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There's a question that has plagued mankind for many years: what is the worst Madoka spinoff? Is it Suzune Magica? Kazumi Magica? The original run of Oriko Magica that looks like it was drawn by a six-year-old? However, Mami Tomoe's Everyday Life has ended those debates by being such an embarrassment that most of the scanlation groups I've seen dropped it on purpose.

Hoo boy, let's not beat around the bush: this is the most heterosexual Madoka story ever written. Painfully so, even. The starting-line concept is that everyone except Mami has gotten married or engaged to men, often with kids on the way. Thing is, ... since there were like two male characters in the original story, Kyouko, Madoka, and Hitomi have to get unnamed and unseen spouses; we don't even see Hitomi's husband at her wedding. It goes so far as to marry Homura off to Tatsuya, Madoka's brother who was basically an infant in the original series; apparently Homura married him right out of high school.

Now, I'm not going to say that all Madoka fans are yuri shippers, but it's hard to deny that the whole "girl's love" thing is kind of fundamental to the series, especially when you delve into spinoff territory. The fact that Homura loves Madoka is fundamental to the plot of Rebellion, and multiple other stories have featured implicit or explicit same-sex relationships at their core. This story essentially takes that whole idea, the emotional throughline of about 80% of the franchise, and smacks it to death with a stick. The fact that it's credited to them getting older bears an ugly line of erasure, as well--what, Homura repeated a hundred timelines and endured years of strife and hardship all for the sake of a friggin' phase? Madoka stories don't necessarily have to be yuri or even carry undertones of it, but this story goes the other direction and essentially declares that the girl's love elements that did exist actually didn't.

And once you get away from that whole ugly concept, what do you have? Well, nothing, really. As the title suggests, it's a slice-of-life, so there's no plot. It's not particularly well-drawn--not awful, but far from a selling point--and all the jokes in it are, essentially, the same jokes you've heard a thousand times from such fine icons of comedy as Cathy. Its vision of the grown-up cast shows them as a bunch of boring housewife cliches, acting catty about their husbands and pressuring each other to get married and talking about fashion and whether or not they look fat. It takes an energized, tragic, extreme bunch of characters and turns them into a gang of insipid cardboard cutouts. Even the magical girl side of them is gone, to the point that the opening chapter has them criticizing Mami for still putting on her uniform, never particularly elaborating on why they have not all died due to Grief Seed withdrawal.

And so the bulk of the story ends up being every "Christmas Cake" joke you've ever seen. Mami angsts about not getting married! Mami goes on a diet and tries to lose weight! Mami cleans the house! Mami doesn't have her life together! This has been done a thousand different times, and it's been done better, and at this point the main character scarcely resembles Mami at all. If you're not a fan of Madoka Magica, you could probably find a dozen other cases of this exact same story premise and they'd probably be done far better. And if you are a fan of Madoka Magica, then, past the initial wave of confusion and disgust, there's so little of the original story on display here that I can't recommend it at all. I suppose if you're the sort of person who really hates the yuri side of the fandom and wants to piss it off, then you might get a thrill and some laughs out of it, but I'd recommend just sticking to porn doujins, because this whole thing puts me very much in mind of a porn doujin that's had all the sex removed.

Madoka spinoffs are nothing if not scattershot in quality. With the exception of Tart Magica, it's hard to name one of the "new cast" spinoffs that succeeds on every front. Oriko Magica is sincere in its efforts and has deeply intriguing characters, but is an artistic mess and only really realizes its potential in Sadness Prayer. Kazumi Magica is full-to-bursting with new ideas and concepts and worldbuilding, but it comes at the cost of a story that feels almost completely directionless. But all that said, if there's a story in the wonky extended universe of Madoka that lacks anything to really offer, it's Suzune.

Now, Suzune ... is far from irredeemable, from a pure craft perspective. Artistically, it looks great, with vibrant action scenes, consistent anatomy, and some solid witch designs. This is let down by the character designs somewhat (several of them look like straight-up lifts, and a lot of them are unnervingly revealing), but it's a story that's definitely a feast for the eyes. There are also ideas on display that are pretty intriguing: we catch glimpses of a magical girl in her twenties who ends up serving as an impromptu mother for a younger one, and we see a variety of different wishes that all serve as nifty mini-arcs

Unfortunately, where Suzune crumbles quickly is in the wider story: that is to say, it's a story that simply has too little plot. The idea of a magical girl serial killer is interesting... but it's been done before, in Oriko Magica, and that only used it as a subplot. And unlike Oriko, Suzune doesn't really have another plot going on, which results in the overall story feeling very thin. You could explain everything that happens in the first ten chapters of this sixteen-chapter manga in a paragraph or two, and it feels like the writer is aware of this, because the story is positively laden with flashbacks. I'd estimate a third or so of the story is flashbacks, because so little actually happens in the main plot.

What's more, a large chunk of the plot is built around, to put it frankly, time-wasting. The first third or so of the story is built around the question: "why is Suzune killing magical girls?" And anyone who's loosely familiar with the series will probably immediately reach the conclusion of "to stop them from turning into witches." Yet the series seems convinced this is a mystery, even though it's the first assumption one would make. After this reveal has been dropped, the story meanders for a bit, dropping Suzune's entire backstory... and then (and this is true) the writer was told he had to make it three volumes instead of two.

Consequently, at the end of the second volume, the already clumsy story practically falls off a cliff, as a completely new character is introduced in an attempt to tie the events of the series together in a ludicrous revenge plot and serve as a bizarre final boss. While the series seemed to have no real idea where to go aside from some general final confrontation once the cast had been whittled down sufficiently, the third volume actively torpedoes much of the story. Nearly the entire thing ends up being dedicated to a single fight scene!

