Madoka Magica - a mindfucking emotional rollercoaster *spoilers*

[ben0119]

The search function remains nonfunctional, and I'm not going over every page to see if there's already a thread for this show.

 

Friend was over and we were trying to come up with something to watch and I picked out Expelled from Paradise, which I had added to my list based on the Netflix write-up and repeating video thingy.  Okay mostly because I saw Angela. That was excellent, by the way.  Might make a thread about it.  Anyway, since that movie was so good and I wanted more from those creators, I looked up the people behind it and discovered the writer is a man by the name of Gen Urobuchi.  The same guy behind Psycho-Pass, Fate/Zero, Madoka Magica, and others, it seems.  Well, I wasn't keen to watch Psycho-Pass right away since I had read someone's review and it's full of a lot my worst pet peeves, though I'll probably give it another chance after talking to my friend about it and watching Expelled from Paradise and Magica.  The Fate franchise is huge and I wouldn't know where to begin, and not sure what to make of Gen Urubochi only being the writer of one part of it.  Mainly Madoka was the one I was most interested in.  People had recommended this show for years, talking about how it's really good and isn't like you expect.  It apparently takes a turn and gets really dark.  Yeah, well, saying something is DARK is not the best selling point, to me.  Lots of stuff is dark for the sake of it and pretty crappy *cough* Tokyo Ghoul *cough*.  There's also the whole "hurr so you want me watch as how about little girls huh?" But no, they were right.  It's actually good, really good.  And those recommendations coupled with the fact I had just watched this movie and been thoroughly impressed made me want to jump right in.

 

I really loved the setting, the art, the animation, styling, etc.  The futuristic world looked beautiful, and the witch mazes were awesome with the stop-motion and use of seemingly real world objects, trippy as hell and juxtaposed nicely against the characters themselves and other stuff going on there, and the real world.  Thought I recognized the music as Yuki Kaijira and sure enough, it was her.  She's great here, as well.

 

So, we meet Mami, the Magical Girl.  I think it's hilarious they are literally called Magical Girls, by the way.  She seems sweet and awesome.  I like her abilities, with all those awesome ornate antique style guns she pulls out from nowhere and unleashes on the enemy.  Definitely some cool powers and fighting styles in this show.  The weird goth/emo girl was trying to kill the cute critter!  But why? D:

 

Madoka is a kind girl that cares about her friends and family, and will do what she can to make them happy and take care of them.  Likable for sure.  Sayaka is enjoyable, the more funny and outgoing, spunky one of the group.  Hitomi I thought would much more important, maybe even get powers.  Turns out she was there to be the "normal one not in the know" as it were, and she's barely even in the show.

 

So, we've got some fun battles.  The witches are interesting.  Not what I expected.  I thought Homura would be a witch - an evil Magical Girl basically.  But, it turns out, it's these creatures!  And they're responsible for all sorts of bad things in the real world, like suicides and depression, etc.  Reminded me of the Hollows and things like how apparently when a husband or wife dies and the other quickly follows it was probably because the first one turned into a Hollow and ate the other.  I always like when supernatural/fantasy stories do stuff like that.  So yeah, that seems pretty heavy right?  Is that the "dark" stuff?  Not quite.  And hey, this lady committing suicide, is that Madoka's mom?  Ooooh shit's about to get real.  Nope, just some random lady.  Hmm.

 

AH HELL MAMI JUST GOT DECAPITATED.  But, that's as bad it's going to get, right?  I mean, we obviously got a dose of "now things are serious!" here, but it can't get much worse, right?  Oh-ho-ho...

 

Liked how the ED changed from Diabeetus Overload to that other one at episode 3.  Very fitting.

 

So yeah, Kyubey.  I didn't trust that thing pretty much right after we met him.  Those eyes... just... those eyes.  And you can get any wish you want in exchange for becoming a Magical Girl and fighting evil?  If something sounds too good to be true it probably is.  It's like making a deal with the damn devil, or a wish from some asshole genie that grants ironic wishes that fuck you over.  No thanks!

 

Why didn't Sayaka make the wish to heal Kyosuke's entire body instead of just his hand?  And she could've gotten with him if she pursued him.  She let Hitomi get him.  Of course, with the whole other revelation...

 

YOU PUT THEIR SOULS INTO THOSE GEMS?!  YOU LITTLE BASTARD!

