Magical Girl Raising Project restart ‒ Episode 5
Assuming that's the motive, our next point of deduction is the means. Theoretically, anyone could have bashed Masked Wonder's head in with a rock—all the magical girls have basic super strength after all. However, somehow changing the candy count on Cherna Mouse's terminal- that is something else altogether. And to be more precise, the culprit had to do this on two terminals simultaneously (as someone had to have the extra piece of candy hidden that Cherna Mouse didn't have).
While the knee-jerk reaction would be to blame the gamemaster, Keek, she claims to Fal that she is not involved. Pfle agrees. After all, Keek always includes both traps and ways to avoid them. If Magical Daisy had bought the monster manual, she'd be alive. If everyone's candy amount had matched, no one would have died. This is what makes Pfle so angry, despite her attempts to hide it. Time and again, she has outsmarted Keek—only for someone within the game to die anyway due to the hidden murderer's actions.
Judging by magical girl powers alone, there is one obvious suspect: Shadow Gale. If she can use broken robot monsters to make a wheelchair into a Gundam, changing the display screen of a terminal should be easy. However, we as the audience know that this is all but impossible. Not only was she nowhere near Masked Wonder when she was killed (we were watching Shadow Gale at the time of the murder), but we've seen Shadow Gale's powers at work—and seen that they both take time and emit a noticeable glow.
However, as the others don't know this—don't know the specifics of her powers or her limitations—they would obviously see her as the prime suspect. …Well, they would if they knew her powers anyway.
Shadow Gale's true name, “Mamori,” means “to protect.” This makes sense as she was raised from birth to protect Pfle—and she lives up to her name this episode by making sure her giant robot has an automatic ejector seat. However, this protection is not a one-way street. Pfle is bound and determined to protect Shadow Gale as well—and so she has lied to everyone by telling them that Shadow Gale's power is “to make robots” rather than “to alter machines.”
And this is the big hint—the key to what is going on with this mystery. Judging by Pfle's information on the other magical girls' powers, no one else could have tampered with the terminal display. Thus, it stands to reason that Pfle is not the only one lying about magical girl powers. Someone else actually has powers far wider than the narrow application they have claimed.
And as Cherna Mouse's former team shatters, our magical girl detective, Detect Bell, has her own suspect: the far-too-casual-given-the-situation Lapis Lazuline.
Rating:
Magical Girl Raising Project Restart is currently streaming on OceanVeil.
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