiest umbrella outside of Mary Poppins’ shows up to boot. Also, we really just up and change genres because why not?
This is one of those throwback manga that reminds me of the old days in a good way, though your mileage will undoubtedly vary. It’s absolute nonsense, but stylish nonsense, with just enough of one to overcome the other.
Yes, yes, it thinks it’s making perfect sense, I’m quite aware. There’s this whole explanation that these doppelgängers are manifestations of Dilemmas, which means… not much of anything, except people have to accept them to resolve them rather than fight them except Nike, the sculptor girl, is actually up against a rival plus a Dilemma, so it’s murky.
The rival looks like Pieta’s friend, but isn’t, which really confused me, and the story of the two young sculptors is kind of ridiculous and then, oh yeah, it turns into a magical girl story out of nowhere.
Pieta accepts her Dilemma and now controls time and has a super neat umbrella, but she doesn’t transform. Nike gets through to herself and does transform, but I don’t think they give a single explanation for why she gets to and Pieta doesn’t.
It’s hogwash, but if you turn your brain off and crest along with it, it’s fun enough. I did love Pieta constantly coming through in the clutch, even if we’re now totally done with the time loop story that made this so interesting.
Everybody seems to know what magical girl tropes are, even though this world is clearly set in some sort of faux-European universe and not traditional Japan. I can’t even. I refuse to believe there’s any sort of long game with this or I’ll simply go mad.
This is such an old-school style of manga in all the good and bad ways. The action is fun, the drama is palpable, the stakes are high, but the rules are crazy and something being pulled from nothing is the rule of the day. The story feels as cohesive as an underbaked cake, but it can be just as tasty as one as a result.
My initial thought was that this needs to be read in serialized fashion to make any sense, but I don’t know if that would actually help at all. I just dove in with what limited knowledge I had from the last time and it mostly worked out okay.
3 stars - it’s a ride more than a destination and it’s certainly enjoyable to marinate in the chaos of whatever it might be doing next, but trying to suss out its deeper meanings or internal logic is a fool’s errand and one I wouldn’t even bother with.