# Magic Girl Pinball Magna Save Revealed

**Source:** Kaneda Pinball Podcast YouTube (main)  
**Type:** video  
**Published:** 2017-03-14  
**Duration:** 16m 59s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzHnFya9ylg

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## Analysis

Kaneda documents ongoing mechanical failures and design flaws in his Magic Girl pinball machine, including a broken ramp entrance piece and non-functional Magna Save feature. He demonstrates several unreleased gameplay elements (Magna Save, Magna Flipper screen, vertical up-kick reversal) while highlighting poor playfield geometry, software glitches, and the critical need for replacement parts availability from American Pinball/designers John Papa Duke and Scott. Despite these issues, he expresses hope the machine can be fully functional with proper support.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Magic Girl's Magna Save feature is ineffective—the magnet cannot catch a ball moving at normal pinball velocity and often throws it into the outlane instead of saving it — _Direct demonstration with visual evidence of failed catches; Kaneda compares it unfavorably to Tales of the Arabian Nights shooting star save mechanism_
- [HIGH] The ramp entrance plastic broke from the vertical up-kick reversal feature hitting it repeatedly during normal play — _Kaneda identifies and demonstrates the mechanical cause on playfield; shows the broken plastic piece and impact zone_
- [HIGH] Magic Girl has a software glitch where the '1 Million Ball Save' screen becomes stuck and cannot be cleared without resetting the machine — _Documented during live playfield demonstration; screen locks and requires power reset_
- [MEDIUM] The diagnostic audit shows 733 total games played and 1,192 games started, which Kaneda believes is false data—suspects American Pinball may have inflated the numbers — _Kaneda estimates he's only played 30-40 times and doubts the machine could have that many plays at American Pinball before shipping; suggests the inflated numbers prevent sellers from claiming 'under 200 plays' on secondary market_
- [HIGH] The center post switch that activates the center post mechanism is extremely difficult to hit in normal play — _Kaneda demonstrates failed attempts to activate the feature during video; describes it as a 'really hard switch to hit'_
- [HIGH] Magic Girl lacks a functional ball lock mechanism—no way to lock two balls and start multiball despite having all the music, sounds, callouts, and light show prepared for it — _Kaneda's observation: 'The way he had the ball lock in Toten, just have the ball lock back in this upper right area somewhere. Nothing happens back here. It's just mind-boggling that he spent so much time and just couldn't figure out how to lock two balls and then have a multi-ball start.'_
- [HIGH] A ball once became stuck in the middle of the upper ramp with no way to rock the machine to dislodge it—required glass removal — _Kaneda reports it happened recently (yesterday relative to filming); describes the mechanics of how the ball wedged_
- [HIGH] American Pinball/John Papa Duke have not yet made replacement parts available to Magic Girl owners — _Kaneda states he reached out to Scott and John (noted John is in Canada); expresses hope they will allow owners to purchase replacement plastics and playfield parts_

### Notable Quotes

> "if anything breaks, I'm like, I'm never going to get a replacement part. All right? Never."
> — **Kaneda**, ~0:45
> _Core anxiety driving the video—highlights the worst-case scenario for Magic Girl owners of stranded machines without parts support_

> "There's all these magnets, and none of them work. At least that one activates."
> — **Kaneda**, ~6:30
> _Damning assessment of Magic Girl's multiple magnetic features; only the Magna Save activates but doesn't function as intended_

> "when you actually add in the velocity of a normal pinball game where the ball's going back and forth really strong, there's no way that can catch the ball. There's no way."
> — **Kaneda**, ~6:15
> _Technical critique of John Papa Duke's design philosophy—he designed features for slow rolling balls but didn't account for actual pinball velocities_

> "It's just mind-boggling that he spent so much time and just couldn't figure out how to lock two balls and then have a multi-ball start."
> — **Kaneda**, ~12:50
> _Critique of incomplete game design—all assets (music, sounds, callouts, light show) exist for multiball but the mechanic isn't wired_

> "I don't know if it's ever going to be fully functioning. I've got to be honest. There's a lot of just like geometry things that just don't work."
> — **Kaneda**, ~11:30
> _Resignation about Magic Girl's fundamental playfield design problems; suggests some issues may be unfixable_

> "it's really key that people who spend all this money can have some peace of mind and get like replacement plastics, replacement playfield."
> — **Kaneda**, ~11:45
> _Call to action for manufacturers to support owners; criticizes industry practice of leaving buyers without parts recourse_

> "Look at this. Total games played. 733 total game started 1192 there is no way I put anywhere close to that and there's no way they played that many games at American Pinball I don't know if John jacked the number up to make it harder for us to sell it"
> — **Kaneda**, ~2:00
> _Accusation that American Pinball artificially inflated play counts; suggests deliberate sabotage of secondary market value_

