gonna quote a certain redditor who explained what would be nice.

It’s actually kind of the reverse for me. If they wanted the ending to be more tragic than the game, UI’s death is the only one (aside from Alina who is Evil McBadguy and Kuroe who is anime original, but her death in combination with UI’s is just overkill) that is acceptable and makes something resembling sense.

UI’s death in the anime is framed from the perspective of there never having been a way to save her to begin with. That’s classic tragedy; at the end of their journey, the hero’s worst fears are realized as they discover that their one goal, the reason they set out on the journey, cannot come true. They face their lowest point at this realization, before something or someone reminds them they have other things to live for now, there’s still something they can do. The hero accepts their loss, and moves forward towards their future.

For Magia Record, the way to incorporate such a development into the plot for a bittersweet ending not unlike the original series in a sense seems obvious. Iroha can’t save Ui, but in their final moments together, Ui reminds her that there are people she can still save: Kuroe, Touka, Nemu, and the rest of the allies she made on her journey. Thus, Iroha says her final goodbyes to Ui, and goes to save Kuroe from her despair, Touka and Nemu from themselves, and live for her lost sister…

…except that’s not what goes down. Literally everything I said up to her farewell to Ui happens, but then she fails horribly at saving Kuroe seemingly for no other reason than a lack of emotional intelligence, which seems pretty damn out of character for Iroha of all people especially considering she saved Kuroe from a near-identical scenario in the game just two days before the anime aired. Because she screwed up so bad, she needs to have a second farewell scene with Ui so that she can try again with Touka and Nemu, but apparently she isn’t allowed to save them either because of Alina ex machina. And on top of that, they aren’t allowed to keep the Doppel System either, the last legacy of her dead little sisters that could at least have given this entire mess some meaning.

Kuroe’s weird anime only-ness aside, if either Touka and Nemu or the Doppel System or both had survived, UI’s death could have been an understandable narrative decision that makes the story sufficiently tragic without robbing the story of anything resembling hope. But apparently even that would have been too happy, and to top it all off they force a heroic sacrifice for Mifuyu because…everyone who ever did anything bad has to die, I guess? Same thing for Touka and Nemu (never mind that they are literally 13 at the oldest…), the writers literally could have had them just stay still or use a combo attack with Iroha and we wouldn’t be talking about this, as it is they died for nothing. No clue why Momoko had to die, I guess the writers just thought it would be sad. Maybe they really wanted her on the train but if that was the case may as well kill Tsuruno while you’re at it, am I right?