I could, perhaps, forgive the issues of Suzune if it had a strong cast, enough to carry the weak narrative through their interactions. Unfortunately, that is not the case. That's not to say there aren't a handful of fun and compelling characters involved--more that none of them really get any time to themselves. There's moments here and there, but between the odd pacing and the excess of flashbacks, they rarely get time to breathe. Chisato suffers from this the worst, as the sacrificial lamb; she ends up being killed off in the second chapter, and consequently needs multiple flashback chapters to explain how she related to the other characters. Arisa is easily the strongest character in the main cast, despite being mostly your cliche tsundere, but even she has no real role in the finale. Suzune herself has moments of intrigue and a solid backstory, but for nearly the entire main plot, she's little more than a selfrighteous, taciturn bore.

And in terms of character relationships, Suzune, unfortunately, falls very flat. This is another case where it has to compare to its rivals--even at their low points, Madokaverse stories can still often work based on strong bonds and interesting interactions between its cast. Yet Suzune lacks these almost entirely. It attempts to build something between Matsuri and Suzune, but it doesn't feel earned. It doesn't make sense for Matsuri to want to befriend Suzune, and it doesn't make sense for Suzune to want to let Matsuri live... and when the entire finale has to be carried by the relationship between these two, that's a real problem.

Overall, Suzune Magica generally lacks much to recommend about it. It does little that hasn't been done before and better, and it's all hanging on a plot that is simultaneously crammed and threadbare. There's stuff to salvage here for the fanfic writers, but other than that, I can't recommend it beyond completionism.

Back in 2011, when Madoka Magica was running, a spinoff series came out called Puella Magi Oriko Magica. Unfortunately, with only two volumes to work with, it ended up being kind of a rushed mess, with very poor artwork and a stop-and-start narrative that felt like it was missing a third of itself. Its main achievement was introducing a trio of new characters: Oriko, a manipulative prophet with a messiah complex, Kirika, a psychotic assassin serving as an attack dog, and Yuma, a youthful innocent adopted by Kyouko. While they were immortalized in fan content at the time by people desperately trying to find people ... outside of the original series's small cast to interact with, they were all very controversial, particularly Oriko herself. I myself always had a fondness for them, but I believed that the relative failure of the manga would mean that they'd be consigned to the dustbin of history, with a single truncated arc being all we ever saw of them.

And sometimes I'm wrong, and I'm happy about that, because they made two followups. The first, Extra Story, showed the cast in a much fonder light, giving Kirika a proper background and giving Oriko a greater deal of sympathy. And the second, Sadness Prayer, is the culmination of the strange saga of Oriko Magica, and easily the high point of it all.

Though billed as a prequel, Sadness Prayer is more of a remake of the original story, taking what was a rather aimless narrative and fully centering it on Oriko's point-of-view. And what a point-of-view it is; Oriko is one of the most strangely fascinating characters in the entire 'verse of Madoka Magica. She walks a line between pitiable and fearsome, a clearly unstable person who believes herself to be entirely in the right, constantly haunted by visions of a nightmare to come, wearing a mask of altruism and nobility over a cruel self-centeredness and a desire to belong. While the original Oriko could be rather difficult to like, Sadness Prayer takes the correct course and acknowledges Oriko as a terribly flawed person whose actions are fueled by her own psychosis rather than moral obligation.

When speaking of Oriko, it is also impossible to not acknowledge Kirika, for their relationship has always been one of the things that drew people to them. Even in the original manga, where they only shared a handful of scenes, it was evident that they were in love - and even in a franchise known for its constant yuri-baiting, they came across as remarkably explicit, professing genuine love long before Homura did the same. But while they were in love, the series was never all that clear on how they had met or why they cared so deeply for one another.

Sadness Prayer, wisely, makes Oriko and Kirika's first meeting, growing fondness, and culmination into the main emotional throughline of the story. It is a messy relationship - codependent, magically-fueled, and starting with a fight to the death - but it feels right for them. They come across as two disturbed people finding solace only in each other, their gradual deterioration escalating until they become solely focused on protecting their world, which is each other. Their time together is genuine--cute, even--and by the end, even if you don't agree with them, you understand why they'll stay together to the end of the world.

Kirika herself is a similarly fascinating character. While Oriko is a genius constantly struggling with self-doubt, Kirika is a fool self-assured to the point of insanity. In the original, it was implied that Kirika had been magically overwriting her own personality, and Sadness Prayer makes that fact explicit, and shows just how much impact it has on her. While Oriko spends the later part of the series crumbling from stress, Kirika hollows herself out, destroying herself in the name of becoming a companion for Oriko. Yet despite her disturbing nature, she's also funny, absurd, and a joy to read, as one would expect of what is essentially an artificial manic-pixie-dream-girl.

Whether or not you like these two will largely determine whether you enjoy the story as a whole. I, personally, do, and therefore I had a wonderful time, but if you are not one of those people, you will likely find it to be a waste of money. The artwork of the series, though significantly improved from its early days, remains subpar at best. Character proportions are incredibly wonky and change from panel to panel, anatomy is rough all-around, and fight scenes are confusing and clumsily-rendered. It's self-contained to its own characters and provides little insight on the original Madoka cast. And while definitely improved, the story still has some pacing issues and oddly out-of-nowhere ideas.

But as messy as it is, it feels like this is the story these characters deserved back in 2011. The PMMM spinoff library is a mess of variable quality on the best of days, but I find Sadness Prayer to be a hidden gem. Unfortunately, it's also horribly obscure due to being the third installment in a series where a lot of people didn't like the first. But if you muscled your way through Oriko Magica's original installment and didn't find yourself hating everyone involved, then you should have a great time with Sadness Prayer. And if you did, well... maybe give it a shot.