 

So yeah Sayaka thought she was a monster because of that.  After she got over the shy apprehensive stage of going after Kyosuke, she was convinced she couldn't be with him like this, in this state.  Not sure I can agree, but given she's a tween girl, I can see why she'd react like that.

 

Well, this sure did not go like how I expected.  Not only did I expect Sayaka and Madoka to become Magical Girls earlier on, I didn't expect Sayaka to do it first way earlier on her own, and I didn't expect her to spiral like that!  Why wouldn't you just take the grief seed, Sayaka! T__T

 

So, uh, yeah, it turns out witches are former Magical Girls, making them very much like Hollows in a sense.  Fuck you a million times Kyubey!  You bastards!  But surely not every Magical Girl turns into a Witch?  Some have had to manage to avoid that fate, and if so, do they remain Magical Girls into adulthood?  Or is it just such a self-defeating inevitability?  Because I have a hard time believing it's a 100% thing.

 

Wait a minute, before it was mentioned that Familiars could turn into Witches if they attacked enough people.  So how can it be that Witches originate from Magical Girls then?

 

Did not like Kyoko at all when we first met her.  But she turned around after a while, which was nice.  Her backstory is fucked up as hell, though.

 

HOW DOES ANYONE TILT THEIR HEAD LIKE THAT?

 

I was hoping, really hoping that Sayaka could be saved.  Yes, Kyubey said he never saw witch process be reversed, but that doesn't mean it couldn't happen.  Either way, their attempt wasn't successful!  Power of Love/Friendship did not work!  As a result, both Sayaka and Kyoko are dead!  Mami and Kyoko, I can see, but Sayaka?!  The best friend?!  STOP RIPPING MY HEART OUT SHOW!

 

So yeah now we learn why Homura is such a hard-ass and so protective of Madoka.  She doesn't have precog abilities.  She has time manipulation, and she's done this Groundhog Day thing again and again and it's always a tragic end.  Poor girl.

 

So, after Madoka didn't become a Magical Girl soon early on with Sayaka, and not soon after Sayaka, and not half-way through the show, it seemed apparent this wouldn't happen til later.  Though I didn't think it would be right at the end, I figured she'd come up with some type of wish to end up turning the tables on that son of a bitch Kyubey.

 

I would have liked more background on Walpurisnacht.  Like who was the Magical Girl it formed from?  Then again, just having it as a great unstoppable apocalyptic cataclysm wasn't a bad idea, either.

 

Kyubey doesn't care if the Earth gets destroyed. FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU.

 

Well, she did, but as a result, she gets erased from existence and can only be known as a Valkyrie of sorts for Magical Girls?!  Homura remembers her at least, and her little brother has her as an imaginary friend, and what her mom said, was all sweet.  Still, so sad, though.  Madoka "won," but with such a heavy price.  Bittersweet, but more bitter than sweet, in my opinion.  At least Kyubey got fucked over, though, and Magical Girls won't have to suffer ever again.  But, we get to the new world and Sayaka dies again, right off the bat?  That was just uncalled for, show.

 

Gotta say when I started watching this show I did not expect things to turn out where they did, or what happened in between.  It was depressing, emotional torture, basically.  May take me a while to recover.  Not even Now and Then, Here and There hit me this hard.  It was traumatizing.

 

But yeah, overall, Madoka was a great show!  Definitely a memorable one-of-a-kind!

[ben0119]

Then we have Rebellion.  Hoooo Rebellion.  What to make of this? 

 

We start off in seemingly an alternate reality or timeline (heh), but it turns out we're in some fake world.  Set up by someone or some thing for unknown reasons.  Happily, everyone is alive again, and there's fun and lightheartedness, enjoyable battles.  But, something is off... 

 

The movie looks great.  It's got great art and animation, and the Witch Maze stuff is in full force.  The battle between Mami and Homura was breathtaking.

 

God damn fucking Kyubey.  The Incubators got ahold of Homura, and induced her into an almost-witch coma!  BASTARDS!  Enough of you fuckers already!  And how the hell did they isolate Homura from the Law of Cycles anyway?  It's a law of nature, law of the universe.  You can't just create a barrier and then "keep it out."  You can argue Madoka only shows up once a Magical Girl is about to turn into a witch, but she's supposed to be omnipresent, essentially, so I kind of call bullshit on this. 

