u/Roboamy1

I've heard this a lot, so I went and had another Magia Record read through, but the first time they fight, Iroha and Yachiyo stand no chance (we can forgive this though, because they were explicitly stated to be low on magic)

The second time she fights Yachiyo, Felicia, Iroha, Rena, Kaede, Momoko, Tsuruno, and Sana to a standstill, near the beginning of Arc 1 Chapter 8.

The third time, Kanagi and Yachiyo have to retreat because they weren't able to hurt her in any significant way.

The fourth time (right after the third time), Yachiyo isn't able to hurt her whatsoever initially. After she gets a power boost from her friends, she gets one good hit in and Mami is surprised, but immediately hits back and Yachiyo grunts in pain. After that Yachiyo doesn't actually defeat her, her use of her power lets her connect with Mami's heart, and she passes out due to being disconnected with the rumor. She even states that this was only possible because the earnest part of Mami didn't want to be doing what she was doing. Additionally, after that Yachiyo says that she can't beat the Uwasa due to her "being close to reaching her breaking point" so I highly doubt Yachiyo would've been able to even survive after getting mostly dogwalked the entire time if she didn't reach Mami's heart. (Mami also explicitly states that she wasn't targeting her soul gem)

While of course Holy Mami has a significantly higher firepower than normal Mami, arguably that isn't what made her one of the strongest magical girls in the first place - it's her battle iq and overpowered ribbon magic. Her use of ribbons to help with manoeuvring, setting traps across the battlefield, binding opponents etc etc. Holy Mami doesn't use any of what is arguably her greatest strength - Holy Mami would get absolutely washed by Homura, for instance.

Obviously Holy Mami is stronger than normal Mami if it came to a pure power fight (like, i definitely dont think normal mami could outfire several powerful magic like holy mami does) but normal Mami arguably is a lot better as a fighter due to her skill. And still, her firepower IS nothing to scoff at - despite all this Tiro Finale is one of the strongest moves in the series, i.e. she destroys iroha's doppel in a single hit in Anireco, after the doppel easily brutalised the rumor that yachiyo and tsuruno were retreating from.

Basically, while I do think Yachiyo has more overall power than Mami, her battle IQ has never been shown to be anything special, and even though she is an exceptional fighter and very skilled, nothing in her kit really matches the sheer stupidity and versitility of Mami's ribbons.

Ultimately, this post isn't about powerscaling in the sense of "so mami always beats yachiyo" a justification could easily be written either way for either of them winning, but in general as a Magical Girl I just wanted to state many of the reasons to why I believe Mami is much stronger overall.

Final Note: People use the "yachiyo has more experience" note a lot, but I think we take that at face value a little too hard. It's true that yachiyo has been a magical girl for longer, but she was

in a team for the vast majority of her magical girl career
unlike mami, she has a life, a job, and friends. mami would fight several witches every day and has 0 life outside of being a magical girl

so in all honesty its likely mami actually has spent more time overall fighting as a magical girl! thats just conjecture tho so dont need to take that too seriously

What's this white stuff on my apple?

Yokai Watch Wibble Wobble Reloaded Resources?

Why do people say Yachiyo is stronger than Mami?