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Mahou Shoujo ni Akogarete or Gushing over Magical Girls is one of the most bizarre programs I've ever seen. Word of mouth tells you the characters are endearing, it's fetish fuel, and that it's "peak". Well I gave it a watch after going through some dread over a recent election. I was reminded of Sean Penn's quote about voting for a certain someone being like "masturbating our way into hell". So I thought this could get my mind off of it, and well, it did.

The basic premise is about a girl coming out of her shell after being given the opportunity to interact with her ... favorite celebrities. However, these "interactions" aren't exactly cordial. In other words, she becomes the villain to a magical girl team and all the conflicts are basically sex without penetration or genitalia. Some may ask how is that possible? Others who remember the fetish comment may see where I'm going. Each episode is just a set of circumstances that lead to sexual encounters with different foreplay involved. One episode has spanking, another involves melting wax, and somehow it escalates to the ageplay that made me want to throw up. For the most part, by the end of these battles, neither party changes much.

However, one character's story illustrates how this show could have been something more. One of the magical girls is conflicted about how she enjoys the sexual acts she's endured. It's overtaken her thoughts, and she finds herself entering a battle at her most vulnerable. Earlier in the episode, her allies reached out to her about their concern over her changed behavior. She struggles thinking about how she can represent virtues to the masses while enjoying acts she perceives as directly contrary to her values. In the end, she surrenders to the main villain of the show. And instead of exploiting this moment of weakness, where her foe is defecting to her, the villain scolds the person before her for lacking self-respect and dignity. This scene illustrates the goal of our main character is not just the pursuit of gratification. We find out she wants to improve the motivation of the magical girls she opposes. And this character who lets their impulses go out of control is later shown to find a balance, where she explores her interests while practicing self control.

This series likes to throw interesting dynamics at the viewer like what I've described and then return to the inane standards of most ecchi. The humor is very raunchy and silly, and the situations are absurd. For instance, the series builds up to a conflict among members of the villain organization over what they stand for; this ideological disagreement is resolved with a spanking scene. I am confused by how a series can bounce from a poignant piece of dialogue about reckoning with one's romantic feelings to a softcore porn scene. The characters are all pretty one-note, but entertaining all the same. The art style is pretty eye catching, though the animation won't leave you amazed. After a while, the pattern of this series can become repetitive. But, if you want to watch something gratuitous and occasionally laugh, this should be up your alley.