> "The Magna Save, right? Look at it. It's like, it doesn't really work. And it doesn't work anywhere near as effective as the Tales of the Arabian Nights shooting stars that come up."
> — **Kaneda**, ~5:50
> _Comparative failure analysis—Kaneda benchmarks Magic Girl's Magna Save against a proven vintage mechanic and finds it severely wanting_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Magic Girl | game | Jersey Jack/American Pinball/Dutch Pinball pinball machine with controversial development history; subject of this video showcasing multiple mechanical and software failures |
| Kaneda | person | Pinball content creator and Magic Girl owner; host of Kaneda Pinball Podcast; demonstrates machine features and documents failures in this video |
| John Papa Duke | person | Original Magic Girl designer; credited/blamed for playfield layout, Magna Save mechanism, and overall game design; Kaneda notes he is currently in Canada |
| Scott | person | Magic Girl designer/developer (surname not provided in content); Kaneda reached out to him regarding replacement parts availability |
| American Pinball | company | Manufacturer involved in Magic Girl production; Kaneda suspects they inflated play counts in diagnostics; hasn't yet made parts available to owners |
| Brendan | person | Camera operator/assistant helping Kaneda demonstrate Magic Girl features during video shoot |
| Tales of the Arabian Nights | game | Vintage pinball machine referenced by Kaneda as benchmark for effective magnetic save mechanism; shooting stars feature works better than Magic Girl's Magna Save |
| The Lebowski | game | Mentioned at opening as example of manufacturer (implied Stern) with excellent shipping reliability; Kaneda uses as contrast to Magic Girl part availability issues |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Mechanical design failures and playfield geometry problems, Magna Save feature non-functionality, Lack of replacement parts availability from American Pinball, Software glitches and incomplete code implementation
- **Secondary:** Magic Girl's troubled development and designer limitations, Secondary market transparency and diagnostic manipulation, Pinball machine durability and owner anxiety

### Sentiment

**Negative** (-0.75) — Kaneda expresses frustration with mechanical failures, anxiety about part availability, resignation about full functionality, and disappointment with design decisions. However, he maintains some optimism that the machine can be fixed with proper support and acknowledges the game is 'still fun to flip.' The overall tone is critical but not hostile—directed at design/support failures rather than personal attacks.

### Signals

- **[business_signal]** American Pinball has not provided replacement parts to Magic Girl owners, leaving them vulnerable to machine damage and unable to perform maintenance with confidence (confidence: high) — Kaneda's stated worst fear realized; had to reach out to designers hoping for parts availability; explicitly calls this a key industry failure
- **[sentiment_shift]** Growing resignation that Magic Girl may never be fully functional despite high secondary market value; community focus shifts to damage control and parts availability rather than gameplay completion (confidence: medium) — Kaneda states 'I don't know if it's ever going to be fully functioning' and pivots to emphasizing replacement parts need rather than feature fixes
- **[design_philosophy]** John Papa Duke's Magna Save and other magnetic features were designed for slow-rolling ball scenarios and fail catastrophically under normal pinball velocities (confidence: high) — Kaneda's technical analysis: 'when you actually add in the velocity of a normal pinball game where the ball's going back and forth really strong, there's no way that can catch the ball'
- **[design_philosophy]** Magic Girl's design reflects a disconnect between concept and execution—features exist in isolation but lack proper integration, sequencing, and consideration of actual play conditions (confidence: high) — Ramp hits plastic entrance, Magna Save throws ball to outlane instead of saving, center post switch nearly impossible to hit, ball traps on ramp geometry, multiball incomplete
- **[market_signal]** Suspected artificial inflation of Magic Girl diagnostic play counts by American Pinball, potentially to reduce secondary market values by preventing 'under 200 plays' marketing claims (confidence: medium) — Kaneda notes 733 games played/1,192 started despite personally playing only 30-40 times; speculates John may have 'jacked the number up' to sabotage resale value
- **[community_signal]** John Papa Duke's design process appears to favor isolated mechanical/visual concepts over holistic playfield flow and ball routing; lacks iterative testing at normal pinball velocities (confidence: medium) — Kaneda's analysis of Magna Save: 'John designed all this stuff, like simply rolling a ball around like a piece of wood with a magnet underneath, and he got this cool effect, but when you actually add in the velocity of a normal pinball game...there's no way that can catch the ball'
- **[product_concern]** Magic Girl's multiball feature is incomplete—all assets (music, sounds, callouts, light show) exist but the ball lock mechanism was never properly implemented (confidence: high) — Kaneda observes no functional way to lock two balls and start multiball despite all audio/visual infrastructure being present
- **[product_concern]** Multiple documented mechanical failures on Magic Girl including broken ramp entrance, non-functional Magna Save, wedged ball trap, sticky center post, and software glitches (confidence: high) — Live demonstration of failed Magna Save catches, stuck software screens, ramp damage, ball wedging, and difficult-to-activate switches