 

So, everyone is fighting to save Homura from herself, and Madoka is coming to save her.  She could've been with Madoka again in Heaven, and then suddenly... HEEL TURN OUT OF NOWHERE.  Seriously?  What the fucking fuck?  Why would Homura do this?  It's out of character as hell.  After all she did to protect Madoka, and she cared about the others as well, though decided to focus on Madoka more in successive time loops after the others proved to be even more of a lost cause, but the point is, Homura never came across like this kind of person to me at all before this.  This is not something she would do.  People also point to foreshadowing in the movie.  Thing is, there was stuff in the movie that directly contradicts this plot twist.  The flower scene is brought up, but there, Homura was talking to a Madoka with her memories erased, not the same person who made the wish later on.  So she would just be deluding herself there, and given she's supposed to be intelligent, should know better than that.  Hell, earlier on, she says the person who created the fake world, WHICH TURNS OUT TO BE HER, is making a farce of Madoka's wish and disrespecting it or something to that effect.  And that's exactly what Homura ends up doing when she grabs Madoka and rewrites the world! *SIGH*

 

At least everyone is alive again and Kyubey is suffering horribly, so there's that. Doesn't make up for Homura's character being destroyed, though.  I know some people like to say she became a necessary evil, maybe even pretending to be bad, and if she hadn't done what she did, Kyubey would have gotten around Law of Cycles and bring back the Witch system or something worse, and blahblahblah.  You know what?  This wouldn't have been a problem if you hadn't made this damn movie and had just left everything alone in the first place!  I've also learned that the original ending idea had Homura being saved like expected.  I'd still be pissed, since it would mean yet another character died (she presumably could not be "saved" from becoming a witch without dying, even though this wasn't a typical witch transformation), due to the Incubators' meddling, but it would have been better than this.  Also would have liked to know how the Incubators subdued and captured Homura in the first place.

 

Not sure if I buy Homura "pretending" to be evil, either.  What is the point?  Can't she just explain why she was doing what she was doing?  It's pretty stupid.  So really, there's no way to explain this away to make it any better.  I've watched tons of reviews, read written reviews, comments, posts, etc. from myriad positions on this movie.  I can see where everyone is coming from, and maybe my opinion will change after I let it sit for a while, but just, I dunno', man, my feelings coming away from Rebellion are I don't like what was done there at all.

 

What's worse is the ending isn't even really an ending.  The new Homura world seems tenuous at best, implying that Madoka and Homura will be enemies in the future, which is even worse.  And I don't care if it's a God and Lucifer analogy, that doesn't make it good or make sense.  And even if we have a sequel than can somehow conclude this, I don't see how you can repair all this damage.  What possible revelation could we have that could "fix" this?  And let's say Homura is "redeemed."  Her heel turn was still retarded in the first place, so that wouldn't help matters.  Doesn't help that it's been years the sequel season or movie still hasn't been made.  So... yeah.  I think, at this point, I'll just treat Rebellion as not canon or "alternate timeline/reality," which wouldn't be out of bounds for Madoka Magica anyway.  Just... BLAH!

[Daos]

Yup Madoka is great no doubt about it.

[Chapinator_X]

It was a great watch when it first aired. No one knew what to expect and Episode 3 came out of nowhere.

 

In the span of one episode, the whole atmosphere from discussions of Madoka went from people being interested in a slow but promising send-up to magical girl shows to being horrified by the girls being trapped in a hellscape of permanent suffering by Mephistopheles in kawaii cat mascot form.

 

Still have to see the movies, but it was a good show.

[mochi]

It was a great watch when it first aired. No one knew what to expect and Episode 3 came out of nowhere.

 

In the span of one episode, the whole atmosphere from discussions of Madoka went from people being interested in a slow but promising send-up to magical girl shows to being horrified by the girls being trapped in a hellscape of permanent suffering by Mephistopheles in kawaii cat mascot form.

 

Still have to see the movies, but it was a good show.

I assume you've seen or at least heard of the 3rd movie's ending

 

 

where Homura turns Madoka back into a normal girl and becomes the new magical girl goddess, and decides to punish Kyuubei by making him re-absorb all the curses he made the witches cause into himself, the movie ends with Homura dances to joyous music while Kyuubei shivers in agony looking like he's suffering from a horrible disease and I love it

 

 

[StarPanda]

Yeah good show

[scope]

Everything Urobuchi writes is an emotional mindfuck.

