Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Written on Christmas

I've known about Madoka Magica for ages now but only just decided to watch it a couple days ago due to recommendation and the fact that I'm a lot more familiar with the mahou shoujo genre as a whole now.
Before watching I did know about this show's whole shtick but I was only spoiled on what happens on episode 3 since thats kind of the madoka magica scene if you know what I mean.
Anyway in spite of that, I enjoyed it all quite a bit.
I wanna say that my exposure to maho shoujo stuff probably didn't affect my viewing much at all despite this show being a morbid twist on the genre. It excels in that aspect pretty darn well, especially with Sayaka and Homura. I suppose Sayaka would the primary example of a magical girl gone wrong out of everyone in the main cast.



Sayaka felt like the main character dueing the first half of the show and I really like how she gradually changes through her time as a magical girl. If it weren't for Homura she'd probably be my favourite character, it was sad to see her break due to the unforseen result of her wish and discovery of the true nature of magical girls.





In the case of Homura her entire backstory and how it loops back to the beginning of the show was amazing honestly. It was kinda soul crushing seeing her try again and again to change the seemingly inevitable outcome of Madoka becoming a witch. Though what I like most about it is the fact that she still persists and maintains hope, which prevents her from becoming a witch.

I like that in particular because it kinda contrasts the way she protrays herself towards others, however we do occasionally see her slip a little, most noticeably in the first episode with her strained expressions in that one scene. I also think Homura has th best powers by far, even ignoring the time manipulation, having a infinite inventory pocket shield thing is pretty cool and I like that we get to see her learn how to take advantage of it.

The rest of the characters are all pretty okay. Mami is fine enough, don't much to say about her given she isn't around for too long and we only see glimpses of her from the other timelines.
Kyouko is pretty cool, I like her overall vibe. I really like her reasoning for living the way she does after being turned into a magical girl and how she sorta attempts to console Sayaka with her perspective on wish granting for others.


Funnily enough, I'd come into this ready to hate Kyubei since I already had a faint idea of what his deal was but honestly once I was done I just felt mildly miffed by his existence. Like, it was hard for me to despise him since he's basically just a purely logical being and not intentionally malicious, from his perspective at least.


The titular Madoka was kinda meh to me earlier on, but that's likely due to her being actively held back, by Homura, from taking action in any of the magical girl stuff. I guess you can't blame her for being helpless most of the time but given the reasoning it's okay. Overall she's what you'd expect from a maho shoujo protaganist in all honesty. I do like how her being becoming a magical girl seems like something you'd think is being built up to given the name of the show and how she appears in that form during the opening but of course once the beans are spilt it makes sense why she doesn't turn into one in the timeline of the show until the very end.


Speaking of the ending, I'm kinda mixed on it. It's by all means not bad, but it just left me wanting more because it didn't feel like a proper conclusion. Felt more like, "and there's more to come next week!". There is the movie I'm aware of that I assume continues from this ending but on it's own, in a vacuum, it felt a tiny bit unsatisfying. Personally I guess I just wanted to see them all living peaceful lives and stuff lol. Glad Homura isn't torturing herself trying save Madoka anymore at least.

Also shoutout to Madoka's mom, she's pretty cool but my only miniscule gripe with her is how she let Madoka go out there during the walpurgis stuff. Like of course Madoka has to get out there somwhow but I reckon no mother would realistically let her kid go out during a situation like that, even more so considering how Madoka had been pretty down in the dumps before all that. But anyway that's just a small nitpick.

Thats about all I have to say abou the plot and characters. It's only 12 episodes and I'd say it's paced pretty tightly.

As for presentation and and animation, it's all fairly splendid. Action scenes are animated very well, the aesthetic for the witches and their zones(?) is really cool and unique and I don't think I've seen anything quite like it. The only thing I could come close to comparing it to is Charlie and Lola of all things. Favourite of these witch zones is probably Sayaka's. I like the Opera house look of it and it helps that we have context on why it looks it like that. Music for that scene was also very good.

The music for Madoka is pretty good too, composed by Yuki Kajiura herself, though I do prefer her other works over what she did for Madoka.

Almost forgot to mention, I like how the show uses that cinematic looking aspect ratio during some scenes. It does indeed help in making those scenes look cinematic and I appreciate that.

All in all Madoka Magica is a good subversion of what I've come to expect from its genre and I'm glad it turned out to be more than just that.
I feel it's about self sacrifice when considering what Homura goes through trying to save Madoka, how Sayaka uses her wish on someone else, how Kyouko sacrifices herself during the fight against Sayaka's witch and what Madoka does at the end of the series to prevent witches from ever existing.
That's my take on it anyway. Madoka is worth watching and I'd recommend it if you're looking for a darker than usual magical girl anime.