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## Transcript

 I'm telling you, if you order Lebowski today, you're going to have your pin in two weeks. Yeah, no, two weeks, guaranteed. Those guys, they never miss a ship date. Yeah, no, they're amazing. Completely efficient. Oh, hey guys! It's Kaneda. How you doing? Welcome. It's been a while. We wanted to do another Magic Girl video. This is probably going to be one of the last ones I do in a while, just because I think there's nothing left to discover on this machine. But I want to share with you guys something that's happened to my machine. And it's kind of heartbreaking because my worst fear has come true. And I'm like, you know, I really enjoy flipping the machine, but I'm nervous about flipping it because if anything breaks, I'm like, I'm never going to get a replacement part. All right? Never. And I was playing on Saturday, and all of a sudden, this little piece of plastic just slides down the play field and ends up like right about there. That's like the scene of the crime. And I'm like, oh, no. Like, I did it. I broke my magic girl. And so we started to look around the play field, like where did this come from? And we found out after searching, that obviously it came from something clear and plasticky. So the ramp, if you get up right here, is what broke at the entrance. And that's a pretty common area where ramps would break if there's no post in front of it to protect it. And as you can see, this post here will never protect there. There's a post on the other side that would protect the entrance, but even that can be hit easily. And I think I know what broke this off. This vertical up kick here, we're going to show you guys how that works in this video. And it, like, shoots the ball back up the ramp, but a lot of times it causes it to hit the plastic. So I think that's what occurred. It goes like, reversal, and it shoots it back up. Now, I want to say this. I'm not 100% positive that I won't be able to get replacement parts. I've reached out to Scott and John. I think John's in Canada right now. So I'm hoping they will allow me to buy replacement parts. I mean, it seems kind of silly that owners of Magic Girl can't get parts yet. But hopefully, I'm hopeful, we can all get replacement plastic. Because you want to be able to flip this thing with peace of mind. And I would play it all day long if I had that peace of mind. Because I want to get a new play field, new parts. Something funny I want to show you. I've played this machine maybe like 30 to 40 times, and I was looking at the diagnostics on it. Because I'm like, let me just see how many total plays I've put on this thing. So if we go down to audits. And do general. Look at this. Total games played. 733 total game started 1192 there is no way I put anywhere close to that and there's no way they played that many games at American Pinball I don't know if John jacked the number up to make it harder for us to sell it because now we can't do the obligatory pin side less than 200 plays everyone always says that can you guys see this blizzard out here can you get this we're in the middle of this incredible storm All right, but no one cares about the Carl Weathers. You guys want to hear about Magikarp. 60 hours of total gameplay, that's all BS. I won't go into all the diagnostic menus. Here's what we're going to do on this video of Kaneda's Magikarp walkthrough. We're going to show you guys a couple of features that haven't been shown before. Did I? That little piece of plastic. OK, I don't want to lose it. We're going to show you guys the magnet save. Now, Brett, if you want to get in here, this is the magnet save area. This sort of like genie guy with an eyeball in the middle. Is that an eyeball or a crown? The ball gets trapped there using a magnet underneath the plate filter. We're going to show you how that works. The way you activate that is you shoot the ball in the scoop right here. We're going to show you guys how this center post goes up. The way that goes up is you going to hit this switch here which is really impossible to hit Then we going to show you how this vertical up kick works and how it does that reversal which I think busted my ramp I'm trying to think of anything else. We're also going to try and show you guys how to light the Magna Flipper screen. So it says, like, use Magna Flippers now. Now, there's no way to use them. It takes a little while, so have some patience with this video. You get to hear all the cool sounds the owl will hoot and all this stuff will happen and bren is like Gonna try and hold the camera still long enough to do it all let's start right now Let's do the magnet save and let's get the game going tell everyone had the ball got stuck on the ramp One thing that did happen Thank you Brenna for reminding me of another fault of this game The ball got stuck in here in the middle of this ramp And what happened was the ball came up the ramp really fast it hit here and bounced back over here And once the ball got hung up here, that's it There's no way to rock the game back and forth and get it out of there. You've got to glass off. That's only happened once. It only happened once, but it happened yesterday. So it's fresh. The paint is really fresh in my mind. All right. Let's make sure we do our tape. I put some Mylar down. I put some Mylar down here. The plunge doesn't really work great. Look at that. We'll do a little up-up. The MagnaSafe is lit. We're ready. Look at that. Right down the middle. We're going to show you guys MagnaSafe right now. Hang up. I've got to get a stronger spring. Alright. Take it with a sledge. Ready? No, it's