The Magical Girl and the Evil Lieutenant Used to Be Archenemies
(Katsute Mahō Shōjo to Aku wa Tekitai Shiteita)
This anime holds everything I treasure about Japanese animation — and what, in my opinion, sets it apart from many Disney productions. In Western cartoons, I often miss that emotional complexity and hidden depth (the exception might be The Lion King, which drew inspiration from Japan's Kimba the White Lion).
The series is based on a manga by Cocoa Fujiwara, published between 2013 and 2015. Sadly, after the author's premature death, the story was left unfinished. In 2024, however, it received an adaptation from Studio Bones in the form of 12 short, compact episodes. And it's precisely this incompleteness that makes you watch it with a completely different mindset.
In this anime we meet the Lieutenant — a powerful member of an evil organization — who falls in love with Byakuya, a magical girl living in extreme poverty. What strikes you about this story is its painful ordinariness. Byakuya works multiple jobs just to survive. She fights monsters, then moments later rushes off to a regular shift. Her life isn't an aesthetic fairy tale — it's full of exhaustion and hardship.
Meanwhile, he — standing on the "dark side" — is the embodiment of privilege. Their encounters on the battlefield quickly turn into something else entirely. Instead of trying to defeat her, the Lieutenant falls hopelessly in love. You watch it with a smile, but also with a lump in your throat.
Her power as a magical girl, "Glass Happiness," is tragic — it draws strength from her unhappiness and suffering. The harder her life gets, the more powerful she becomes. He urges her to stop fighting — not out of a desire to win, but out of genuine concern for her life. But Byakuya doesn't give up. Not out of naivety, but from a deep belief that someone has to stand on the side of good.
Will they be happy together? You'd like to believe so… but officially, we'll never know. The author's death on March 31, 2015, placed a period where there should have been a comma. Perhaps it's exactly this suspension that gives this love story its extraordinary, almost mystical dimension.
