Most magical girl shows are about a girl who says yes. This one is about a girl who spends twelve episodes visibly wishing she hadn't been picked. Matoi wants a boring second year of junior high, part-time miko shifts at Tenman Shrine, dinner with the father she only just started living with again, and instead she gets gods clamping onto her body and rewriting her into whatever weapon they feel like being that week. The cruelest joke is Yuma Kusanagi standing right next to her, born into the exorcist bloodline, actually hungry for the job, watching the power land on her friend who doesn't want it. White Fox keeps the transformations gorgeous enough that you understand why Yuma aches, then drags the story back to the thing Matoi never says out loud, which is that her mother left and nobody has explained it. Reluctance as a whole personality, and it works.

Matoi Sumeragi, a second-year junior high student, works part-time as a shrine maiden and has only recently begun living with her father Shingo after being raised by her grandparents. All she wants is a quiet, normal life. Her best friend Yuma Kusanagi belongs to the family that runs the shrine, which has performed exorcisms for generations, and she invites Matoi to watch her attempt a Divine Possession ceremony. Then an evil otherworldly being called a Night attacks the shrine and injures Yuma's parents. When Yuma performs the ritual, it is Matoi who takes on the power of a god and drives the Night away. Joined by Claris Tonitolus, a seasoned exorcist from the Vatican, and Haruka Luciela, an agent of the secretive anti-Night organization IATO, Matoi must learn to control her new strength to protect the people she cares about and win back her ordinary days in this magical girl story.