not lit yet. You didn't light the light, did you? Ha! Alright, so when that lights up, Magnus Jane is lit. Alright, so ready? We're gonna go... Ready for this? Get over here, babe, so it's lit. I got it. Player point. Sorry guys, I thought that view was a lot better. No, we're here. It seems difficult with the plastic over it. Ready? Yes. Let's try again, shall we? Alright, let's do that again. Ready? Get over there. Alright, you want to get around? Ready? It's activated. That's so weird. Alright. Alright, let's do it again. Slip. Alright, slip. Ready? See? I need velocity. Ah, you can see guys, this stuff is like really not... it's kind of janky. My balls are making it! Ugh, can't even get the ball to come through the scoop. Nice, Nick. Alright, ready? And he did it. The funny part about it though, is like as I was showing, when the ball has any velocity... The lab of electricity is closed! Alright, one more time. So, I mean, you saw that, right? It's not... It not this sort of game over go You didn last long The ending has ended and you are no further ahead than last time You might see the look of disappointment on my face right now, right? That Magna Save, right? Look at it. It's like, it doesn't really work. And it doesn't work anywhere near as effective as the Tales of the Arabian Nights shooting stars that come up. And again, the reason why is I think John designed all this stuff, like simply rolling a ball around like a piece of wood with a magnet underneath, and he got this cool effect, but when you actually add in the velocity of a normal pinball game where the ball's going back and forth really strong, there's no way that can catch the ball. There's no way. So I guess the only time you can use it if the ball is slowly bouncing around that area, but even you saw there, when the magnet grabs it, most of the times it just threw it into the out lane. So it's not really like a save. At least it works, though. I'll say this. There's all these magnets, and none of them work. At least that one activates. So let's show you guys now how that vertical up kick works in reversal, and we'll see where my plastic got broken. All right. So ready? You can drop it in there. Watch this. Reverso. See the way it shoots it up? Watch this. Reverso. You can see how it hits the plastic. Right where it broke is where it often hits. Reverso. Alright. Alright. A few other things here. So, this center post is activated with this switch here. It's a really hard switch. Alright. Hard switch to hit. All right. Now I'm going to try and get you guys to see where it says Magnaflip. It just takes a few hits up the center. This might take a little bit, but bear with me. We're going to see a screen on that screen we've never seen before. So get ready. I'm sorry. What do you mean? The television is moving! 14 cents. 15. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. So, you guys notice that? Look at that. So that's the song. This is stuck on 1 million ball save. So something is weird with the software, it's like stuck on this. So I'm gonna reset real quick. Brendan's gonna kill me. But, look it's stuck! Like that screen is just stuck up there. 1 million ball save. I can get that one in the car It like overall story How do you reset it? Just turn it off? Oh, Jesus. So Brenda's going to kill me. But it was stuck on this weird one million ball save. So there's clearly a software glitch. Mm-hmm. I know how long we record just like just you know 13 minutes 13 minutes All right, so we're trying to do this quickly guys. I want to show you the magnet flip screen So no one's gonna watch it. Yeah, they're gonna stay they're gonna watch they're gonna watch. It's like the most riveting video ever So just stay at that angle Brenda doing the screening if you can hold it. Mm-hmm, and I'll just quickly do this Guys can see the Buddha Alright. He's ready! Yeah, there it is. Now, when we drop the ball into this magnet flip area, there's no way to use these magnet flips. It's like I can't activate them. But that's a screen. That was it? That was it? Yep. That was it? That was it? Yep. We'll play this part after. So we saw more of the machine. You know, I don't know if it's ever going to be fully functioning. I've got to be honest. There's a lot of just like geometry things that just don't work. A lot of interesting ideas. Game's still fun to flip. I really hope the owners of this machine can buy replacement parts soon. I mean, it's key that people who spend all this money can have some peace of mind and get like replacement plastics, replacement playfield. And, you know, I don't know. I think for this thing to become fully functioning, as you saw, I hit the ramp a bunch of times in a row. The ramps were really satisfying to shot. All John needed to do was have this really cool ramp feature and just have the ball lock somewhere else. The way he had the ball lock in Toten, just have the ball lock back in this upper right area somewhere. Nothing happens back here. It's just mind-boggling that he spent so much time and just couldn't figure out how to lock two balls and then have a multiball start. If that can happen, the music's there, the sound's there, the call-outs are there, the light show's there. the package is there but there's just some stuff missing so we'll get that ramp fixed eventually hit me up with any questions in the comments guys but thanks for sticking this out I know this was a long video but you got to see some stuff you've never seen before in Magic Girl we'll talk to you soon have a good day

_(Acquisition: youtube_groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: d0ff6fba-db7f-40db-9553-445a285cffe8*