VNs I read in 2026: Mahou Shoujo no Majo Saiaban (Magical Girl Witch Trials)
Reviewed also on backloggd
Importing my older reviews from the year
Manosaba is a death game featuring magical girls, clearly heavily inspired by danganronpa especially in its trial parts. It has enough of it's own unique identity that it doesn't become distracting at all. In fact this is by far my favorite game in this style I have played to date.
The basic premise is a group of young girls waking up in a prison where they are contained for being magical girls. It is inevitable, they are informed by the mascot character, they will transform into witches, and kill each other, as many have before them.
Magical girl here is not used in the sense of a magical warrior who fights evil, but simply possessing magic at all. Each character has one single skill, which is informed and informs their personality and role in the story.
Starting with the characters while I am at it: I really loved them. At first characters seem like caricatures with a few quirks, and some of them quite annoying. But a lot of characters I initially disliked grew to favorites, which is to me one of the best indicators of good character writing.
The mc ema seems quite generic at first but I was surprised how quickly I grew attached to her. Despite her giving the generic reactive protag impression initially, I found her to be surprisingly proactive and smart. When she inevitably took a leader role in the group at times, it felt natural rather than contrived for the mc.
There are still some characters I felt that didn't grow much past their initial core personality quirk, even when by all rights they should have. It might just be a difference in taste, but at least those were the minority for me.
One of the issues in death games is that characters you find interesting inevitable will die early but the game uses some tricks to keep characters who initially die in the game relevant, which I appreciated as some of them ended up my big faves.
The trials were just the right amount of hard - i almost never felt frustrated that I understood something the characters had yet to catch up on as is with common with the genre. And when I did, it only lasted a few minutes until some character brought up my thoughts. It also never felt so hard or obtuse to be annoying. (granted my jp not being fully fluent might have made trials a bit harder than intended, though I felt this game generally was very approachable).
Everyone has something useful to say in the trials: It's not just 1-2 big players, everyone contributes in their own way fitting of their personality and perspective. There is no token idiot that only talks to derail the conversation about something useless. The use of magic makes cases more interesting, it might seem counterintuitive but because each character is limited to 1 magic ability, it does so without muddying the waters. It's also possible that characters use magic within the trial, which is something I wish was implemented a bit more (though hard to say how, it feels like a lost opportunity).
The trial is also very straightforward and based on debate. I don't like solving random minigames that feel disconnected from the narrative. The difficulty comes simply from the (very forgiving) time limit, and the amount of wrong choices. This never bothered me as wrong choices generally have unique dialogue associated which is interesting or amusing. The time limit as stated is very forgiving, and if you do manage to fail it anyway you will see an unique ending for the trial, so honestly it's worth it to do so.
Speaking of, the game has a lot of bad ends. This is one of the things I heard criticized. But I loved them enough to go back and get all the ones I missed. I would argue they are definitely worth seeing, some have unique sprites or very rarely, cgs. Some are more detailed than others, and they all add to the constant feeling of danger of the setting, as well as making it feel more magical. There is one in particular in the 2nd half that I really loved, and wish got a bit more elaboration.
The game features a bad end choice indicator which is on by default, which you can use to avoid them, or my suggestion, use to get them before moving on as it's a bit annoying to get them later on. Unfortunately there is no section in the game you can see a list of bad ends to see if you are missing something, and the cg gallery also lacks the cgs shown in the credit scene, which is annoying as I wanted to see them again.
One small issue I have with the trials is that the motives were often very weak, and not focused on in the trials. This is definitely done intentionally as the motives has more to do with the witch transformation, but I think even with that framework there could be better motives.
The presentation once again, is great. The art has a very slightly sketchy look with colors often overfilling the lines and slight asymmetries. the carefully constructed careless look is something I appreciate a lot, especially as someone who struggles to make my art look "clean". It's kind of inspiring. However I felt like there are not enough cgs, some scenes that could really use one do not have it. The switch release will have more cgs, which I hope make it back to the pc version eventually.
The voice cast is great, some of them seem to be newcomers and they did a great job. Admittedly some of the cast has the squeaky anime girl voice that I can't stand, but there are some characters that speak in a lower register that felt really unique. The music is amazing (listening to it as writing it), the vocal songs with a made up language especially so. It reminds me a bit of music in madoka. It adds to the gothic otherworldly atmosphere.
The game starts on a high note and keeps it going for the first half (id argue with a slight dip towards teh end of the first half) but then the second half is amazing. It does not keep up that for the full game to me, and I have some issues on the pacing of the very end, as well as some of the specifics of the final villain, however even so it was still good. I really enjoyed the epilogue and left the game satisfied.
Acacia has 2 upcoming games this year, and this one cemented them as day 1 buys for me. I really loved this game (if you can't tell), and I feel like the setting and characters have still high potential. It's kind of rare to see a vn with an all female cast (sans mascot), and story focus, so I feel like they are filling a real niche in the market. It is very popular in jp and cn so I don't have doubts this will be huge when it gets released in english. I can't wait for more to be able to play it and meet my fave (REDACTED) :)