[ben0119]

It was a great watch when it first aired. No one knew what to expect and Episode 3 came out of nowhere.

 

In the span of one episode, the whole atmosphere from discussions of Madoka went from people being interested in a slow but promising send-up to magical girl shows to being horrified by the girls being trapped in a hellscape of permanent suffering by Mephistopheles in kawaii cat mascot form.

 

Still have to see the movies, but it was a good show.

 

I can't believe it came out in 2011!  Time flies.  Wish I had picked it up sooner!

 

The poor girls! D: And yes the way it takes that turn is like - HOLY SHIT.  Then - T__T Then - OH GOD JUST MAKE IT STOP!

 

The first two movies are recaps of the series, which seems like a waste of production resources, to me.  3rd movie is a sequel to the series.

[ben0119]

I assume you've seen or at least heard of the 3rd movie's ending

 

 

where Homura turns Madoka back into a normal girl and becomes the new magical girl goddess, and decides to punish Kyuubei by making him re-absorb all the curses he made the witches cause into himself, the movie ends with Homura dances to joyous music while Kyuubei shivers in agony looking like he's suffering from a horrible disease and I love it

 

 

 

Not sure why you are spoiler-marking in a spoiler thread.  Anyway yeah that aspect of the third movie is good.  I just don't like the direction that was taken with Homura.  My only hope is that she isn't really some psycho obsessed with Madoka and is just "playing the part" of The Devil.  Though again as I said before I can't fathom what the purpose of this would be, when she could just be upfront.  Also the fact that the movie seemed to be setting up a war between Madoka and Homura, which I don't like the prospect of at all.

[ben0119]

Everything Urobuchi writes is an emotional mindfuck.

 

Good to know! ::spin::

 

Expelled from Paradise must have been tame for him, then.

[scope]

Good to know! ::spin::

 

Expelled from Paradise must have been tame for him, then.

 

Never seen that but he wrote Fate/Zero...and Phantom of Inferno had some pretty tragic moments as well.

[ben0119]

Never seen that but he wrote Fate/Zero...and Phantom of Inferno had some pretty tragic moments as well.

 

It's very good.  Has a very creative future setting with some pointed social commentary and philosophical stuff.  Focuses on just 2 or 3 characters but they're well developed as are the relationships.  Great action.  Plus, fan service! It's... surprisingly un-tragic.  Fate/Zero is supposed to be good.  Wasn't sure if I should watch it by itself though since it's part of a mega-franchise.  Phantom of Inferno I heard mentioned in some of those reviews but I don't know anything about it at all.

[naraku360]

Fate/Zero is basically the only worthwhile Fate series and mostly works on its own. Extra is promising because lolshaft, but Zero is great. There's occasional references to other Fate stuff, but the general story itself functions without understanding all of them and the mythos of Fate is so convoluted with nonsense it's not really worth digging into the odd handful of references.

 

I should rewatch Madoka. I remember it being very good but rewatched it since the original airing.

[ben0119]

Fate/Zero is basically the only worthwhile Fate series and mostly works on its own. Extra is promising because lolshaft, but Zero is great. There's occasional references to other Fate stuff, but the general story itself functions without understanding all of them and the mythos of Fate is so convoluted with nonsense it's not really worth digging into the odd handful of references.

 

I should rewatch Madoka. I remember it being very good but rewatched it since the original airing.

 

I see.  Good to hear, then.  Yeah if I can just watch Fate/Zero by itself, I'll do that.

[naraku360]

I see.  Good to hear, then.  Yeah if I can just watch Fate/Zero by itself, I'll do that.

You can, it works well as a standalone. I originally watched it with basically no knowledge of the franchise.

 

There's a pretty big infodump in the first episode that I've seen people get turned off by, but it gets the gist of what you need to know out of the way early and makes it accessible to people not familiar with the lore..

[ben0119]

You can, it works well as a standalone. I originally watched it with basically no knowledge of the franchise.

 

There's a pretty big infodump in the first episode that I've seen people get turned off by, but it gets the gist of what you need to know out of the way early and makes it accessible to people not familiar with the lore..

 

Good, good.

 

Yeah I don't have a big issue with infodumps, but then I like hearing about lore if I find it interesting, heh.  And it is fantasy genre, so...