Hm, I think this is actually a prequel, before the magical girl stuff starts
Itsuki is so boring before she loses her voice
It sounds like the anime, by your description at least, has seriously uneven pacing.
It's clearly intentional, though. The series messes with your expectations
Does it though? Did anyone really expect the entire second half to be SoL? Hate to be cynical about this (Despite its faults, I genuinely like the show) but it looked to me like they just wanted an opportunity to shoehorn in some fanservice.
And Nezchan, I think the pacing is even enough. It's just really fast. They're basically doing two story arcs in a single cour.