Kabushikigaisha Magilumiere - "Magilumiere Magical Girls Inc." Ep.01: The opening promises action. A blonde magical girl is straddling the back of two motorcycles riding side by side, while a grotesque horror with as many eyes as teeth, and there are a LOT of each, comes barreling down the highway behind them. She speaks her magical words... which are more like a list of program parameters, blasts the beast with her wand, and sucks it into a USB drive like device.

There's a brief expository bit explaining how the Magical Girls exterminate Kaii, monsters that have been appearing with much greater frequency. The girls are popular and famous, and paid well, and there is a big boom in the industry.

After the opening credits though, we meet Kana Sukaragi, as she bombs a job interview she was actually extremely prepared for. She knew things about the company that even the interviewers didn't. But when asked to come up with something in her own words, she froze. It was the 15th interview she botched. Apparently she's got an eidetic memory. Afterwards, she stops in a pseudo Starbucks and when the clerk gets overwhelmed and forgets the previous three orders, she's able to recall them off the top of her head, including which is for whom, when she was worried about her own stuff and had barely gotten in line when this scene started. I'm surprised she wasn't offered the job. But she just really likes helping people.

Now Interview #16 is at a financial services company. A Manager and his assistant are going to the conference room, and in a dialog straying awfully close to "As you know, Bob" territory, they say the company has been skimping on things, like the heating that's always off in the conference room, and not checking Kaii levels, but of course it's really unlikely there'd be an attack there. Really. But they'd be so screwed if there were. Foreshadowing with a Kleig light....

So of course, right in the middle of the group interview, where the room is so cold there's frost on the desk, but they're still going through with it... can you guess what happens? Did you say Kaii attack? And what does the executive do? He has to do damage control, and tells his assistant, who has no idea who to call, to find someone cheap who won't make a big public stink. So the phone rings at Magilumiere Magical Girls Inc. And their one girl, Hitomi Koshigaya, rushes to the roof to transform. Which she does by logging in to the system with her company badge (You were expecting a wand?) and it is the most Corporate-sounding transformation speech you've ever heard.

I'm not entirely sure what everyone's so afraid of, because the "Frostoid" Kaii who came out of the AC vent hasn't moved since it busted into the conference room. But it's HUGE (Because the Kai has collected there for a long time thanks to the neglect), it's a Two Magical Girl job. And while the executives are trying to sort out how to blame maintenance, Hitomi is trying to figure out how she can manage the job herself. She just needs someone to help feeding her ammo, but the corporate types don't think they're allowed to help, maybe they could get someone from sales... and can they get a discount? And Kana is just standing there, so she volunteers to help. The hiring manager tells her that this is not a test and won't affect her interview score, but she tells him she's withdrawing her application.

And so Hitomi hands her a tablet, and tells her she just needs to hit the reload button when the spell counter gets down to around 50. We're in serious Clarke's Third Law territory here (or is that Niven's Corollary?).

Well, the magic isn't working on Frosty. And looking at the tablet, Kana figures she's using the wrong kind of magical ammo. Hitomi left it set to "Speed Type" after her last job. She really hates the device, it's confusing to her, but Kana apparently remembers a demo she attended and had researched to interview with the company that made it, so thanks to her perfect memory, she knows how to switch the ammo for her.

So, Huge Success. Hitomi brings Kana back to her company, since they were looking for someone new anyway. Kana is struck by how different this four person operation is from the big corporations. And then she meets the boss, who, much to her shock, is a tall man who dresses like a magical girl, including growing his hair long.

This reveal though would have worked a LOT better if they hadn't saved it for the post ED scene, which features the whole cast, and if they'd skipped the first episode OP too, for the same reason.

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